The Star Fox story is the only one that is both true and a dick move.
I'm pretty young and I concur. I've worked with both kinds of bosses and I'm of the opinion that a good boss needs to have the flexibility to listen to everyone's input, but also the inflexibility to make his own choice after considering (and not necessarily using) everyone's feedback, and be a hardass on that ultimate decision.Every good boss I have ever had and met was a hard ass. Younger millennials are too sensitive to understand this.
Cuningas de Häme;227344860 said:Maybe a mod could edit the OP and fit all these counter-points to it? Because there is a bunch of people who only read the title and wrote some uninformed stuff...
One should always read at least a few pages before writing their opinion, to get all the facts.
EDIT. I mean, we have people from the aforementioned company countering the claims in the OP. Isn't that worth something?
I'm curious about the "stealing code" stuff. Nintendo funded development for Starfox (not to mention helped co-develop it as well), so wouldn't the code, even if it was entirely created by Argonaut belong to Nintendo?
Also didn't know that DMA was originally on the "Dream Team", which is pretty hilarious looking back at some of the devs involved like Left ...Field Studios LOL.
edit: But the biggest item on the list that I REALLY think should be taken with a mountain of salt is that Argonaut gave Nintendo the idea to make a 3D platformer. Nintendo goes through the effort of making a 3D capable console and not a single person internally ever floated the idea of bringing their most successful series to the third dimension? Really? Really?
I'm curious about the "stealing code" stuff. Nintendo funded development for Starfox (not to mention helped co-develop it as well), so wouldn't the code, even if it was entirely created by Argonaut belong to Nintendo?
stopped watching as soon as this guy claims rare sold themselves to Microsoft after star fox adventures to get away from miyamoto.
There are a million Miyamoto quotes out there of which about a dozen are controversial of which about half are taken out of context (like the recent "I could've made Minecraft" one).Always had the impression that miyamotos's ego was a little too big even for a guy like miyamoto.
Just look at half of his quotes.
Always had the impression that miyamotos's ego was a little too big even for a guy like miyamoto.
Just look at half of his quotes.
He killed F-ZERO, ruined Star Fox and Paper Mario and who knows what other great ideas and or projects he has blocked just because he can.
so yeah, I respect him for the good things he has done but I'm not a fan of his.
He doesn't state that he liked it either.
I'd put some of it in but it's too scattered so I don't know where to start and how to consolidate it all.
Croc came out about 15 months after Mario 64 so the notion that Miyamoto stole the idea and made the game so far ahead of Croc's release leads me to take this with a huge grain of salt (more like a huge mound).
The DKC thing is known though, but it led to Yoshi's Island, which was the far better game.
How does one steal something they own? The problem is them not being properly attributed, which I highly doubt a designer is in charge of.
Yeah, this is kind of weird. I guess Nintendo has the world's fastest development team.
Wasn't Retro a well-known disaster zone before Nintendo cleaned shop? It's been talked about in great detail already about how much of a mess they were and how close to the brink of complete destruction before NCL came in to personally handle their affairs.
The whole "...mediocre gameplay..." line has been debunked for fucking years. Fucking fact check Larry!
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/06/17/e3-2010-shigeru-miyamoto-likes-donkey-kong-country-after-all
I recall that Miyamoto also give Retro the task of doing Metroid Prime and supervise the game. I would think he would be prove of himself for that honestly.
A previous GAF thread on this subject: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=613206
Within the thread, PokéKong points out an interesting exchange between John Ricciardi and Dylan Cuthbert:
I can't offer any detail without getting someone into trouble, and feel free to disregard me, but I personally would not trust Dylan Cuthbert at all as a source for this information. Maybe Miyamoto is secretly a douche, I don't know, but I'd only recommend thinking so with someone credible giving that info.
It's an unscrupulous piece. For example, Star Fox 2 had EAD programmers on it and the copyrights are fully Nintendo's. Argonaut only had a co copyright on the FX technology not the individual game program for any of the games they assisted programming.
See also:
Also noteworthy in this context, some folks who likely know Miyamoto pretty well:
And ICYMI, an interview in which Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Hajime Yajima, Yasunari Nishida, and Yoshinori Tanimoto discuss the early development stages of Mario 64: http://shmuplations.com/mario64/
Retro was an absolute mess that has barely anything to show for their work on 5 (!) games before Nintendo took over.
