Shigeru Miyamoto Talks About Working with Apple, Says Both Companies Share Similar Philosophies

Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto introduces Nintendo's Super Mario Maker at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles in 2014.

Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with video game site Glixel to share some thoughts on what it was like working with Apple.

During the interview, Miyamoto discussed everything from the mobile space, the journey to build Super Mario Run, and driving the company to be as simple as possible over the years. Miyamoto said that Apple was the ideal partner for the development of Super Mario Run.

The partnership led to heavy promotion of the game through Apple’s App Store and retail stores. Apple also helped Nintendo decide on the pricing model for the game after Nintendo reportedly shied away from the freemium model.

For Nintendo, we have a lot of kids that play our products. It was important for us to be able to offer Super Mario Run in a way that parents would feel assured that they could buy the game and give it to their kids without having to worry about future transactions. From early on, I thought that Apple would be a good partner so we could work on this new approach.

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Miyamoto also believes that Apple and Nintendo have a lot in common, with a strong focus on how people use products and marketing their products effectively. He said that Nintendo has focused a lot of efforts into making their products simple to use.

Actually, this reminds me that with the Super NES controller we put the multicolored buttons on the face of the controller, and then the US office decided not to keep that. I told that story to Apple, and how I liked the use of color in their old logo. That was like a bridge that had been built between us.

Super Mario Run will be available exclusively on iOS devices starting on December 15. The game will be free to download and try, but unlocking the full game will require users to pay $9.99.

Miyamoto’s full interview can be read over at Glixel.

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