Interviews

Here I have collected complete transcripts of interviews that pertain to Zelda and to Nintendo's game production process. You can choose to view the full transcript, or you can download the transcript in txt or html format.

Some good places to get Nintendo interviews are The Adventure of Hyrule and Miyamoto Shrine. A lot of the html transcripts came from these sites, and I tried to keep my titles consistent with their titles. IGN Cube also has a large archive of their own interviews.

Eiji Aonuma Addresses Hyrule Warriors’ Place In The Zelda Timeline
June 11, 2014 Eiji Aonuma Addresses Hyrule Warriors’ Place In The Zelda Timeline
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Inside Zelda #14: Exploring the Depths
July 1, 2006 Nintendo Power continues it's Inside Zelda feature. This time it focuses on Shinko Makeshita, who leads the dungeon graphics design team.
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Inside Zelda #13: The Sounds of Twilight
June 1st, 2006 Nintendo Power continues it's series of interviews, this time focusing on Toru Minegishi, the man in charge of Twilight Princess' sound and music.
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Inside Zelda #12: The Role of the Sidekick
May 1, 2006 Part twelve of Nintendo Power's Inside Zelda series focuses on Makoto Miyanaga, the assistant director for Twilight Princess.
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Zelda Webmaster Round Table
April 22, 2006 A group of 19 different Zelda webmasters from various sites got together on IRC to answer questions about and discuss Zelda. The result was very interesting.
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Inside Zelda #11: Behind the Landscapes in Hyrule
April 1, 2006 This time Inside Zelda focuses on Makoto Sasaki, the environmental programmer for Twilight Princess. Very interesting.
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Inside Zelda 10: The Monsters In His Head
March 1, 2006 The tenth part of Nintendo Power's Inside Zelda series. This one focuses on Yoshiyuki Oyama, the man in charge of enemy design in Twilight Princess.
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Inside Zelda #9: Living the Code of Honor
February 1, 2006 The ninth part of Nintendo Power's Inside Zelda feature takes a look at Kazuaki Morita, a programmer who has had the pleasure of working on Zelda games since the very first.
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Seeing the Sights in Hyrule
Jan 1, 2006 Part eight of Nintendo Power's Inside Zelda feature. This time it focuses on Atsushi Miyagi, Twilight Princess' visionary landscape designer.
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An Honest Perspective on Hyrule
Dec 1, 2005 Part 7 of Nintendo Power's fantastic Inside Zelda series. This time the focus is on Takumi Kawagoe, the man responsible for cut-scenes and trailers for Twilight Princess.
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A Link Unlike Any Other
Nov 1st, 2005 The sixth part of Nintendo Power's monthly feature on members of the Twilight Princess development team. This one is focused on Keisuke Nishimori, the guy responsible for animating the player-characters of Twilight Princess.
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The Lead Story On Bit Parts
October 1, 2005 Part 5 of Nintendo Power's Inside Zelda feature. This one focuses on Satomi Asakawa, a character designer at EAD.
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Why is Shigeru Miyamoto so Damn Happy?
Sept 1st, 2005 A fairly interesting interview with Miyamoto conducted by EGM magazine. Little to do with Zelda in particular, but it delves a little bit into Miyamoto's life and personality.
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Zelda Watch
september 1, 2005 Yet another Aonuma interview from Electronic Gaming Monthly regarding Twilight Princess.
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Natural Rhythms of Hyrule
September 2005 Part IV of Nintendo Power's "Inside Zelda" section, a monthly check-in on the Zelda development team. Here, the focus is on Koji Kondo, legendary composer of the Zelda series. A very interesting read, especially for those with a great interest in video game music.
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Portrait of Nintendo's Illustrator
Aug 1st, 2005 Part III of Nintendo Power's monthly "Inside Zelda" series. This time it's focused on Yusuke Nakano, one of Nintendo's artists and the guy responsible for a huge amount of Zelda artwork. Extremely interesting read.
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The art of Twilight Princess
July 2005 Part II of Nintendo Power's monthly check with the Twilight Princess development team. This time it focuses on Satoru Takizawa. It's not an interview, really, since Takizawa is not actually answering questions.