They needed their coffee tables upended.
Nintendo owned all StarFox 2 code, so in no way could they steal it.
This whole video is basically Fantastic Receipts and Where to Find Them -- a bunch of hearsay meant to hook in people with confirmation bias; except for number 2, that one is flat out false since you can't "steal" code you already own.
The people that felt disgruntled over the criticism went to form their own company that have yet to release any notable game while Retro released critically acclaimed Donkey Kong games... So yeah
...People take Larry Bundy Jr seriously...? I always though he was a B-tier youtuber...
see
And yet he proceeded to work on the 3DS remake of 64 with his company...? Something isn''t adding up
Also, I just read "Power-Up" by Chris Kohler, which features an interview with Cuthbert... he's really a lot of smiles and rainbows when talking about Nintendo and Miyamoto (and he didn't need to be). And that's freaking 2004, a long time before he started to work with them again.
That's not a rumor? The developers said in plain letters "Miyamoto asked us to use only Mario characters if possible and to make the story simpler. We thought it over and it made sense so we did it". Eventually they didn't like having a barebones story seeing how they beefed it up for Color Splash, but them only using estabilished Mario characters instead of their own is probably out of respect for Miyamoto.
"Miyamoto: The first point that I want to make is that I actually worked very closely with Rare on the original Donkey Kong Country. And apparently recently some rumor got out that I didn't really like that game? I just want to clarify that that's not the case, because I was very involved in that. And even emailing almost daily with Tim Stamper right up until the end."
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/06...-donkey-kong-country-after-all?page=3
I really, REALLY love Larry Bundy Jr, but the whole "DKC infamous quote" is very problematic.
I find it weird that another guy from Argonaut, Giles Goddard, had no problems to continue working with Nintendo after a bunch of his co-workers got their work stolen. Even going as far as making 1080º Snowboarding, porting Doshin the Giant to the Gamecube and then coming back and making Steel Diver.
I... dunno. There are people like that, but this whole exchange and accusations sound hella fishy
1. Miyamoto was pissed at Nintendo management for warmly suggesting to change Yoshi's Island art style to pre-rendered graphics similar to DKC.
Miyamoto wasn't pissed at Rare.
2. Nintendo cancelled Start Fox 2 for business opportunity that is to make enough room between the original Star Fox and the N64 sequel (business decision which paid off since SF64 is the best selling game in the series).
A bunch of other polygonal games slated for SNES in 1995/1996 were cancelled to not give to the general public the impression that "Nintendo 3D" was sloppy, in fact Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation were available from 1995 in most western markets.
3. There is no evidence that suggest Nintendo stole the concept from Croc (who have played both games know what I mean) for its masterpiece Super Mario 64.
It's like saying Nintendo stole the concept from other sort of platform games which used polygonal graphics like Alpha Waves or Jumping Flash that came out before SM64 when in reality SM64 was an order of magnitude more advanced than any console game available in the conole market in 1996.
4. DMA worked on a bunch of project for N64.
Some released:
Silicon Valley: what a masterpiece
Body Harvest: important from an historic point of view but not well executed.
Some cancelled:
Zenith: a game where you need to climb a tower.
Some rumored:
Unreal: port of Epic FPS for 64DD
Metroid 64: yep the external developer that had the task to bring Samus Aran on N64 is rumored to be DMA Design.
The relationship between Nintendo and DMA Design wasn't any different from any other similar relationship between a publisher and a developer.
That was back when Yamauchi was still the president, and he retired and passed away. He was a very strict, stubborn guy and was part in ruining the relationship they had with some companies, even some like Square. Square only finally came back to Nintendo when Iwata became president.
It's worth noting the Argonaut guy invited Miyamoto to his wedding long after this supposed 'feud' took place, I think it's just case of business being business.
Body Harvest was delayed because it kept failing approval, can't blame Nintendo for not releasing a 6fps game (Waverace PAL version came close mind you).
