NanaOn-Sha founder Masaya Matsuura 

There are a number of ultra-talented game designers, but how many of them can plausibly claim to have invented an entire genre? With PaRappa the Rappa (1996), UmJammer Lammy (1999) and Vib-Ribbon (1999) to his credit, it's not a stretch to declare NanaOn-Sha founder Masaya Matsuura the father of the rhythm game, to whom the creators of such varied franchises as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero owe a tremendous debt. Matsuura stepped away from music games for a few years, focusing instead on the Tamagotchi Connection series for Bandai Namco, before returning to the genre with the iPod game musika. More recently, the U.S. publisher Majesco announced that Matsuura would be reuniting with artist Rodney Greenblat, with whom he had collaborated on Parappa. Their purpose? To create an original rhythm game for the Wii called Major Minor's Majestic March, where players gesture with the Wii remote to control the tempo of a marching band.

Later today, Matsuura and Robot Sound president Ryo Watanabe will be giving a talk at the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit titled "A Sense of Fun: Anybody Could Be Your Player 1." We got the jump on some of the things that Matsuura plans to discuss by speaking with him via phone last week from his native Japan. In our exclusive interview, he explains the controls for Major Minor's Majestic March, why Nintendo should ignore him rather than share any insights gained from the still-in-development Wii Music, and why he's so happy to see Harmonix succeed. For our part, we potentially influence the direction of the game with our suggestion that Matsuura explore the world of historically black college and university marching bands as a source of inspiration. Read on.

Where did the idea for Major Minor's Majestic March come from?

Let me try to remember. [Laughs] We had been thinking about the possibilities to make some new games for Wii. We were focusing on a music-based game, but he first rhythm-based game on the PlayStation from us had already been a decade ago. I wanted to make much more sophisticated and advanced types of things for the new environment. So maybe controlling the marching band and marching music sounds a little weird, but I thought that would be an interesting for everyone. This is where we started.

What was it about marching bands that you thought could work well as a game?

At the start, I thought that simply controlling the band by defining the tempo, or the BPM [beats per minute] by shaking your hands--it's like conducting a band. But after that, I started to think about much more game functions. Certain instrument players love a faster BPM and other instrument players may not like that. So the conductor has to concentrate on all of his band members and figure out what kind of BPM will be suitable for the current membership of the band. Of course, the player can control the BPM, so you can play with very slow tempo or a very fast tempo. But if you play the very slow tempo then maybe some members will disappear from your band. So these kind of things were the basic start of our game function ideas.

How would you describe the structure of the game? Where do you start and what's your goal?

The goal depends on the game mode. We are still thinking about how many game modes we'll have. For example, time challenge requires you to clear the hole music course as quickly as possible. Another mode may be how many band members you can get at the course. So there will be different game modes.

But for the basic game function, you will set up an initial BPM [beats per minute] by shaking the Wii controller and you start marching. Along the street and the road, you can find some one who wants to join your band. And you can invite these kind of people into your band. So it requires some kind of rhythm-based actions. But, of course, this kind of action is already controlled by your shaking the controller. And if you successfully invite the member into your band, you not only get that new member but also their new instrument as part of your band. And you keep doing that.

At the start of the stage you will not yet have a gorgeous orchestration. Maybe it will be a very simple and monophonic type of music coming from the speakers. But if you get a new member, one part will be played by that new member. If you can keep going and recruiting new members, the music grows bigger and more gorgeous. And finally, you will reach the goal or the stage rank. We will have very kind of simple stories that leads the player to understand what's the broader mission of the game. So that is the basic structure.

How long ago did you start development on the game and about how far along would you say you are?

Recently, we've been spending kind of a long time to design the game. We call that prototyping. We spend sometimes over a year or a little longer than that. During that time, we are improving the game functions and the basic ideas. For this game, we've already spent a year or a little longer than that. Last October, we started the actual production. So it's just passed three months.

And when you compare this to previous rhythm games you've worked on like PaRappa the Rapper and Vib-Ribbon, how much more complicated is it making a game that's designed--a rhythm game that's designed around gesture as opposed to pressing buttons?