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The Vision Guy
June 1, 2005 The first of Nintendo Powers interviews with prominent members of Twilight Princess' development team. This one is with Aonuma, and he talks about the development process, his own interests and background, and on several other things.
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EGM's June '05 Aonuma interview
June 2005 For the June issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, EGM staffer Mark MacDonald flew down to the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto to interview Eiji Aonuma nd Koji Konda. This it the Aonuma interview.
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EGM and 1UP.com's Bonus Aonuma interview
May 3, 2005 The June issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly featured quite a bit of information on the upcoming GC Zelda game, along with an Aonuma interview. But there was a large portion of the interview that they had left out of the magazine, which they later poster on 1UP.com. This is that bonus interview.
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EGM and 1UP.com's Koji Kondo interview
May 3, 2005 For the June issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, EGM staffer Mark MacDonald flew down to the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto to interview Eiji Aonuma nd Koji Konda. This it the Kondo interview.
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Interview with Scott Gall
March, 2005 Scott Gall is a localization project manager for a game publisher in Japan. Zelda Legend's own staff member, Max Nichols, also know as lord-of-shadow, contacted him and eventually conducted this interview about the translation process.
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Satoru Iwata Keynote - GDC 2005
March 10, 2005 This is transcript of Satoru Iwata's keynote at the Game Developer's Conference of 2005. Here is where gamers first learned of some impressive new features to come for Nintendo fans in the future, such as WiFi play and backwards compatibility.
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A Legend of Zelda: The Eiji Aonuma Interview
May 17, 2004 A relatively uneventful interview with Aonuma by Game Informer.
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Miyamoto and Aonuma on Zelda
May 12th, 2004 A roundtable interview with Miyamoto and Aonuma during E3 2004, when Twilight Princess was first announced.
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Miyamoto Speaks!
Jan 1st, 2004 An "interview" with Miyamoto, from the wonderful book The Illustrated History of Electronic Games; High Score!, by Rusel Demaria and Johnny Wilson, which I highly reccomend.

I reason I put the quotation marks around "interview" is because there aren't really any questions asked - it's basically just Miyamoto writing on a few different subjects.
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Camp Hyrule 2003 - Localization Team Guest Chat
August 13, 2003 NOA's annual Camp Hyrule is a ripe time to get quotes from NOA staffers. This time, campers got a chance to chat with the NOA localization team, the ones responsible for translating the Japanese games! Certain dedicated Zelda fans were well-prepared, bringing good Zelda questions and preparing to type the transcript out so it would not be lost to posterity. TSA got in two really good Zelda questions, and Dryth from Independent Zelda typed the transcript. A lot of stupid questions got in too, but there are some golden moments.
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GameSpy, A Chat with Eiji Aonuma
July 21, 2003 GameSpy interviews Aonuma about various things.
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EGM issue 167, The Wind Waker Afterthoughts
June 2003 EGM interviews Miyamoto and Aonuma about The Wind Waker.
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Computer and Video Games - Aonuma E3 2K3
May 23, 2003 Interview with Aonuma at E3 2003 about The Wind Waker.
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Computer and Video Games - Miyamoto E3 2K3
May 16, 2003 Interview with Miyamoto at E3 2003.
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Superplay interview with Miyamoto
April 23, 2003 Translation by SuperSectionX. Interview featured in Super PLAY 04/2003 issue.
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Extended Play - Miyamoto and Aonuma on TWW
March 21, 2003 This was an interview conducted with Miyamoto on the TV show Extended Play about Wind Waker.
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DICE Summit, Miyamoto and Aonuma (Gamers.com)
March 2, 2003 According to Gamers.com, this translation of the discussion was done by NOA's Bill Trinen.
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DICE Summit, Miyamoto and Aonuma (Gamecubicle)
March 1, 2003 This is Gamecubicle's version of the same DICE roundtable discussion.
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GameSpot Shigeru Miyamoto Q&A at DICE
February 28, 2003 GameSpot had a chance to sit down and chat with Shigeru Miyamoto at the annual DICE Summit in Las Vegas. Miyamoto and Aounuma covered a range of topics, including the current state of the industry, the GameCube hardware, sequels, and working with third-party developers to produce high-profile content for the GameCube.
