You also said how you hoped that Wii Music could be used among children to promote making music in a way that the curriculum can’t. Do you think it’s a role of games to educate as well as entertain?
I think I need to come up with very fine and delicate wording about the educational ability of entertainment [laughs] but, frankly speaking, I have never intended to make educational software. But I think it’s wrong to completely build a wall between the two.

I really don’t think that education and entertainment are two different things. For example, people might say that Brain Training is good because it is educational, but I really don’t think that people only play Brain Training for that purpose. Rather, Brain Training became popular because they enjoy themselves seeing how they are progressing and how their hidden talents are revealed by their scores.

When it comes to Wii Music, I simply thought it was great fun to be able to play with a musical instrument. But, for that matter, I have never thought that education couldn’t be entertaining. I wish that the education I received during my schooldays could have been much more fun than it was. From that perspective, I’m trying to expand the fun nature of things.

Once again, I am not intending to make anything educational, but if the resulting software is taken as educational, that’s OK. I might seem to be making some unwritten proposal to the teachers around the world – but it depends on the people in the academic field whether or not they will make use of that.


What’s your response to some of the poor reviews Wii Music has received in the gaming press? Did you expect it to be misunderstood?
Well, we have just come to the stage where some people have played Wii Music for the first time, and in most cases they are still playing by themselves, but I think there is more to playing games than just playing by yourself. Playing a challenging game by yourself is of course a really important aspect of videogames, but in most videogames there are other aspects, like how you will associate or compare with other players.

My hope is of course that a gradually increasing number of people will get access to Wii Music and understand its fun nature. I really don’t think that it will have the immediate and universal appeal around the world at all [laughs].

I really appreciate that the gaming media has a different view of anything as new as Wii Music today – it’s simply symbolises how different and unique Wii Music is. To tell the truth, I have this big ambition for Wii Music, that it can eventually be something very influential so that it might be able to influence what music means in the world.


Is it true that Wii Music is the last of the games from your original list of ideas for Wii software?
[Laughs] Yes, it is true that the existing Wii games, including Wii Music, were on the top priority list, but there is some other software, of course [laughs], but I cannot talk about it!