Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has shared that the prospect of a new Super Mario Galaxy is “always in discussion,” however they are exploring more “opportunities” to blend 3D and 2D Mario outings to discover “a middle ground” for players.
For many, Wii’s Super Mario Galaxy remains an unrivalled accomplishment. But, despite selling 12.5 million copies worldwide, it was outpaced by New Super Mario Bros. Wii that celebrated 29.32 million sales.
“[A new Mario Galaxy] is always in discussion,” Miyamoto explained to Eurogamer. “But even with Mario 64 there was a lot of feedback about motion sickness with the 3D or maybe us making it too difficult.”
He continued, “Going back to our roots and making New Super Mario Bros., anyone can play that. So that’s why we went back. We’re always thinking, is there a middle ground where people who do enjoy the 3D worlds of Galaxy and those who enjoy New Super Mario Bros. can both enjoy it? We’re always looking at those opportunities.”
The exploration of such an idea is already evident in Nintendo 3DS and Wii U’s respective Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World.
“On the other hand, me and [Yoshiaki] Koizumi-san, director of Galaxy, are always looking to challenge Galaxy and do another 3D action title,” Miyamoto added. “However we can’t make so many games at once in parallel. But as the hardware technology gets better and advances, I think there will be a lot of opportunity for both options.”
Questioned as to whether that would see Nintendo wait until their unannounced NX platform, Miyamoto assured that the Wii U was more than capable: “Wii U’s definitely good enough in terms of hardware performance, it is more the workload of the team. If you look at Star Fox Zero, the TV and GamePad are both rendered in 60 frames, so in total that’s 120 frames. It’s really just a matter of the CPU speed at this point.”
