Miyamoto Explains Why it’s “Wii Fit,” Not “Mario Fit”

I can almost guarantee that, if a year ago I went around asking people what they thought the name of a Nintendo fitness game might be, a majority of the answers would include Mario’s name. And why not? His name has graced(?) so many different titles that the expression “I’ve lost track” doesn’t quite encapsulate it all.

So why is the classic mascot’s face nowhere to be seen? Shigeru Miyamoto explained it as a matter of wanting to make the game feel like something for anyone, regardless of age. “We wanted to create [Wii Fit] so that people of all ages could look at it and feel it was for them. I think [including Mario] might have limited its ability.”

What you will find in Wii Fit, though, is the Balance Board as a type of character, but that wasn’t something Nintendo set out to do.

“Actually, when we created that character and were creating Wii Fit, our ultimate goal wasn’t to create a new character for Wii Fit. I do like the idea of trying to introduce new characters periodically. But really, with Wii Fit, what we were trying to do is if you look at fitness DVDs or other sports training type products, they have a very predefined atmosphere to them. They’re very health and sports-oriented. Our feeling was that, if we are going to create Wii Fit and have Nintendo put this out and sell this as a Nintendo product, it needs to feel like a Nintendo product. And creating an interface and trying to design how the gameplay work, we felt it needs to feel fun and fresh and maybe feel a bit silly too. That’s ultimately how the Balance Board came to be [as a character] in Wii Fit,” Miyamoto explained.

In fact, Miyamoto also said that the intention for Wii Fit wasn’t to design a new peripheral, but the very nature of the game required one. “Once we made that decision to create the Balance Board our goal was to make it the least intrusive peripheral that we could. And what we found was that, through that process and the process of implementing the different functions of the balance board, we felt we created something that was truly a new and unique interface. And with that interface we had something that was a strong selling point as well.”

You can read the full interview at MTV Multiplayer.