Miyamoto talks Wii HD, ´Project H.A.M.M.E.R.´, 3D visors

Has ´Project H.A.M.M.E.R.´ really been cancelled? Will Nintendo be the first company to bring 3D gaming to market? Is there any truth to the rumours about an HD-capable Wii? We at 3sat neues put those questions to game designer Shigeru Miyamoto himself.

My dear colleague Valentina just returned from London and an exclusive interview with Nintendo's chief designer, mainly about ´Wii Music´. Since we had a generous interview slot of 45 minutes, I was able to sneak in a few extra questions which some of you good people may be interested in.

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First of all, Valentina asked him about whether Nintendo will bring some kind of 3D gaming device to market anytime soon.

Before the Wii launched, there were plenty of rumours about the console making use of augmented reality, perhaps by means of a visor. Nintendo pioneered this way back with the Virtual Boy. Will Nintendo be the first company to successfully implement 3D gaming? How long before this technology will take hold?

Nintendo is always trying to construct the framework in which we can provide... we can be as creative as possible in order to create as new entertainment as possible. And that's what Nintendo has been striving at and that's what Nintendo will be challenging itself once again in order to make unique entertainment opportunity.

But if I can just add my personal opinion: if the new environment requires the player to wear some goggle-style, I really don't have a good impression of that.

As you may remember, there were plenty of clues hinting at the use of augmented reality or similar technologies in future Nintendo consoles. It would appear that Nintendo is bullish about continuing to be the innovator in this industry.

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We also asked Miyamoto about the status of ´Project H.A.M.M.E.R.´, which is rumoured to have been cancelled.

Whatever happened to ´Project H.A.M.M.E.R.´? Has it really been cancelled?

[says he is not part of the development team and really cannot comment] (...) What I can confirm here is that only when Nintendo can become almost certain of the timing of the launch we are able to make the relevant launch announcement of the software.

Here is the background to this story. Nintendo announced in May 2007 that the game would launch in Japan in 2007. But in July, Nintendo's E3 press kit no longer mentioned it.

Nintendo of America even confirmed that development had been delayed indefinitely. But bear in mind that the same can be said about ´Disaster: Day of Crisis´, which was also meant to be published in 2007 in Japan, according to the May 2007 list and also seemed to disappear subsequently. So it now seems that there is hope for ´Project H.A.M.M.E.R.´ yet.

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We asked Miyamoto further about the rumoured Wii HD ("We are working in terms of the changes of technology all the time."). Also, we asked whether Nintendo was still committed to core games ("We are working on them.").

You can download the entire interview in English on November 9th via our podcast page.

Alternatively, you can watch the show in German at the following times:

Sunday, 9th of November, 4:30pm CET (3sat)
Tuesday, 11th of November, 1:50 am CET (ZDF)
Thursday, 13th of November, 1:30 pm CET (ZDF-Infokanal)

In the meantime, I hope to be able to update this post with other interesting quotes from the 45-minute interview.

EDIT You can find the podcast right here. I will try to update the transcript in this entry soon.

Source: 3sat neues podcasts
Thanks to: Valentina's blog (German)