Shortly before his address at GO3, we sat down with Matsuura, and discussed his career, his current and future projects, and what he thinks of the next-gen consoles.
PALGN: Thanks for coming here to Australia.
Masaya Matsuura: Thank you, it's a beautiful place.
PALGN: Have you seen much of the country?
MM: No not yet, unfortunately I spent a lot of time yesterday for organizing my lecture so I couldn't go out on the town yet.
PALGN: So, are you working on any projects at the moment?
MM: Currently we are working on another Tamagotchi DS game.
PALGN: That's Tamagotchi's Corner Shop for Bandai?
MM: Yes, we released the first game almost two years ago, and it sold over a million copies in Japan. We've just released the sequel in European and American versions, and we are working on the second sequel right now. We are also making a very casual music-based game called Rhythmica, but Rhythmica doesn't have any set platform, it's for many kinds of audio hardware, and currently we're porting it to every device we can.
PALGN: So you're looking into the broad platform of the mobile devices?
MM: Yes.
PALGN: How do you begin with a game design?
MM: These are very difficult questions! Game designs have a lot of layers, and I usually make the game concept, which is kind of the highest layer – no, the lowest layer of design. But to make a game requires many design ideas, and to make it rich and sophisticated requires various kinds of brains outside of mine.
PALGN: You mean programmers, artists...
MM: Yes.
PALGN: You never did any programming yourself, just design?
MM: No, only design.
PALGN: We really enjoyed Vib Ribbon, especially the custom soundtrack option, it was one of the first games to do that.
MM: Thank you!
PALGN: It seems like a game that would be well-suited to some kind of download service, such as the ones offered by the new consoles. Any chance of seeing such a project?
MM: Yes, possibly. Fortunately Rhythmica is our current project. It's a very similar idea to Vib Ribbon, as it's about analysing audio and making the game from that data, but it uses MP3 audio instead of CDs. We are also discussing the possibility of making a downloadable version of Vib Ribbon on Sony's platform. But um, I don't know yet - Sony only recently launched their downloadable service in Japan, so maybe we need to wait for a certain time to release a title with this kind of appeal to the public.
PALGN: So maybe some time in the future on the Playstation Network?
MM: Yeah.
PALGN: In Tetsuya Mizuguchi speech's yesterday, we heard some of the things that inspired certain games throughout his career. What inspires you to create games, and do any of your games have a specific inspiration?
MM: Yes, my biggest inspiration when making games is basically communication. Communication is usually a word used to describe links between two humans. But my idea of communication is not like that... Sometimes! For example, communication between the hardware and human, or softwares and human, these kind of communications are a very big idea for me, because, well, basically I am a musician.
So for the musician, the musical instrument is a very important tool. For example, if I am a violinist, I have to buy a very expensive violin, if I am to work as a professional violinist. So, I'm 45 now, but maybe this expensive violin is over 100 years old, if I buy a gorgeous violin maybe I will be afraid to play it. But, maybe soon, or sometime, I will be very good at playing this old violin. So the communication between me and the the tool, or hardware, is very important. This is my basic inspiration, to think about creating games.
[points at voice recorder used to record the interview]
This is a very good example of how I think of communications between the tool and the human. Many people don't care about how good-looking it is, or how useful it is. They just think about how long it can record, or how cheap it is, or how good sound quality is. No one cares about how this is a very good tool for human communication. But this is my point, it's what I'm interested in.
PALGN: So do you play an instrument?
MM: Yes, tomorrow I will play in my address. Please be surprised. [laughs]
PALGN: Since you're primarily a musician, does that mean you're only interested in creating music or audio based games?
MM: No no, I'm also interested in cognitive science, for example.
A good relationship with an instrument, or the audience, requires a great number of cognitive processes, and these kind of ideas are very good as game ideas. Recently, as you'd know, a big trend in Japanese games, especially for Nintendo hardware, are the Brain Training games. These kind of ideas are a big tendency currently in the Japanese market - games that are not just diversions, but that can be more than that for some people, these are new concepts.
PALGN: So as Iwata-san says, the type of games that help your life or can actually be integrated into your life, rather than just being entertainment, you're interested in that?
MM: Yes. [nods]
PALGN: So will we be seeing Brain Training-type game idea from you?
MM: [laugh] I'm not sure yet. Many young kids are misunderstood by their parents as a musical genius, so they learn to play the piano or something like that. So, kind of similar to Brain Training, my idea is a game to help to explore this. Sometimes with kids, but also for the elderly, to keep their minds fresh, something like that.
PALGN: Do you like the Guitar Hero games?
