New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Miyamoto discusses the death pause, why no Wario, and more

“We had a lot of debate about that (the death pause). There were points in the project where there was no delay at all, but that wound up encouraging players to concentrate on themselves instead of the team. If there’s that little stutter, that makes everyone say to each other ‘Oh, nice, you screwed up!’, and that’s what I wanted to see.” - Shigeru Miyamoto

When he says it like that, it definitely makes a lot of sense. I know that I hold up from running ahead when someone has died, all due to the death pause. I like working together as a team!

Miyamoto also once again touched upon the choice of two toads instead of other famous Nintendo characters for New Super Mario Bros. Wii…

“Mario and Luigi are the same as always, of course, and suggestions for the other two characters included Wario and Waluigi, Toad, and Princess Peach. The thing is that with Wario he’d need to have a fart attack, Peach would have to be able to fly with her skirt, and so on. With this game we wanted every character to play the same way.”