Nintendo Wanted Wii Music’s Music to Appeal to Broad Audience, is Surprised by How Kids Play

After working on a game for months, it’s understandable how one might not want to go near it again for awhile. But for Shigeru Miyamoto, Wii Music has been an exception to the rule. “But for the first time, Wii Music is drawing me in like that,” he tells 1up.

He goes on to address the concerns people have voiced over the choice of songs used in the game itself, including the perceived lack of Nintendo’s own fare:

“We wanted the music to appeal to a very broad audience,” he said, “and if you look at the mass market, probably not nearly as many people would be as familiar with [NES/SNES] songs. We wanted to focus on songs that people will know by ear, because that in and of itself is going to make it easier to play and then improvise the songs.”

But, given there is some demand for entire soundtracks from the likes of Metroid or F-Zero…

…Miyamoto laughed and joked: “Maybe we can do one version that’s just all Nintendo songs.” — 1up

That said, Wii Music is generally looked upon as being a children’s toy in disguise, a part of Miyamoto’s desire to inspire kids around the world to take up an interest in music. But how are they reacting to it?

“We had a lot of kids come in with the artists,” said Rodrigo. “When their kids came in, I started playing with their kids. They would play simple stuff, like they would be able to recognize and associate what a piano sounds like and how to play the piano because of the tactile response you get from shaking your hands up and down as if you’re hitting keys. [It clicked because of the] imaginary idea that gets transcribed into actual sound and a result on screen that they can visually see and hear.”

Rodrigo said kids were a little apprehensive at first, simply because they didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing. “Wii Music” wasn’t like the other music games they’d played. There were no colored buttons.

“Some kids kept asking me, ‘What do I have to do?'” he explained. “And then I asked them in return, ‘What do you want to do?’ And then they said, ‘I want to play this!’ Then they started playing and I’m like ‘yeah, go ahead, let’s go!’ And I was playing with them. So kids would [be] very easily playing with adults and they could contribute on this ridiculously even level.” — MTV Multiplayer

Good to know that they’re getting into it, at least. Hopefully the product will find the right niche it needs to do well, though I doubt that’s going to be in the homes of many Guitar Hero and Rock Band players. But then, was it ever supposed to?

Come to think of it, I suck hard at games like that. I wonder if I would get anything out of Wii Music?