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?

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