Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi Interview - Super Nintendo World Grand Opening!

Oh my goodness, I cannot be more excited. Right now, I am on the red carpet of Super Nintendo World. This is the grand opening of the theme park here in Los Angeles at Universal Studios. And in my hand, I have one of the power up bands. And what's exciting about this is this plays a crucial part inside of the park where you actually get to interact with things and participate in the games. And of course, to match my pink outfit, we've got Princess Peach.

This is so exciting. Mr. Miyamoto, the last time I saw you was about 10 years ago and we played Mario Kart together, and now we are here in real life to witness it in person.

So obviously, the initial plan was to bring the world of Mario to life, but to actually see it realized now and for me to be surprised and overwhelmed was something that I didn't expect.

Seeing these games being created for so long and now actually seeing them in real life, how are you feeling about that?

No, so I'm really looking forward to when I saw this in actual real life, I was surprised at how moved I was when I first saw it. And I'm really excited and looking forward to how other people are going to react to that, and how they're going to feel when they see this place.

Mr. Miyamoto, now you've created such incredible characters throughout the years and now being able to bring them to life, what do you hope that people leave this park? What do you hope they leave feeling?

That's a good question. For a lot of fans, they probably have memories of video games, whether it's the characters or the backdrops and all of that. But then for them to come to this park and see that in real life, I would just love to have that as an additional memory to the log of memories they may have from playing games.

Now I have been playing Nintendo ever since I was a little kid, so for me, this is, I'm getting very emotional just thinking about it. So for the newer generation of kids who are just coming in to playing Mario, Mr. Takahashi, how do you want the next generation of gamers to start interacting with Nintendo who may have never played before?

Mr. Miyamoto, so you've obviously created so many incredible games. What advice do you give to up and coming developers to further their creativity?

When we were talking, it's not really advice, but when we were talking with the creative team at Universal, we were really talking about the importance of creating something unprecedented and something that's never been done before. And when you're trying to compete with maybe an existing game, you have to compete in that same field. But instead of doing that, I think there's a lot of joy and fun in trying to come up with something from scratch, from zero, and I would love for people to be able to experience that joy as well.

This is such a huge year for Nintendo, obviously the theme park and the movie. So Mr. Takahashi, how do you feel bringing all of these characters to life?

So last question, which is a two-part question. What is your favorite food at the park and what is your favorite Super Mario character?

So I actually haven't had the chance to try out all of the dishes here at the theme park, but I can guarantee that the burger is a great choice here.

And do you have a favorite Mario character overall?

Through the movie and also the theme park, everyone will have a lot of opportunity to get to know a lot of characters, but I personally want to recommend getting to know Toad. He's very cute.

Toad is my favorite as well, other than Princess Peach, of course.

And I also haven't been able to try all of the dishes at the park, but the beverage, the lemon beverage that's there that I had yesterday was great.

That's amazing. Well, thank you guys so much. I look forward to checking out the park today. Thank you.

This is it. This is where I started crying when I watched this online. So it's like my childhood. Mario 64 literally changed my life. I'm not even joking. It literally defined my entire life and I'm standing in it right now. There's a tear, I have an actual tear. I'm unwell. My arm's gonna be so tired. Oh wow, look at Bowser. This is incredible. This is so magical. You go inside and then you go outside and I'm losing my mind. And now we're going into the castle. Even the soundtrack, the music, everything. I'm so happy right now. There is so much detail. Everything is so thoughtful. The story of walking through this ride, it's expansive. If you're a Nintendo fan, this is somewhere you have to come. I feel like a princess. Bowser, I'm here. Dude, this is so exciting. So we're about to hop on the ride. We can't actually film while we're on it, but I do have some B-roll you can check out. We just got out of the Mario Kart ride. This is what augmented reality is all about. It was honestly shocking from start to finish. When I put the headset on and I looked down, and there were just coins floating. I mean it was like you were actually in the game. There's no other way to explain it. It felt like real life. So that was the grand opening of Super Nintendo World. I am just so happy. This honestly I would say is top three days of my entire life. I had the best time and I look forward to everyone else getting to experience this. I'm gonna go home, go to sleep, and get warm because it's really cold out here. I know it's LA and California, but let me tell you what, it gets chilly here.