If you are a Wii Sports veteran, one of the first things you’ll probably notice while playing Nintendo Switch Sports is the new avatar. While they may seem like a natural evolution alongside the Mii, during the development of Switch Sports, Nintendo experimented with all sorts of different character designs.
In Nintendo’s latest translation ‘Ask the developer‘series’, the Switch Sports team introduced several other character concepts that were not cut. Some of the proposals include student and college characters, circular characters, and even robots with avatars that control them from within!
Junji Morii (Art director): “Even before we decided to start over again, we suggested different types of character illustrations. In the early stages, we suggested circular characters without arms or legs, similar to the Mii characters in Wii Sports. We also created college student characters that look like this with intercollegiate sports themes. “
Takayuki Shimamura (Producer): I remember we had the weirdest characters that looked like robots. (Laugh)
Morii: Around that time when we decided to restart the project from scratch and were told that we were going to start over to create the world’s most inviting motion-based game, I asked, “Do you Surely we can’t do this not far?” (Laugh)
The player is inside the robot, but the robot moves when you rotate the Joy-Con controller. Robots are bowling players.
What? Do you operate robots?
Yoshikazu Yamashita (Director): Yes, you operate this robot, and the robot throws the ball. I know it doesn’t make sense. You may also wonder how big this bowling alley is. (Laugh)
Morii: At first, everyone was so excited about the idea of this robot that we thought, “This could be so much fun!” We even made a prototype. But when we actually saw the robot on screen and moved it around, a veil of silence fell on everyone.
Everybody: (Laugh)
Okane: This will make the game about operating a robot.
Yamashita: The player controls the character in the robot that operates the robot. Then the robot throws the ball. There are too many steps in between.
In the end, the Nintendo Switch Sports development team decided to play it safe and go with a design that resembles a human – also known as “Sportsmate”.
What do you think of the final character design in Nintendo Switch Sports? How about the conceptual ideas? Leave a comment below.
