Players have long been wondering why Nintendo hasn’t introduced Minecraft onto its consoles and devices, and two executives were questioned about this recently.
The executives: Shigeru Miyamoto, who oversees Nintendo’s internal EAD game development teams, and Shinya Takahashi, who oversees the SPD teams.
Kotaku caught up with them in Los Angeles last week and asked them about the Minecraft Nintendo issue.
“They don’t necessarily make deals with outside developers and probably wouldn’t be the people to call Minecraft creator Notch or his studio Mojang to get Minecraft on their console, but I figured that they must know about one of the world’s most popular games and that, if they want it on their platforms, it'll be on their platforms,” the author wrote.
“I haven’t played it myself,” Miyamoto said, “But I have heard quite a bit about it.” He gestured toward Takahashi. “I think he knows more about it than I do. But I like that style of game, and I look at Mario Maker as being something in a similar vein.”
““We’ve always thought internally that using the [Wii U] GamePad would probably make for a Minecraft that’s very easy to play,” Takahashi said. “And, of course, if we were to do something with Minecraft on the 3DS, similarly we would probably do it where it would be easier to play and could probably reach a lot of kids.
“What’s interesting is that, in Japan, Minecraft is not popular in the way it is in the U.S. and Europe, so we’ve also thought that, if we were able to do a partnership like that, it might bring opportunity to help make Minecraft more popular in Japan.”
Miyamoto later added that the Nintendo hardware, which enables both touch and stick control, would be a good fit for Minecraft.
The author told the executives that they should call the Minecraft creators and “make it happen,” prompting laughter from the executives.
“Maybe we’re meeting with them!” Miyamoto said. Who knows?”
Markus Persson, known as Notch--the creator of Minecraft--last addressed the potential Nintendo connection back in December 2013.
Speaking via Twitter, he said: “I am not aware of any plans to release a Wii U version of Minecraft.”
He said earlier in 2013 that Microsoft previously had an exclusive deal for Minecraft on consoles and once that was up he was going to bring the game to PlayStation, but Nintendo’s consoles were less of a priority, if a priority at all.
It’s not because Notch doesn’t like Nintendo.
“I agree a Wii U version would make sense, [by the way]. The only reason for no current plans is we’ve got too much work already. I <3 Nintendo."
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