There’s another side, too: secrecy through pride. Miyamoto has often mentioned how not one member of the Mario development team has resigned in 20 years. It’s a close-knit community, too emotionally attached to want to undermine their work with flapping gabs. Nintendo keep their staff as close as their games. When Kirby and Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai resigned from HAL in 2003, citing annoyance with the state of the industry, it was a concerned Satoru Iwata who pursued the fleeing developer and brought him- and his development house, Sora- back into the Smash Bros. fold. Try naming any ex-Nintendo employee-without looking atWikipedia- and you’ll realise how few potential rumour-spillers ever escape.
And of course there’s policing of people who don’t work for Nintendo but work with them. When voice-over actress Alesia Glidewell noted on her online CV that she’d be providing the voice of Star Fox Adventures’ Krystal in Smash Bros. Brawl, the internet swarmed on the fact like game journos all over a free buffet. Two days later, the information disappeared (though it’s now back on imdb). A clear response to a memo from the powers-that-be, if ever we saw one. The Nintendo secret squad strikes again.
And now onto some choice nuggets...
