Destructoid says Wired's Tracey John brought up the question (at the same roundtable at which Miyamoto was told Capt. Lou Albano had died.) Miyamoto's response, according to a transcript:

I thought it'd be nice to have her as a playable character, but the toad characters had a similar physique to a Mario character than Peach does. And if one of the four had a dress, we'd have to come up with a special programming to handle how the skirt is handled in the gameplay, and that's really the only reason why Peach isn't playable (laughs). Of course If we had Wario in there we'd have to program a way to make him fart. (laughs)

Here's another way to look at it - if Peach is playable, who are you going off to save?

Miyamoto on the New Mario [IGN: full transcript, the last question is the relevant one. Via Destructoid]

During a roundtable discussion earlier Thursday, Croal asked Miyamoto, straight up: "Where were you when you heard that Captain Lou Albano passed away, and what was your reaction?"

As Destructoid notes, for most of the discussion Miyamoto was able to respond to most questions without a translator. For this, however, Nintendo's Bill Trinen had to step in to translate. Miyamoto processed the question, and this was the reply:

"You're the one who just told me."

Former Journo Tells Miyamoto that Mario is Dead [Destructoid via Go Nintendo]

What good is E3 hype if none of it comes true?

To get you ready for this E3, we've subjected ourselves to re-living the major press conferences of last year's big show. We've pulled all of the predictions, promises and other verbal constructions Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony used to get you excited about their console. And we've seen what became of all those thrilling statements.

Microsoft was yesterday. Nintendo, your E3 2008 promises are being checked today — exhaustively.

Background: The Nintendo press briefing occurred on July 15 at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. This event lasted exactly an hour, and you might remember that it didn't go over very well.

Shaun White "Exclusive"

After demoing Shaun White Snowboarding with the help of Shaun White, Nintendo's executive vice president of sales and marketing, Cammie Dunaway, says: "All of you can have as much fun as I just had when this game arrives exclusively for Wii by year end."

Verdict: Hmmm. Yes, the version of Shaun White Snowboarding that you can play with the Wii Balance Board proved to be exclusive to the Nintendo Wii last fall, but there were Xbox 360 and PS3 versions later in '08 too, you know.

Mario and Zelda Folks At Work

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata: "Our internal team which creates Mario games and the one that makes Zelda games are both hard at work. They will bring new titles to Wii."

Verdict: Expected to come true someday. Not yet.

Animal Crossing Is Coming

Animal Crossing creator Katsuya Eguchi details the features for the fall's Animal Crossing City Folk, including a new city, Wii message board interaction, the ability to send messages to cell phones and PCs too, support for the Wii Speak mic.

Verdict: All these features were included when the game launched.

Wii Speak Is On Its Way

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils Aime says: "Animal Crossing is on its way to Wii by the end of the year with the Wii Speak option."

Verdict: Yup. He was right!

Lots of DSes

FIls-Aime: "By the end of our current fiscal year next March we expect that total DS worldwide sales will grow to almost 100 million systems."

Verdict: Indeed. Nintendo announced that the company achieved this milestone in March, just weeks before the end of its fiscal year.

Three Key Games

Nintendo declined to show a reel of upcoming Wii games, instead showing three that would be out later in the year: Star Wars The Clone Wars, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Call of Duty: World at War.

Verdict: And, yes, those games came out.

Big Franchises on DS

Dunaway: "An even more imaginative interpretation of the [Guitar Hero] franchise called On Tour Decades is on the way… the DS is also the only gaming-dedicated platform where you'll find Will Wright's Spore this year."

Verdict: The new Guitar Hero came out, as did Spore Creatures. And, no, Spore on PC does not count as Spore coming out on a gaming-dedicated platform. Nor does Spore on the Wii, which is coming out this year, not last year.

More Pokemon

Dunaway announces "the next invasion of Pokemon," the release of a new Pokemon Ranger for November 10, 2008.

Verdict: Accurate. It happened.