Back when I was at Rare we would argue with Nintendo over many things, but I can't recall a single time Miyamoto 'sabotaged' any of the projects we had on. Allowing us to work with his IPs was quite the blessing, plus his criticisms were quite helpful at times (if completely insane at others). He wasn't involved at all in most of the titles we produced.
Would still buy him a pint.
Argonaut didn't make Star Fox 2. Nintendo contracted Argonaut to develop the FX technology. Nintendo additionally contracted 5 programmers from Argonaut to work inside Nintendo and help develop games using the technology. Those programmers were paid as contractors directly by Nintendo.
The entire Star Fox 2 development team (Nintendo EAD and the additional 3 contract game programmers) were paid for their work. Argonaut specifically didn't see any technology royalties because the FX chip wasn't manufactured since the game wasn't officially released.
Argonaut doesn't own any game code because Dylan Cuthbert, Kristen Wombell, Giles Goddard and Colin Reed were all contract employees working for Nintendo. Goddard and Reed even stayed working full time for Nintendo for several years after, while Cuthbert and Wombell found new ventures.
Argonaut only has ties to developing the FX technology chip that powered the technology. All the FX technology games that's Argonaut tried to develop on their own and pitch to Nintendo were rejected.
There are a million Miyamoto quotes out there of which about a dozen are controversial of which about half are taken out of context (like the recent "I could've made Minecraft" one).
Alpha Waves doesn't look like a good game though (and not because it was developed by a non-japanese developer).
Alright, here we go https://youtu.be/xL83Ko0vYrw?t=13m55s
Here's an old G4 Icons episode where one of the writers for Electronic Games Magazine claims to have had Miyamoto and Rare co-founder Tim Stamper in the same room. He claims he interviewed them both at the same time and that's when Shiggy told his business partner right to his face, that his game was mediocre.
Also, the issue where the alleged interview was published is from May 1995, not March, which makes Larry's video even more dubious if he can't even get simple facts like that right. All that's available online is a scanned cover of the issue unfortunately. I've tried looking everywhere for an entire scan without success, so whether Miyamoto actually said this is still up in the air until someone finds the magazine and confirms it once and for all. It's still shitty and irresponsible of Larry to pass it off as fact while ignoring Miyamoto's acknowledgement of the rumor when he spoke with IGN.
So this guy is essentially the Stan Lee of Nintendo? A smiling, fun, beloved mascot for the entire company, but actually an idea-stealing prick in private?
Miyamoto didn't kill F-Zero. The horrible sales for the games after F-Zero X did.
For all the praise GX gets nowadays, no one bought the damn thing when it came out.
Cuningas de Häme;227346768 said:Collected a bunch of quotes about what I think sums pretty well what's wrong in the video! Take or leave, your decision
Donkey Kong Country is still a badass game. Actually, all three of them are. Haters gonna hate.
Shout out to my British brethren at Rare. Buy British!
Übersandvich;227348321 said:What kind of contract could Nintendo have with Argonaut where they could decide not to pay Argonaut and yet still legally use any technology Argonaut developed? I don't doubt the veracity, I just wonder how such a scenario happened in the first place.
Every good boss I have ever had and met was a hard ass. Younger millennials are too sensitive to understand this.
Übersandvich;227348321 said:What kind of contract could Nintendo have with Argonaut where they could decide not to pay Argonaut and yet still legally use any technology Argonaut developed? I don't doubt the veracity, I just wonder how such a scenario happened in the first place.
He killed F-ZERO, ruined Star Fox and Paper Mario and who knows what other great ideas and or projects he has blocked just because he can.
so yeah, I respect him for the good things he has done but I'm not a fan of his.
You worked with Miyamoto?It's worth noting the Argonaut guy invited Miyamoto to his wedding long after this supposed 'feud' took place, I think it's just case of business being business.
Body Harvest was delayed because it kept failing approval, can't blame Nintendo for not releasing a 6fps game (Waverace PAL version came close mind you).
Back when I was at Rare we would argue with Nintendo over many things, but I can't recall a single time Miyamoto 'sabotaged' any of the projects we had on. Allowing us to work with his IPs was quite the blessing, plus his criticisms were quite helpful at times (if completely insane at others). He wasn't involved at all in most of the titles we produced.
Would still buy him a pint.