Mother creator talks Iwata as a programmer

We all know Nintendo President Satoru Iwata as the lovable little man with an affinity for announcing nonexistent games, but what was he like as a lowly programmer? In a recent interview, Mother creator Shigesato Itoi sheds a little light on Iwata-san, the programmer. 

“When we were working on games called MOTHER, I decided who I wanted to team up with because one person had said, ‘Programmers aren’t allowed to say ‘no’.’ Basically, that programmers can’t say, ‘We can’t do that,’ to any ideas we would come up with. After hearing this from one of the programmers – who happens to be the president of Nintendo now – I said, ‘Oh?! I can just tell you to do whatever I want?” To which he responded, ‘Of course. That IS your job, after all, Mr. Itoi.’ He told me, ‘Only at the very end, as a last resort, should one say, ‘We can’t do that.’ Having him say that made everything so much easier on me.“

We’ve heard elsewhere that it’s the programmer’s job to just say yes to the designer’s whims, but it seems the now-President is just as willing as ever to never say no. Only, where’s Mother 3 in the US?

Itoi and the Programmers [Earthbound Central via Go Nintendo]