Nintendo, Ubisoft discuss bringing Rabbids into Mario's world, making sure the game was unique

Coming from a Newsweek interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, Xavier Poix, managing director of Ubisoft's French studios and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot...

YG: "Mr. Miyamoto wanted [Ubisoft] to do something different from what [Nintendo] was doing with Mario. It cannot be an action game, it has to be something different enough so that way you can enhance the world of Mario with new gameplay beginnings."

XP: The Rabbids are kind of random, usually, and we wanted to characterize them more. We wanted to mix their DNA, which is an irreverent, crazy DNA, to the characters that are well known in Mr. Miyamoto's world. Any Mario game requires a lot of accessibility. And it's true that tactical turn-based games are very deep, but accessibility is not there usually. We wanted to bring a new kind of draw, which is a tactical adventure kind of game that will appeal to a large audience."

SM: "This is something I ask anybody to do when they collaborate with Mario. For example, there's a game called Mario and Luigi RPG where there is a jump function, but it's connected to one button– it's an action that you choose out of a command. Where as in Mario games, you use jump to make a lot of different things happen, whether you're going to places or taking some sort of action.

I told myself that I would like the original Nintendo team to be able to build on that. So when other developers work on [Mario], I ask them to have a unique and original element in their game and not to use 'jump' as more than just a command. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is turn-based strategy, but also has a lot of action. I feel like beyond that I think anything can be done [by Ubisoft] will just make the game more fun."