During a Shigeru Miyamoto event in New York City attended by IndustryGamers back in October, the legendary game designer discussed why Princess Peach is not a playable character in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. He admitted that "special programming" would be needed to handle how the skirt moves and reacts during gameplay. Miyamoto and everyone in the room chuckled at this.
Why do we bring this up now? Well, the "skirt issue" as we're now calling it has reared its ugly head again, this time for Zelda. According to an interview in Famitsu with Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks producer Eiji Aonuma (thanks 1UP), it's clear that Nintendo doesn't want to bother itself with programming dresses in games. "People on the staff have wanted to have Zelda [playable] in the game for ages, but if we did that, then her skirt becomes an issue," Aonuma commented. "Having girls in dresses in an action game is kind of hard to deal with. That's how we got the idea of having her body stolen and her soul going inside Phantom Guardians."
Honestly, Nintendo? Look, we know that animating the physics of cloth movement and hair are two pretty difficult procedures in game development, and we realize that neither the Wii nor the DS are powerful pieces of hardware, but you have dozens of brilliant designers and programmers. This skirt excuse is really starting to sound lame. And if you're looking to cater to your expanded audience, which has millions of female gamers, don't you think you should be programming famous females like Princess Peach and Zelda as playable characters into your games? Get your act together.
13 Comments
December 16, 2009
Nintendo fans seem to put up with anything. Release a game that is not much more than an 8-bit platformer in 2009 and it sells over a million copies. Why should they bother putting an effort to animate skirts if they can make millions from 8-bit platform games?
December 16, 2009
It's true. As long as people keep buying millions of copies, it won't change.
December 16, 2009
I would like to add that having difficulty animating skirts is no excuse to force a second Toad character on us in NSMBW.
December 17, 2009
You know, I'm not sure this excuse would fly in America. Can you imagine an American developer going, “Well, we wanted to have a female main character, but gee whiz skirts are hard to do, so we instead made her captured and absent for most of the game instead.”
December 17, 2009
Heaven forbid we stick a princess in trousers...
December 17, 2009
Princess Kitana in Mortal Kombat never had any problems being animated. But then again, this is Nintendo we are talking about.
December 17, 2009
@Jessica: That's a good point too. No reason that Zelda or Peach absolutely has to wear a dress.
December 18, 2009
Yeah, the whole preoccupation with skirts also comes off as mildly sexist; if they really wanted these characters playble, I have difficulty believing that they couldn't find a way.
December 18, 2009
what a stupid excuse, but what can you expect from the guys that are making money with a gamecube and a power glove
March 15, 2010
Can you imagine an American developer going, “Well, we wanted to have a female main character, but gee whiz skirts are hard to do, so we instead made her captured and absent for most of the game instead.”
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April 27, 2010
This is truth, i think it won't change.
Thanks.
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July 2, 2010
I think, Nitendo will not think as much as you wanted to highlight this.
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