When it finally debuted at E308, I was less than warm to what I had seen of Wii Music. The whole thing seemed less like a game and more like an interactive music experiment. Judging by the harsh reviews and complaints of my friends who’ve tried it my speculation wasn’t that far off. In a recent interview with EDGE Magazine, Miyamoto goes out of his way to use the word “software” instead of game to describe it and distances himself from all of the other music games on the market. Over the course of six pages he explains how Wii Music is meant to bring the joy of music to failed musicians and young children, not gamers. Some highlights; 

…while I wish I was good enough to perform for people, no matter how much I practiced I still feel that my instrument performance is not very good. It feels to me like I’ve spent the last 30 years trying to become a musician and finally, with Wii Music, I’ve created an instrument that allows me to have that experience.

I really don’t know who are actually going to purchase the game, but I hope that schoolchildren will play… I want many small children to get access to Wii Music.

I did not think about other music software at all when we were developing Wii Music. When it comes to the existence of other music software, maybe I should say I wish for the success of other music software, but Nintendo and I myself really don’t like to be compared to something already exists in the market.

Me? I’ll stick with the kazookeylele thank you very much. Read the full interview here.

I’m a little behind the times, so don’t spoil anything for me — but as I write this I’ve just finished watching the Nintendo press conference and I’m none too impressed. Sure GTA: Chinatown and WiiSports Resort have some potential, but overall I’d rank this one right up there with yesterday’s Microsoft show. Actually — it was even worse.

Why? Because as much as Microsoft didn’t have anything to offer, at least they didn’t let me down.

WiiMusic is something that was teased at E3 two years ago when the Wii debuted, and it looked like it could be fucking phenomenal. The idea of conducting and creating your own music and playing rhythm games with the wiimote sounded too good to be true. And from the mind of Miyamoto? How could it fail?

It’s important to remember that these are just my impressions from the press conference. As time goes on a lot could happen that could put egg on my face for this post. As it stands now though WiiMusic appears to be nothing more than air guitar for dozens of instruments with no real creativity, challenge, or preset goals in front of you. There’s no carrot on the stick.

And yes — they all looked like assholes demoing it. Miyamoto games always have great stories behind them that seem to start “One afternoon I was…” Pikmin for example, started “one afternoon I was working in my garden.” I can see how WiiMusic would go: “one afternoon I was playing Guitar Hero and thought about how much better it would be if there was no guitar and no point.”

Congratulations Miyamoto, you may not be infallible after all.