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Miyamoto explains Mario's many cameo appearances, wanted Donkey Kong to be a side-scroller
The following comments come from Shigeru Miyamoto..
- “I worked on characters like Super Mario, Link, Pikmin, and lately Pikmin characters. I think of all of them from the same game system. Like when I make Wii Fit, it’s possible for me to have Mario appear in it. I feel like I’m the owner of a talent agency. He’s [Mario] the one who can appear in multiple settings the most. He can play sports, he can be comedic. He’s got a lot of great talent. I’d almost put him in games without a reason. It started with Punch-Out!! Mario and Donkey Kong were in the same audience. Mario was also a tennis referee. People get so happy saying “hey, it’s Mario”
- “I actually wanted to make it (Donkey Kong) scroll, but the circuit board wasn’t capable of doing that so we made four various levels which each can be shown in a single screen. And that worked out pretty well. When you play on a fixed screen you can plan things out because you can see the entire level.”