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DICE Summit, Miyamoto and Aonuma (IGN)
February 28, 2003 This is IGN's version of the official roundtable discussion with Miyamoto and Aonuma at the 2003 DICE conference. They discussed Wind Waker and other topics.
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Virgin Megastore Roundtable, Miyamoto and Aonuma
Febuary 21, 2003
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SuperPlay Interview with Miyamoto
January 21, 2003 Translated by gamersmark.com. This interview reveals that Miyamoto didn't want to go with a cel-shaded look for TWW.
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Eiji Aonuma interview from Game Informer
2003 This is an excerpt from a Game Informer interview with Aonuma.
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Wind Waker Summit (GamePro uncut version)
December 6, 2002 GamePro's version of the interview claims to be uncut, and indeed it does have some interesting parts that the other versions do not.
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Wind Waker Summit (GameSpy version)
December 6, 2002 GameSpy also reported on the event, and also have a slightly different transcript. (They list "GameSpy" as the one asking all the questions, but this isn't correct. It was various members of the press.)
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Wind Waker Summit (short IGN version)
December 4, 2002 IGN Cube was the first site to report on the summit interview. They only gave a few teasers in this first article.
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Wind Waker Summit (full IGN version)
December 4, 2002 IGN Cube later released the full transcript of the event. According to them, this is a "full transcription of the translation offered by Bill Trinen of Nintendo of America." However, if you look at the NOA transcript below, there are slight differences. It seems NOA continued to edit it.
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Wind Waker Summit (NOA version)
December 2002 About three weeks after the event, NOA finally released their transcript of the event on Nintendo.com. It was also published in Nintendo Power vol.165 (Aug. 2003), pp.41-42. Their transcript also differs from the others slightly. This transcript might be considered the "official" transcript. However, NOA admits that this interview "has been edited for clarity and length." I'm more inclined to trust the unedited transcripts, like the GamePro version.
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Famitsu Wind Waker interview with Eiji Aonuma
October 10, 2002
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Miyamoto on Zelda, Nintendo Book Winter 2002
September 25, 2002
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IGNcube interviews Miyamoto
August 16, 2002 IGNCube talks about games with Miyamoto.
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Nintendo Power interviews Miyamoto, Tezuka, Koizumi
August 9, 2002
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Interview from Nintendo Power vol.158
July 2002 Nintendo Power interviews Miyamoto and Iwata.
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Nintendo Power Magazine Interviews Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata at DICE 2002
March 5, 2002 Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Iwata talk Triforce, 1080, E3 and more at the 2002 DICE conference.
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Oracle Games Interview
April 11, 2001
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N.O.M interview with the Director of Majora's Mask, Eiji Aonuma
August 24, 2000 Here "Nintendo Online Magazine" (run by NCL) interviews Aonuma about MM.
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E3, Majora's Mask Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma Interview
2000
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Spaceworld '99 Talkin' with Miyamoto
1999 Nintendo.com interviews Miyamoto at Spaceworld 99. Topics include MM, the Oracle games, and Miyamoto's role.
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Miyamoto on Zelda
November 13, 1998 Nintendo Power's Jason Leung Interviews the Master. This is the interview where Miyamoto states his infamous order.
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N.O.M Ocarina of Time interview with Shigeru Miyamoto
November 1998 Here "Nintendo Online Magazine" (run by NCL) interviews Miyamoto about OoT.
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IGN, Miyamoto Shows off Zelda 64
May 26, 1998 Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto answers questions about Zelda 64, the future of Nintendo, and his life.
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Famimaga 64 - Miyamoto answers 100 questions about OoT
November 26, 1997 The Japanese magazine Famimaga 64 asks Miyamoto 100 questions about OoT.
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Nintendo Power 99, The Game Masters
August 1997 Nintendo Power interviews three game developers, including Miyamoto, on their theories and experiences.
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Nintendo Power, Famimanga 64 Meet Mr. Miyamoto
October 1996 Nintendo Power vol.89 (Oct. 1996) translates a Famimaga 64 interview with Miyamoto about various N64 projects.
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Nintendo Power 80, Shoshinkai 1995, Miyamoto and Tezuka
January 1996 Nintendo Power asks Miyamoto and Tezuka about various N64 projects at Shoshinkai 95.
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