Wired.com: We were completely surprised by this announcement. How did you decide to work with Team Ninja?
Yoshio Sakamoto: It all started in 2006, ...Thats when I began mulling over various concepts. But when it came to the actual development process,
while my team has had experience developing 2-D handheld versions of Metroid, we, to be completely honest, didnt have the know-how or the experience to develop something for 3-D. That, and we didnt have the manpower, either. I didnt have the resources.
I realized that Id probably need to find a partner...I was very fortunate at that time to speak with Mr. Hayashi and the team at Team Ninja.
Wired.com: How is the team set up? How many people from Nintendo, how many from Team Ninja?
Sakamoto: As for me personally, the role that
Ive taken on is producer. Also on Nintendos side are
three other key people who have experienced development on the handheld Metroid games. One gentleman was responsible for designing the maps, another gentleman was actually a designer, so hes more experienced in developing the visuals of the game, and then weve also got one gentleman who was a programmer on the handheld games, and hes doing more project management.
Hayashi: From the Team Ninja side,
there are various programmers and computer graphics designers totaling about 70 people. And then, as we mentioned before, the story element of the game is very significant, and weve got a team from a company called
D-Rockets, who is also part of Project M, working on the cinematics, and a gentleman by the name of Ryuji Kitaura. So weve got about 100 people working on this project.
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