Pre-E3 Feature: 'Crossing into the Mainstream: Katsuya Eguchi on Animal Crossing'

Katsuya Eguchi is the mastermind behind Animal Crossing, originally planned for the Nintendo 64DD, before moving to the regular Nintendo 64, with sequels on the GameCube and Nintendo DS, the latter version of which has sold millions of copies worldwide. In the weeks leading up to E3, Gamasutra had a talk with Eguchi about his design decisions, family life, and perhaps most interestingly, his plans for the Wii version of Animal Crossing. When it was noted: "Regarding the Wii version of Animal Crossing, it seems like it might be nice to let players create their own furniture", Eguchi replied: "I think it's a great idea. Of course, if you made your own furniture, you'd want to share it with others, to be able to give and receive hand-made stuff. Otherwise why would you make it? To be able to do that, you have to build in some place to keep that in the memory. The save data would be pretty huge, then. That's a challenge I'd like to face, though." Regarding the Wii, Eguchi also commented: "Right now most of the information Nintendo has released about the [Wii] concerns the controller, so it may seem that way. As we get closer to launch, more information will be revealed that should help to fill out the picture a bit. There are other elements—some things I don't even know about, I'm sure! I think when it comes out, developers will say: “oh, you can do that!” They're really trying to create new ways of playing, and I hope my fellow developers will grow to feel we're doing that." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including lots more from Eguchi on the history and future of the Animal Crossing franchise (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).