Miyamoto - Breath of the Wild didn't impact Mario Odyssey, doing new things with Mario

This comes from a Game Informer interview with Shigeru Miyamoto...

Game Informer: What is the relationship between Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Has the success of Breath of the Wild impacted the development of Odyssey?

Miyamoto: I think starting with myself, there is an underlying philosophy that goes across Nintendo. For example, the Mario team and the Zelda team are in two different places – one is in Kyoto, one is in Tokyo – so they don’t have direct communication. But the people who are leading that and organizing that have this underlying philosophy that they have a pretty direct connection with myself.

In terms of Breath of the Wild and Odyssey, honestly if we were to have waited until the success of Breath of the Wild to make Odyssey it would have been too late. So it’s not that they influenced each other. I think what I did with both teams was when I touched any of the prototypes or tests that they would bring me, I would try to make sure that it feels good, and that it feels good.

Game Informer: How much do you consider Mario fiction? Is it important that there is some consistency? Or is it important that it is so malleable between games?

Miyamoto: I think it’s okay and it’s great for Mario to keep evolving. Even with this title, the idea of New Donk City? The idea of being in a realistic city with people of normal height hanging out, and Mario’s hanging out and he’s like half their size, we were definitely worried and we were worried that people might not understand it or be able to accept it. But it seems like it has been pretty accepted and received pretty naturally. With Mario jumping up and down on a taxi or walking at the edge of a building? It seems like people are accepting it naturally. I just want to make sure little kids don’t go copying him and do that.