"In a long time ago, I said a phrase like this: On my business card, I am the president of a gaming company. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a player. That's something I've always believed."
When saying this, Takayuki suddenly felt very calm in his heart.
This quote from Mr. Iwata Satoru, the most famous game developer from a previous life and also Takayuki's favorite game developer, is the most memorable quote for Takayuki.
He also sincerely agrees with this quote.
Deep down, he has always remained a player, reminiscing about the familiar scenes of games from his previous life, recalling the touching moments in each game.
After coming to this world, his innermost feelings have never changed.
He has always hoped that this world could also create wonderful games. He brought games from his previous life to this world, allowing this world to experience the culture of his own world.
He also wanted to experience the culture of this world properly.
Strictly speaking, this could be considered a collision of cultures from two parallel worlds.
"I remember this quote. I've seen some interviews you did in Japan, and this quote is one I particularly agree with."
At this point, Bruno had already decided on the title for the cover, calling it "Heart of a Gamer," which was very fitting for Takayuki.
Takayuki looked profound. "Speaking of the original intention of game development, it's probably because of my somewhat cultured family background. My mother is a painter, who is somewhat famous, and my father used to be an investor, but now he's a novelist, although he's not as well-known as my mother."
"Mrs. Takayuki's mother is Mrs. Takayukiya, right? I've had the privilege of seeing her paintings, which are very good. But I haven't heard much about your father, his novels..."
"Well, let's not dwell on that."
In simple terms, his father's novels are all rubbish. Probably not more than ten thousand people have read them, and even among those ten thousand, probably ninety-nine percent only read the beginning before tossing them aside.
He remembers his mother, Takayukiya, saying that his father's writing was a waste of money, spending money to print them and then spending money to get people to read them. It was very pitiful.
But even so, he tirelessly wrote novels. Obviously, he truly loved it.
"So, Mr. Takayuki, was it under the influence of such a family background that you had the idea to create a new cultural product?"
Takayuki nodded at first, then shook his head. "Not entirely. The family background is one reason, but later on, it was my own sudden inspiration."
"Oh? How so?"
"It's quite cliché, actually. At that time, I was living a good life as a university student, with a close girlfriend, a wealthy family, and a girlfriend. I guess you could say I was winning at life."
Bruno nodded, but didn't interrupt Takayuki.
"But then, I made some mistakes that led to our breakup, and at that time, I couldn't bear it. I even got to the point of dropping out."
Actually, with Takayuki's personality from his previous life, he wouldn't have had an emotional breakdown over a single romantic experience, let alone to the extent of dropping out. These were all memories from the original owner, so he just went along with it. It wouldn't be wise to fabricate lies in front of the editors of Time Magazine.
They had the most authoritative sources of information, and regardless of the size of the information, there had been almost no problems. Anyway, the memories of the original owner had nothing to do with him, so he didn't feel burdened to talk about them.
Takayuki looked helpless. "Pretty melodramatic, right? But it was in this melodramatic state that I wanted to find... some fun. At first, I would hide at home and indulge in novels, movies, cartoons, and comics. Then gradually, I found it boring. That's when video games were born in my mind, almost unintentionally."
The original owner, Takayuki, happened to study computer science in college. After emotional turmoil and cultural influence from his family, he naturally wanted to create a new form of entertainment in the computer field. It all sounded very logical.
Although there were some slightly far-fetched parts in between, Bruno seemed to have a lot of empathy. As Takayuki spoke, he even began to look somewhat sympathetic.
"It's really full of twists and turns. Mr. Takayuki, your experience is indeed quite fascinating. So, due to this combination of reasons, you created the world's first popular video game, Mario Bros., right?"
"That's right."
"Then, was there a specific origin for the character of Mario Bros.? Because this character's features are really distinctive, it feels like there must be many stories behind it."
Clearly, Bruno wanted to delve deeper into Takayuki's story.
Just a dry interview about the origin wouldn't be enough.
He had promised to get Takayuki on the cover of Time, so he definitely needed to gather more interesting stories. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to justify it to the editor-in-chief.
He had promised to deliver an excellent interview article.
"Well, actually, it's not that complicated. At the time when I was brainstorming ideas for video games, coincidentally, there was a problem with the pipes at home. So, I called a plumber to come and fix it, and I was thinking about game ideas while he was working."
"Was that plumber your source of inspiration? Then he must have a big nose, right? Because Mario's most distinctive feature is his big nose."
"Oh? It's actually not like that. I just drew inspiration from the role of a plumber, but the character itself was carefully thought out by me."
Takayuki now spoke confidently without any embarrassment. Some things couldn't be lied about, but in this case, where there was no way to verify, he could make up anything.
"As for Mario's image, it was because of the limitations of the game console I developed at the time. The original FC game console I created had very poor graphics performance. After all, it was something my co-founder and I put together in the attic at the beginning, with really no technical expertise, so the graphics could only show very simple pixel blocks."
Takayuki took out paper and pen and began to continue his description while complementing it.
"The initial FC was an eight-bit machine, and the characters inside were very simple pixel images. At that time, I just wanted to make the characters as distinctive as possible within the simple pixels, so the big nose was obviously the most prominent. That's the origin of Mario's big nose."
This incident was actually true from his previous life. Mario's big nose was originally created to express distinctive features in rudimentary pixel art.
Later, Mario's image became a chubby figure with a big nose, while the other character, Luigi, was made taller and slimmer for better distinction in the game.
"So that's it. It's really amazing," Bruno said, looking surprised.
He didn't understand much about programming and computer technology, but Takayuki had explained it as simply and clearly as possible, making it easy for him to understand.
He had imagined many convoluted storylines for game development in his mind before, but in reality, game development often had many coincidences, and at the same time, it was not lacking in drama.
He was very satisfied with this interview. It seemed like he could wrap it up perfectly.