Kirby's Rainbow Resort

The blob was first named Popopo, then later Kirby. Mr. Sakurai still can't remember how Kirby ended up being Kirby, and many people have come to their own conclusions. While Kirby does coincidentally (and ironically) have the same name as the famous Kirby vacuum brand, it is highly unlikely. One of the most likely rumors: In the 1980's or so, Nintendo was faced with a huge lawsuit from Atari. This was the time period Nintendo was gaining popularity and rapidly, so this lawsuit was threatening to squash the existence of Nintendo. The laywer who played super hero and saved Nintendo? John Kirby. It is rumored that upon making trademarks and such for the game, a copy was sent to John Kirby who was humored and flattered. While this hearsay does circulate the internet unconfirmed, it sounds somewhat likely.

While Nintendo legend Mr. Miyamoto wanted Kirby to be yellow, Sakurai insisted that he be pink.

There was no doubt some tension leading to the creation of the Nintendo 64 for Sakurai. As the original Kirby's Air Ride was being developed, the release dates kept on being pushed further and further away until one fateful day it was cancelled. No real reason has ever been established why.

As word grew that the development team were going to begin a new Kirby platform game for Nintendo 64 instead, word quickly spread that Sakurai would not work on the game in any form. In fact, Sakurai commented that he would not let himself get involved. Supposedly Sakurai never even laid eyes on the game until it was released, where he played it for the first time himself with the rest of the public. Over the years, many gaming reports would describe Sakurai as 'sentimental', and this became evident as he clearly loss interest for the later games.

Sakurai, game developing veteran working on not only Kirby, but many other HAL games (including the Super Smash Bros. series), quit HAL Labs in June of 2003. While he claims to not have any hard feelings, there seems to be some resentment towards the direction of gaming. The following is an interview from www.video-fenky.com (many thanks!) who translated the interview from a Japanese magazine called Nintendo Dream:

"It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming. Even if it's a sequel, lots of people have to give their all to make a game, but some people think the sequel process happens naturally."

"With times as they are, it's really difficult to make any money for yourself, and I know that I'm taking a big risk here. It's entirely possible that I could just fade right away without ever seeing the light of day again. But even if that happened, I've already decided to myself that I should keep on doing the work I can do, even if it's not all about games."

"When I look across the entire game industry, I think we're at a point where we can't get away with being lazy. The game industry is in big trouble, don't you think? Not a lot of people can survive off game sales these days, and the possibilities that games have to offer are growing smaller and smaller, I think. If games were able to receive a certain amount of support-if people had fun with them, if they sold well-then we should be seeing more innovative, more positive games come out one after the other. But that's not the future I'm seeing right now. The risks are so big that misfiring with one title can flatten an entire company.

That's why you see places trying to stay alive by putting out tons of budget titles and re-releases. Every game company, no matter who they are, is desperate right now. So one possibility is that people will say 'I can't live off this anymore' and leave the game industry in droves. You see a lot of people use terms like 'console wars' and compare the whole thing to a fight for territory. You [the interviewer] and lots of other people in the game industry get termed 'Nintendo people' or 'Some other console's people' by someone you've never even met. But this is no time for that, I don't think."

"If I want to keep producing games as a business, then staying at HAL would be a more stable place to do that. HAL has its advantages. I get a reasonable amount of pay, living in Yamanashi prefecture isn't that bad, the rent's cheap, and I get national insurance, you know?

But I don't care about that sort of stability. Right now I'm far more concerned about the fact that the game industry, which is built from the balance between developers, publishers, and users, is beginning to fall apart at the seams. I think it's possible for me, as a developer, to have people think about this problem through the development work I do. If I stay in one spot, then I can only communicate this to a limited number of people around the company, but if I can go out and reach more people… I think there are lots of people with far greater abilities than myself out there in the world. I mean, I'm entirely focused on games and I really can't do all that much myself, but if I can get in touch with people that have other great talents, then I think that will set off a chemical reaction and in the end we'll have a chance to make new games and better things. People with these talents might be at a loss at what games to make, and perhaps I can help make up for that in exchange for lending me their talent. This may sound idealistic, but it's really what I think."

"If one game sells 40,000 copies and another one sells 20,000 copies, then one sold twice as much as another, right? But if you work for a company, this isn't reflected much in your salary. No matter if your game sells or not, you'll get money deposited in the bank every month on the month, so sometimes you see cases where developers get indifferent towards money and lose the feeling that they're really earning what they make. On the other hand, gamers take money out of their wallets and use it to buy your game. This difference is making gamers and developers drift farther and farther away from each other.

I talked with different people from around the industry about this, and it always seemed like the people who understood what gamers want the most are the guys in sales or the guys working in the stores. But isn't that messed up? It's completely messed up that the people actually making the games are the farthest away from what gamers want. I want to do something about that. I'm not saying I want to change the game industry or anything huge like that, but I just want to do something.

But coincidentally enough-we didn't arrange this or anything-some people in this same industry, people that are fairly well known as developers go, are leaving or moving around in their companies. Other things are going on besides [Yoshiki] Okamoto's new company... It may all be a coincidence, but there are lots of people who think the way things are right now is no good, and I think it's great to see these people going in a new direction and taking the rest of the industry along with them."

"I don't think I can take any large-scale work for a while, so I doubt I'll suddenly become director on some grandiose project. There is a chance I'll be involved in several titles at once, but I'll need to think over the balance involved carefully. I may be seriously involved in some, but on others I may let the director and staff at the office take care of it and stick to just giving advice."

While the resignation of Sakurai caused a nostalgic grief to some, it is comforting to know that the Kirby series will continue.