When Mario Maker was announced at this year’s E3 conference, it showed off the ability to build your own Mario levels. But one of the big questions was about how online sharing functionality would be implemented in the game. Recently, Mario Maker producer Takashi Tezuka confirmed that online sharing is being considered, but that there are problems that still need to be worked out.
In an interview with US Gamer, Tezuka discussed how ranking user-created content in an online space is difficult and sometimes prohibitive to a good sharing experience. Although very popular levels will be seen, he argued, most content becomes buried and undiscoverable. “I would like to consider doing something like [online sharing] with Mario Maker,” he said. “There is a challenge there, though. If you create something and upload it somewhere, of course you want as many people as possible to see it. Naturally, the most popular courses will be seen and played by others, but those that don’t have that top spot may not attract the same number of eyeballs for people looking at them.”
Nintendo’s last attempt to give players the tools to make Mario-related content was the SNES’s Mario Paint, so many people wondered if Mario Maker would feature a return of Mario Paint’s popular music editor. Tezuka affirmed that the team is working on a similar concept in Mario Maker, although the extent of it is unknown right now. “I want to make the music part [in Mario Maker] even more intuitive and easier this time around [than the music editor in Mario Paint] as well. I mean, we’re working on it, and I don’t know exactly what we can do, but that’s our goal.”
Tezuka also talked about potentially bringing the game to 3DS in the future. He explained although the focus is on the Wii U right now, he’d think about working on a handheld version depending on the game’s success. “I don’t know if a 3DS version would work the same exact way, but maybe if Mario Maker does well on Wii U and people really love it, I might consider doing something for 3DS.”
