It's not surprising to hear the lead designer on such a large scale Nintendo launch title talk so passionately about the sport and about their forthcoming title. What was great to hear was how Nintendo was involved: "Nintendo was definitely supporting us the whole time. They were generally happy with what were doing. The ratings board had us make some changes at the very end, and Nintendo had some standards issues, but in terms of the game itself, they were, I think, happy to have what was from their perspective something that was slightly more conventional." Having the title be a launch title, though initially a daunting task, in the end proved to be quite easier than anticipated: "We've known [The release date of the Wii] for a few months now, but it wasn't too much of a rush. We made some pretty good decisions in terms of scope and we didn't try to do too much." The fact that Toys for Bob was taking on not only the task of recreating the Tony Hawk franchise, but also developing a title for a brand new Nintendo system, one that didn't use conventional controllers, caused mixed reactions: "All I gotta say is get your hands on the controller and then see how it feels. It feels great to us, and I'm not just saying that because I worked on the game." This seems to be the same mantra that Nintendo has been telling us since E3; playing equals believing. The real dilemma therefore, is getting the Wii into gamer's hands, as you can only talk about a product for so long before a new consumer needs to play it. This is the biggest problem with the Wii, as at first glance, some may question Nintendo's sanity. However, Toby assures me that Nintendo has quite the winner on their hands with Wii: "Yeah, it seemed like a crazy move on Nintendo's part, but the way it's turning out, it looks like the Wii is going to be huge, It's half the price of a PS3, and developers are excited about it, and if developers are excited about it then that's the main thing. I know that I want every game that I work on in the next couple of years to be released on the Wii." Quite the bold statement from a reputable developer.
