Nintendo Switch Sports is very much the next “evolution” of the Wii Sports franchise. You have a variety of sports in mini-game form that you can play on your own, with friends, with family, or play online to see just how good you stack up in the world. All in all, a very simple and basic game to make, right? Well…not so much.
In a special Nintendo “Ask the Developer” interview, devs Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshikazu Yamashita, and more talked about the development of Nintendo Switch sports, and noted that their biggest problem at first was just trying to make a game…that they couldn’t think of new ideas for.
“We started off with Wii Sports but got so caught up in making it look new, the swinging motion controls became a secondary consideration, and other aspects of the game, like the game’s atmosphere, became a higher priority for us to put our efforts into. But we were working so hard at the time that we didn’t really question it. We were very conscious of creating something new no matter what… However, it didn’t go well in the end. We had lost our way and were on the verge of losing the charm of Wii Sports. And by the time we acknowledged we’d pursued the wrong direction, years had already passed.”
Yes, that’s indeed why the game took over 5 years to release, they went in the wrong direction, and even made the motion controls not “needed” to play in a way that made the game lose even MORE charm. They tried to make a “deep experience” game and it backfired on them. So thus? They had to start over from scratch:
“Nintendo has a lot of other games that are deep and interesting, but even considering the differentiation from those games, I thought our mission was to create a product for 5-to 95-year-olds, that is highly approachable. And so, we made a fresh start.”
The team noted they felt bad for those who worked so hard on the game during this time before the restart, but it was necessary, and the game’s sales and positive feedback from fans and critics seem to prove that this was indeed the right move.
Source: Nintendo
