Shigeru Miyamoto Wanted Super Nintendo World Goers To Climb A Real Mario Flagpole

Nintendo has steadily been branching out beyond just console video Games. The Kyoto company releases mobile titles, designs theme parks, and develops movie projects. And one of its most famous, if not the most well-known, member of the Ninty club has an influential hand over many designs and decisions. That is of course the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto.

At 70 years of age, the Mario/Donkey Kong/ Zelda designer is still busy and active and even managed to get back to his roots in recent years. In an interview with The Verge, Miyamoto said the idea of using his hands to create something fits "really well" as he once studied industrial design at college before he made his name in video Game design. This more tactile approach was utilised in creating Super Nintendo World, a theme park segment that's been created alongside Universal Creative for Universal Studios around the world.

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Besides leading development on Super Mario Run, the company's first major smartphone title, and serving as producer on the upcoming The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Miaymoto and team were also involved with planning and designing Super Nintendo World (Universal was responsible for the actual construction of the parks). And while Miyamoto wasn't exactly fazed by the experience, he did have to contend with important physical forces such as gravity and concepts like Health and safety.

The Nintendo team had to think around the limitations and eventually went with condensing Super Mario for the real world, and honed in on smaller moments, but Miyamoto revealed that one major part of the Games had to be cut from the real-world experience.

Super Mario players will recall that most levels end with Mario ascending steps to jump onto a flagpole, an iconic moment, with the higher part of the pole translating to more points as Mario slides down to head towards a fort. Well, Miaymoto had wanted to include this part of the experience in the theme park.

"I wish people were able to climb higher towards the Mount Beanpole," Miyamoto told The Verge, and the Mario flag actually exists at Super Nintendo World. "But obviously there are safety concerns, so that didn't happen".

But it could have existed quite easily. The legendary Game designer added: "it's unfortunate because the hardware is there". So while the flagpole exists, at the parks in Osaka and Hollywood, the activity wasn't allowed due to safety concerns, but you never know, perhaps an enterprising YouTuber will build it all although jumping in three dimensions will be harder than in 2D.

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