One of gaming biggest icons, Shigeru Miyamoto, was onstage today at Ubisoft’s event ahead of this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo event in Los Angeles.
He joined Ubisoft’s chief executive officer Yves Guillemot to introduce Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, a grid-based strategy game starring Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, and those annoying little Rabbids. This game is coming out for the Switch, Nintendo’s hit portable/home console hybrid that came out in March.
This game is a big deal for Nintendo and Ubisoft’s relationship. Ubisoft has often supported Nintendo consoles. It was even one of the few third-party publishers to release a lot of games for the Wii U (at least for a couple of years). Miyamoto noted onstage that he has known Guillemot for 25 years, and that he knows how much love Ubisoft employees have for Mario. That’s why he could trust them with this game.
Miyamoto also noted that he loves the Rabbids and has figures of them on his desk, which makes me question his judgement a bit. Well, he did make Mario and Zelda. I’ll give him a pass.