The utterly brilliant translation site Shmuplations has just published a 1989 discussion between Shigeru Miyamoto and Shigesato Itoi, and during the surprisingly in-depth chat between the two legendary game designers, the former predicts the arrival of 'cosy' titles like Animal Crossing.
Originally published in Gamer Handbook and published shortly after the release of the first Mother game on the Famicom, the discussion sees Miyamoto and Itoi touch upon many different elements of game design in the late '80s – but when Miyamoto is asked about death in video games, the conversation becomes amazingly prescient:
"You can even die on purpose. In the real world, if you choose "YES," you can never see what would have happened with "NO." But the essence of play is wanting to see both. That's just the nature of games. If we made games where dying meant starting over from zero every single time, people would find that world too harsh to want to play in.
That's why I think it would be fascinating if RPGs moved away from just making the scenarios more complex. Instead, imagine a game with only five houses, but where the "neighborly relations" within those five houses were endlessly deep. It'd be really interesting if more people started making things with that kind of focus. Even if hundreds of games like that came out, I bet every single one of them would be enjoyable in its own way."
The first Animal Crossing (Dōbutsu no Mori on the N64) wouldn't arrive until 2001, which is over a decade after this interview was published. It just goes to show how ahead of the game Miyamoto has been throughout his entire career.
The full interview is well worth a read, so make sure you head over here to do just that.