MM: Yeah, I like them a lot. The president of the game's developer Harmonix, Alex Rigopulo, has been my very good friend for more than a decade. I remember the first time they came to us to make music-based games! At that time, the idea they had didn't look much like a game, more like a music creation tool, so I commented to them to make it much more game-like.
PALGN: Was that their game Frequency?
MM: Yeah - kind of the father game of Frequency. We discussed a lot of ideas, so I consider Guitar Hero my brother product.
PALGN: Did you have anything to do with its development?
MM: No no, but as a friend – it's like my brother's product.
PALGN: They're part of the community of music game makers with you?
MM: Yes.
PALGN: You've mentioned the direction Nintendo platforms are going, what do you think of each of the next-gen consoles?
MM: Hmm – it's a very difficult question. As I've said, my focus is the sophisticated communications between the player and the hardware or software. But some current next-generation hardware, for example the PS3 and Xbox 360, look a little too 'heavy' to make interesting titles on, as they require very complicated looking games.
PALGN: Do you mean the graphics or gameplay?
MM: Both.
PALGN: So you think that on those consoles, people will only want to buy expensive looking games, so they might not look twice at smaller games?
MM: Exactly.
On the other hand, the Wii is more casual, but it forces us to use 'that' controller. Of course that controller is very attractive for us too, but their approach is already possibly too close to the software areas. The console is not just about the hardware, but some of the software territory is already occupied by the hardware environment.
PALGN: So you think the environment is better for the type of games that you're looking into, or is it more difficult?
MM: Yes, sometimes more difficult. For example, if you were a hard rock guitarist – no, let's make it a fusion guitarist. You wouldn't want to use distortion for your guitar sound. But what if distortion was built into the amp, so no matter how you play it sounds like rock? This is the kind of situation that could happen with Nintendo's Wii.
PALGN: So you think it almost forces you to use some of the ideas that they've implemented themselves?
MM: Yes [makes Wii Sports motions]
PALGN: Handheld gaming, the DS in particular, has really taken over in Japan, and on a worldwide basis portable gaming became a much bigger thing than it has been in the past. Has this changed the way you are looking into potential development projects?
MM: Yes - for us the Tamagotchi success has been a very good chance to make the DS handheld games for the last few years. But, of course, I don't know the future. Currently Japan's developers are facing very difficult situations - the very big teams can't make a 'light' DS title, but of course, the small developers can't make a big console title either. So we decided to make the company 'lighter', and depending on the project and the hardware, we 'band' the team.
PALGN: So within NanaOn-Sha there's potential for a broad range of development team sizes?
MM: Yeah, sometimes.
PALGN: So - will we ever see PaRappa or Lamby again?
MM: [laughs] At the end of last year, uh, Sony released PaRappa PSP in Japan, and it's maybe coming soon to some other Asian territories. But I have to think about it for the European territories and the American territories [Since the interview was conducted, PaRappa PSP has indeed been confirmed for North American and PAL regions].
PALGN: That leads well into another question – do you create games primarily for a Japanese audience, or is it more general?
MM: Uh, that, that's a good question. Until just a few years ago, I didn't think about the overseas markets too much, but more recently about 80% of our sales have come from overseas, so now we have to think about the overseas market more!
PALGN: Tamagotchi sold extremely well in Japan for you...
MM: [laughs] Yes, that is the only case we have had recently, that's now a rare case for us!
PALGN: Do you think a lot of Japanese developers will have to think on a more worldwide basis now?
MM: No, I don't think so.
PALGN: Just for you?
MM: Yes.
PALGN: You've been creating games for quite a while now, and you mentioned the different 'size' of the new platforms, can you see anything else about the industry that's changed a lot in the time since the first PaRappa on Playstation 1?
MM: Hmm...
PALGN: Too broad a question?
MM: [Laughs] yes, too broad!
PALGN: Perhaps, even just in music games? PaRappa had a lot on influence on other people wanting to do music games...
MM: Yeah - Guitar Hero is a very big step for me. From the time first PaRappa was released, it was more than a decade until Guitar Hero's success. So it took 10 years – only now have music-based games for the European or American territories really started. So now maybe I can have a chance to do something for them.
PALGN: So you think music games have finally come into their own in western markets?
MM: Yes.
PALGN: Finally, what are your favorite types of games to play? Obviously you make music games, do you like to play music games?
MM: No.
PALGN: OK...
MM: [laughs] Also, I'm not good at playing the music games [laughs], even my own titles. Guitar Hero is fun, I do like Guitar Hero. But other games are too scary for me – I feel I can't have fun with them.
PALGN: Thanks for your time, pleasure to meet you.
MM: Thank you!
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