Miyamoto keynote at GDC 2007 – live blogging by proxy

I was hoping to proxy post stuff from GoNintendo, but their site is getting OWNED right now. That means I’m keeping an eye on Joystiq’s live blog of Miyamoto’s keynote speech at GDC 2007. As long as there aren’t any interruptions, I’ll try to keep this up to date with new information as it happens. All times are Eastern. Stuff from Kotaku gets a =k and stuff from Joystiq gets a =j at the end. VIVA LA F5!

1:38 – nothing yet.
1:42 – Still nothing. Adam Sessler spotted. =j Checking Kotaku now, too. Chobot is apparently dancing around. =k
1:45 – earlier today, Reggie told Crecente to expect some fireworks “a couple”. =k
1:46 – still hasn’t started.
1:50 – *yawn*
1:55 – no Miyamoto sightings yet and apparently the first song that they were listening to at the conference has started to play again. =j
1:58 – Reggie just appeared in a wizard’s robe out of which smoked started to pour and Shiggy popped out wearing a Zero Suit. Or not.
1:59 – Crecente spots movement behind a curtain, posts hugely vain photo of self on Kotaku. =k
2:01 – new t-shirt ad on Kotaku makes me blush.
2:02 – decided to go watch new hi-res “The Desert” video of Super Paper Mario on IGN for a little while.
2:03 – Crecente yammers about Phil Harrison and how great he is. Joystiq says they’re introducing Miyamoto via a quote from Will Wright.
2:04 – Miyamoto appears via magic. =j
2:05 – Miyamoto shows pics of his garden. =j
2:08 – He compares top games of 98 to those of today. =j
2:09 – He’s apparently using the Photo Channel to run the whole presentation, a la PowerPoint. =k
2:13 – Developers feeling threatened as games get bad reputation of the last 8 years. =j
2:17 – Talks about his wife helping him understand if a game is good “wife-o-meter”. =j
2:25 – He has helped design every controller for Nintendo since they got into the console business. =k
2:27 – Says Wii Remote makes game a magical experience again. =j
2:31 – David says… this is going slow, I’m grabbing a cup of coffee.
2:45 – Back from getting coffee .. Miyamoto was showing off the Japanese game card museum you may have seen on Kotaku and other sites. =k
2:47 – Says developers should keep in mind their audience and that they should take risks and delay games if they’re not ready. =j
2:51 – Talks about original Zelda prototype and that people found it to be too hard. Instead of making it easier, he took away the sword at first. =j
2:55 – Says that reviewers may need to come up with a new way to score their reviews, reflecting how a non-gamer might perceive a game. =k
2:58 – Wii Sports Baseball originally had Mario characters, but testers preferred the Miis. =j
3:03 – Shows some old prototype N64 disk drive prototype software for character and facial animations. =j
3:08 – This finally lead way to the Mii channel. Miyamoto is working on a Wii Channel that allows people to compete in popularity contests with their Miis. =j
3:11 – Whatever happened to Mario 128? He says elements of it have appeared in Pikmin and will appear in Super Mario Galaxy, which he confirms will be out by the end of 2007. =j
3:16 – Basically sums it up saying that if he can convert his wife into a gamer, developers can convert anyone. =j

And it’s over.

Looking at the release schedule for the next few months, Nintendo definitely wants to bring the non-gamer on board with Wii. Titles like Mario Party 8 and a brain training title will continue their push to convert the non-gamer.

Overall, the speech was very much a pep rally for developers. Not a lot of new information was given out, but a few glimpses into Nintendo’s vaults were interesting. Really, it was an actual keynote and not just an advertisement for new Nintendo products, which I have to admire. They could’ve just shown a bunch of gameplay videos and listened to the applause, but it was a well thought out speech and expertly presented by Miyamoto.

What were you hoping Nintendo would reveal at this keynote address?

[Live blogging feeds from Joystiq and Kotaku]