That's kind of a difficult question for me. Actually, our most recent title was not PaRappa or Vib-Ribbon. That was already almost ten years past already. Recently we have been working on Tamagotchi Connection for DS, which is not a music based game.

Right.

So we already have a little wider experience, more than just music-based games. And as you know, Guitar Hero, SingStar and Rock Band are already very big hits in the Western market. We can't do a similar kind of thing so, of course, we have to challenge ourselves to do something new. About the gesture controls: it is very hard, so we are still struggling to figure out what kind of gestures are suitable for this game. It's very hard.

Nintendo showed a demo a couple of E3s ago with Miyamoto conducting on stage--the game was called Wii Music at the time. Have you gotten any particular help from Nintendo for your game? Have they shared any knowledge that they have learned from their development, or have you been pretty much working on your own?

Actually, no. Ignoring us would be the best help for us. [Laughs.]

Why do you say that?

I don't know. We are just a third-party, and at this moment, I shouldn't have any detailed information about Wii Music. Maybe that would make me confused a little about what I'm trying to do.

Will the music be original music or licensed?

Basically, licensed music, but we will make very aggressive arrangements for the original music scores. I mean it's not just arranging but for the game, if you play with something--we have a situation where if you shake the remote to quickly switch from faster tempos to slower tempos or vice versa, the music goes very strange. Everybody plays a very strange sound. Those kind of things are very interesting for me. It really sounds like original tracks.

So you're saying that even licensed music can still sound original because of how the music changes in the game?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the music changes in real time.

Just to make sure I understand: the music, can you change the tempo of the song while you're playing the song or do you set it and then it stays that way for the whole song?

You can change it. But we are still trying many ways to set up controlling input method so that it's easy to understand for everybody. Right now, we are doing simultaneous concerts--changing the tempo when you get new band members. Or sometimes we separate controlling the tempo and getting new members independently at different times. So it's changing dynamically right now.

Got it. So right now, the music changes dynamically if you change the tempo with the remote?

Yes.

Is the game being designed for a Japanese audience first, or are you making with an American and European audience in mind?

We are designing for the Western market first. And we are now trying to find a Japanese publisher. Maybe we can find one soon, I hope.

How did you end up connecting with Majesco on this game? Is this an idea that you had and said, "I'd like to make this game and work with them?" Did they have the idea? How did it go?

I don't remember exactly the start of our relationship. I think we had a chance to meet in New York, last year or a little earlier than that. But anyhow, I went to New York for something, and I met the Majesco people there. We discussed about the possibilities to work together, and I returned to Japan and started to think about the product, the game. As I told you, we made a prototype, we showed that to them, they liked our ideas, and it started, the collaboration.

What kind of research have you done into marching bands?

Ah. Yeah, you mentioned a very nice suggestion for me in your email. [Note: we originally sent Matsuura the questions for an email interview, but switched to a telephone Q&A for time constraints.] I have to start looking into Grambling, Southern and Hampton [universities].

Right. And there's another one, Florida A&M.

What?

It's called Florida A&M or FAMU, F-A-M-U.

Uh-huh.

It's another amazing historically black college marching band.

Florida A&M?

Yes.

Okay, I will investigate that.

For me, the marching bands and marching songs don't sound contemporary. But I don’t know, I really love to listen to marching songs sometimes, especially for depressing situations. When I drive a car along--usually I listen to very contemporary music every day. But once I started to listen ancient, old marching songs, it was very encouraging, uplifting. So that would help everybody who plays the game, too, I think. [Laughs.] This is a very simple reason.

Is there a big marching band tradition in Japan?

Not tradition. I should mention a little bit about our marching band history. It's always been connected with political commercialism. To dig up the history of our Japanese original marching band can easily become a military advertisement, especially for the last war. I really don't want to make the people aware of these kinds of bad memories. I want to avoid these kinds of bad memories, especially for the older people. On the other hand, we have many amateur brass bands or marching bands in junior high or high school and college. So we have very nice brass bands and marching bands in our country.

So you're saying that you're not drawing on the older tradition of marching bands in Japan which is connected to politics and the military but more collegiate and high school bands?

