Nintendo Considering 'Wiimakes'

By Shawn White / Monday, 21 August 2006

In the latest issue of Nintendo Dream magazine, Game Designer Shigeru Miyamoto discussed the possibility of crafting GameCube remakes for the company's next-generation console, Wii.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is Nintendo's first GameCube to Wii transition title, with Miyamoto describing the game as "an interesting experiment". He expressed his desire to remake existing GameCube titles with full Wii Remote support, should the dual-console release of Twilight Princess prove successful.

"The machine [Wii] is based on GC," said Miyamoto. "We'll be upgrading the development tools, but GameCube code can be used for the most part as is. In that sense, I believe that it would be good to remake GameCube games for Wii, and that some titles would become better with the change to the Wii remote controller."

Miyamoto envisions such Wii remakes as retailing at a lower price than the GameCube originals, an opportunity that might also attract more third parties. "Even now, [GameCube titles] are sold at used shops, so we don't feel we could sell them for full price," he explained. "However, development costs have been taken care of, so we could probably sell them at a more accessible price. If we make it so that such GC to Wii remakes can be produced quickly, it's possible that many titles will also be released from third parties."

Regarding Twilight Princess once more, Miyamoto justified bringing the game to Wii, noting that fresh content, rather than just visual enhancements, resulted from the additional development time. "At one point," he elaborated, "even members of our staff said 'the Wii is more powerful than the GC, so we'd like to polish the graphics.' However, Zelda players don't look forward to this polish, they look forward to an enjoyable game." That noted, Miyamoto did admit that games demanding strong visuals would have to be produced accordingly.

The Wiire will keep you abreast on the latest from the Mario and Zelda creator.