Former Nintendo director and current Silent Hill series producer has offered a look into Nintendo's development process. As reported and translated by Automaton, there has been discussion among Japanese game developers on Twitter, with some criticizing designers asking for systems to be implemented "just to check," which in turn would increase the workload of the developers.
Motoi Okamoto, who is currently producing Silent Hill f, weighed in on the discourse on Twitter, where he acknowledges people calling directors who can't judge if something works without implementing it "incompetent" – but as a former Pikmin, Super Mario, and Legend of Zelda developer, Okamoto notes that "at Nintendo, implementing and playtesting is precisely what matters – they don't make decisions based on what they see on paper."
He adds, "Programmers who are lazy about implementing things, and project managers and programmers who try to avoid the trial-and-error process using deadlines and budget restraints as an excuse are removed from development teams without hesitation." And seemingly in response to comments from other users, says, "If you claim you can tell without actually making something, I think that’s just plain arrogance."
Okamoto describes Nintendo as having a culture of "everyone being a director," saying, "If a programmer finds a spec boring, they're free to just implement it in a way they believe will make it entertaining. That's what professional game programmers do."
That being said, Okamoto states, "What’s frowned upon is when a developer can’t make a judgment without elaborate graphics. If you can’t tell whether game mechanics are entertaining based on only stripped-down graphics, you may be treated as incompetent." He also notes that this approach isn't entirely appropriate for some styles of game, though, saying that these judgements could result in expensive assets having to be remade for story-based games.