Yeah, that's true. Yes. Even for me, I really don't know about the old military marching band sounds and  tunes. So, I've spent some time learning about that kind of old history.

Are there any other particular countries' marching bands that you're drawing on?

Yeah, we are investigating some European countries like Germany or Austria. They already have very interesting tunes.

Going back to something that I was about to ask earlier: before I had sent you the questions via email, you weren't familiar with the black marching band tradition in the United States, but you're saying you might look into that now?

Yeah.

The game obviously uses the Wii remote. Does it use one or two?

We are focusing on one controller. But we are thinking about a cooperative mode with several players or a competitive mode or something like that. Basically the game is one controller for one player. But maybe several players will be able to play together.

Are you investigating online play, or does it make more sense for this kind of game to be played on a single machine?

Currently, we are focusing on the single machine instead of having network facilities.

Will it use the nunchuk at all? Do you have to move your band around or--

No, not right now. As I told you, we are still investigating the various kinds of ways of controlling the game by using the Wii controller. During this kind of investigation, sometimes we are trying to add the nunchuk to do something or other. Or sometimes we give up on that. It's very fluid right now.

Since it's a marching game, what about the Wii balance board? Is that something that you think that might make sense to incorporate into the game?

[Laughs.] Wii Fit?

Yes.

Currently, we're not thinking about using the Wii Fit board. Of course, we have to think about it, but I think it requires a little more time to know about that hardware.

Yeah. Maybe for the sequel?

Yeah. Maybe.

I just have a few more questions. How do you and [visual designer] Rodney Greenblat collaborate on a game? How do you work together? And which kind of visual style should we expect to see from the game?

It's, how can I say it--the visual style is Rodney-style. [Laughs. It's really unique and original. Also I never say to him, "Please make this more stylish." I really respect his art style. So maybe it's very Rodney-style, actually.

Majesco is based in New York, as you know. Rodney lives in Soho. So they are very close physically. Majesco's people really loved PaRappa, so they really wanted us to work together again for this game. That was a very strong request they made of me.

Several top developers in the West--and you talked earlier about the success of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero and SingStar--a lot of the top developers who have made those games have cited PaRappa the Rapper as laying the foundation for the music game genre. Why do you think PaRappa was so influential?

Oh....[Pause.] I don't know. Maybe he's cute. Or how can I say it? [Pause.]

Actually, we really don't think about having intellectual property rights, like DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act], for music-based games or rhythm-based games. This means rhythm-based games are open for any kind of developers. Some intellectual properties owned by other companies do that. But we didn't do that. So a music-based game is very open type of genre. I think that will be helpful to any developer who wants to make a music-based game.

What do you think of Guitar Hero and Rock Band?

I really like them. I remember the first time I met with the Harmonix people when they came to Tokyo. It was 1997, I think. And at that time, they made a kind of interactive music experimental software on PC. So I strongly recommended to them that they make a game. Guitar Hero is a kind of a very good answer from them. So I really love to see their success in the industry. Very happy.

Do you think those games will succeed in Japan?

It's kind of a hard question for me because as you know, rhythm-based games in this country already happened a decade ago. So many Japanese audiences already are less interested in rhythm-based games.

Also, Guitar Hero and SingStar require a peripheral, so Japanese publishers don't want to have to stock those peripherals. It makes the risk higher. This is a very simple reason.

So that's potentially one advantage if you find a publisher for Major Minor's Majestic March: it won't require separate a peripheral. You can just use your remote.

Yeah, that's true. We don't need any additional peripherals.

There are a number of fans here in the United States of your earlier games, like PaRappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon. What do you have to say to those fans who would love to see a sequel to either or both of those games?

Thank you. I have to say thank you. [Laughs.]

Well, thank you very much for your time, Matsuura-san. I appreciate it.

So I'll see you at DICE?

Yes. I'll look forward to seeing your talk.

Yeah. I will play the _______ ____ there.

You will play the _______ ____ there?

Yes. It's secret.

Okay. So we won't reveal it. But will you be--I know you're giving a talk at DICE. Will you be showing the game or just talking about it?

We are showing something, but not yet the game.

Great. All right. Well, thank you again for your time.

All right. Take care