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I saw this article at IGN...
Source: http://cube.ign.com/articles/673/673312p1.html
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Source: http://cube.ign.com/articles/673/673312p1.html
Sakurai Elaborates on Smash Bros. Revolution
Details on a new Tokyo studio and a new partnership.
by Anoop Gantayat
December 2, 2005 - Following up on early revelations of his involvement with the project, independent developer Masahiro Sakurai has shared more comments with Japan's Weekly Famitsu on the status of Smash Bros. Revolution. As revealed to the magazine in mid November, Sakurai is directing the game, reprising his role from previous Smash Bros. titles.
Sakurai reveals that development on the project has just recently started. In fact, as of May 2005, the game's development staff consisted of exactly one person, Sakurai himself. As we shared in our previous story, Sakurai accepted a proposal by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata to direct the title following the surprise announcement of the its development at Nintendo's E3 press conference (it was a surprise to Sakurai more than anyone, as he hadn't heard of the project at the time).
Nintendo has enlisted some outside help for the development of Smash Bros. Revolution. "Shigeru Miyamoto introduced me to a 'particular company' that had just finished development of a major game," Sakurai reveals. The executives of this company didn't offer too much resistance in signing up when Sakurai spoke with them about the project.
While its name is still a secret, this company seems to have some experience with Smash Bros. -- playing it, at least. Sakurai makes mention of a GameCube controller that employees at the company were using. The analogue stick had faded away like an eraser, the result, according to the employees, of thousands of games of Smash Brothers DX (Sakurai checked their save game file and confirmed that they had indeed played a massive number of games).
Development on Smash Bros. Revolution won't be taking place at Nintendo's Kyoto headquarters. Instead, Nintendo had Sakurai, who resides in Tokyo, hunts for an Tokyo office to house the development staff. For this search, Sakurai enlisted the help of the head of Nintendo's Tokyo office and ended up choosing a location with good public transportation access. Sakurai then moved to a new place near the office so that he wouldn't have to worry about missing the last train home (trains in Tokyo stop running a bit past midnight). The new Nintendo office opened its doors at the beginning of October.
Sakurai expects a huge staff to eventually be in place at this office for the development of this Revolution update. "To make a Smash Bros. DX class game, you'd want at the least something on the scale of 50 people," he comments, adding that Nintendo will begin hiring employees for the new office via its website shortly.
The new studio hasn't started completely from scratch, though. Nintendo's HAL Lab development studio, Sakurai's former place of employ, has given Sakurai and his fledging crew full access to the development materials and tools from the development of the GameCube Smash Bros..
You might find it surprising that Nintendo would open a new office just for the development of one game. Sakurai doesn't seem as surprised, adding that the investment is an indication of how much is expected of the title. He also adds that a number of former Smash Brothers staff members reside in Tokyo and have joined up on the project's development, necessitating a Tokyo studio.
Sakurai will continue providing weekly updates on his work to Famitsu, in what appears to be a regular developer journal. We'll be sure and let you know if he shares any tasty new bits of info on Smash Bros. Revolution.
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