Miyamoto: Wii Music is "closer to playing real instruments"

Nintendo dev boss Shigeru Miyamoto has explained the thinking behind Wii Music, saying it's a more freeform offering than other rhythm-action games on the market.

"This description could potentially get really long, but in most of the music games we've seen up until now, there are fixed notes, and you have to hit those notes with fixed timing," he told 1UP.

"But the approach that we've taken with Wii Music is something closer to playing real instruments. But enjoying the act of performing music by yourself isn't enough; you can get bored of just pretending to play an instrument. But when you start adding other elements, such as being able to change an arrangement, being able to change an instrument, being able to ad lib - all the combinations of those elements make for a limitless number of possibilities in musical creativity.

"So we think Wii Music is, in essence, a very different type of product that will feature an incredible amount of replayability."

He added: "Since Wii Music always allows the user to play the correct notes, that frees up the developers to make a game that focuses on a freestyle sort of play; if you're an amateur musician, the fear of playing incorrectly is gone. Among the 50 songs in Wii Music - which are established classics - the variety of arrangements that you can create is limitless, and that's very exciting.

"So, two people could play the very same song, but the results could be completely different. Personally, I think that's a really interesting part of Wii Music."

There's a full interview through there. Well worth a read.