Satoru Iwata and Masahiro Sakurai are true video game lovers. That shows in Super Smash Bros., which grew out of their combined talents years before Iwata himself presided over Nintendo. And we are not going to deny it, to successfully offer such chaotic combats between such different characters you have to have extraordinary planning and measure very, very well the ads. The case of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was diametrically the opposite.
The last video of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating GamesSakurai’s vlog in which he shares his experiences and gives advice to game developers, sheds new light on how the key game to promote the online experience of the revolutionary Wii was born: the success of the Smash saga in Asia and the West made it became a key piece for the next Nintendo and Iwata console, already as president of the company, He announced it at E3 2005.
The other reality: at that time, Masahiro Sakurai had left HAL Laboratories a year earlier and started his career as a freelance creative, having committed himself to other projects and had no idea what the new Big N console would be like. In that context, it was to the Wii conference as an audience and what is most bizarre: Nintendo announced the next Smash Bros. with absolutely nothing done.
After that conference, Iwata himself (who was always very close to Sakurai) organized a formal meeting with Sakurai from the hotel where they were staying in Los Angeles and bluntly proposed to direct the following Super Smash Bros. Confessing the current status of the project. Or, at least, that he had a role in it that was as close to management as possible based on his availability. It was then, after pondering it for days and not knowing what it was like to work with the new hardware, that Sakurai made him the key question:
“What if I say no?”
Iwata’s response was accurate: they would give the project to someone else, they would focus on the next Super Smash Bros. It worked online and, this was decisive, the 26 fighters already available would be offered as they already were. No retouching. Or, at least, that’s how Iwata thought the project would end up taking shape if Sakurai declined the opportunity.
The truth is that they both knew that creating a Smash totaly new with the superstars of Nintendo it would be more of a major challenge for someone new. To the point that Eiji Aonuma, producer of The Legend of Zelda series, openly confessed that, in case Masahiro Sakurai was not involved in the project, the end of the series should be considered. Super Smash Bros. Considering it an irreplaceable piece of the saga.
Faced with this situation, Sakurai decided to complete the game that he had already started, say goodbye to the others in which he was going to participate and fully focus on creating a new game. Super Smash Bros. with time against, the announcement made and nothing done. Luckily, Iwata not only carried out the initiative, but was instrumental in bringing together key developers committed to the cause, and even Shigeru Miyamoto helped assemble a final team of 100 people.
Five months later, in October 2005, development of the game will begin, which will be renamed Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Its launch on Wii will take place three years later, bringing together the superstars of the house with unusual guests like Sonic or Solid Snake from the Metal Gear saga. Since then, and up to 2020, 13.32 million copies have been sold.
And now that? Masahiro Sakurai understands that Nintendo will launch a new installment of Super Smash Bros. in the future given the importance of the saga for fans and the company itself. And despite the fact that he says he is not clear about what will happen from now on, he expresses his commitment to continue working with the Big N as long as possible. He has to cross his fingers and wait until, with the successor to Switch to be announced, they notify him of the plans with the saga with a little more margin. We know that no one could do it better.
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