GTA in the Winter

Dunaway: "We can announce today that a custom version of Grand Theft Auto called Chinatown Wars arrives on DS this winter." She added that the game will feature new characters and the "same free-ranging gameplay GTA fans have come to expect."

Verdict: Depends on when you think winter is. If you thought this meant the Christmas holiday, you were wrong. If you thought this could include March 17, a day that's just barely on the winter side of the vernal equinox, then you and Cammie were spot-on.

DS Non-Gaming Experiments

Dunaway describes experimental DS functionality that will inform you where your luggage is when you get off a plane and where a good restaurant might be. She says "this is all being tested," which isn't a promise that it will come out, but...

Verdict: Again, not a prediction, but also not something that has been released to the public yet. The only thing like it is the DS compatibility with SafeCo Field, which Dunaway also detailed.

MotionPlus Is Coming

Fils-Aime: There will be one Wii MotionPlus accessory and extended jacket packaged with every Wii Sports Resort. And of course others will be sold separately.

Verdict: This hasn't come true yet, but is on the verge of doing so in July.

Wii Sports Resort This Spring

Fils-Aime: "We began our presentation today with a single image in mind: smiling facings. And we believe there will be a lot more of them when Wii Sports Resort launches globally next spring."

Verdict: Ouch. Biggest mistake of the press conference. The game i slated for a June release in Japan but will definitely miss the spring in the U.S. and Europe, where it is scheduled for July.

Wii Music Will Be Fantastic

Fils-Aime: on Wii Music: "It's safe to say it will generate a lot of smiles - new smiles - in a whole new way."

Verdict: Subjective, but sure, why not? We'll give you this one, Reggie.

Wii Music Fulll of Instruments

Nintendo's chief game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto says that In Wii Music you're going to be able to play more than 50 different instruments just by moving your body, that you can save videos of your performance and , play each part of a song before combining your performances into an ensemble piece.

Verdict: Yes, Wii Music let gamers do all of that.

Note: No mention was made during the press conference of what would become the best-reviewed Wii game of 2008, World of Goo. Nor did Nintendo mention the fall (in Japan) launch of the DSi. So, arguably two of the proudest parts of Nintendo's 2008 future were not hyped at E3.

To Sum Up.... Nintendo's press conference was lambasted by hardcore fans, though not entirely for the reasons that the company can't score that well in this one-year-later review. Nintendo got the Wii Sports Resort date wrong, but stuck to accurate predictions otherwise. The problems were that the company just didn't promise that much stuff — not compared to Microsoft the day before. And what it did promise didn't prove to be as bold as exciting as, say, the company's Wii Fit announcement of the year before. As an honest conveyor of Nintendo's quality and quantity of game offerings for the next year, it was only good enough to merit a C.

Next Victim: Sony.

[PIC] - MTV Multiplayer

Said Miyamoto:

"Making these 'traditional' games is what I am best at. Because games of that nature take upwards of two or three years to make, we always have to keep the teams working on those projects going. At any given time, the team could be five to ten people, or it could be 50-plus. People are always switching in and out of those teams.

"They are all working on more Mario, Zelda and Pikmin projects," he said. "And they all work in close proximity to me, so I can keep a good eye on them."

Could it be that all this time, Nintendo has been quietly working on traditional Nintendo titles? That in fact, they've been working all along on their core franchises?

Shigeru Miyamoto: The man behind the Nintendo Wii [Telegraph]

I am happy to say that with so many out there, we have had relatively few incidents.

Top Nintendo Designer Shigeru Miyamoto Talks 'Wii Fit' And Appealing To Unhealthy Americans [MTV]

I don't think Wii Fit's purpose is to make you fit; what it's actually aiming to do is make you aware of your body.

That's why we wanted people to talk with their families about Wii Fit, and become aware of these things together as a group. If you're standing still, and it tells you 'Your body is swaying', you can see on the training results screen that your body has been shaking. But I think you'd never realize that your body is shaking in day-to-day life. I think becoming aware of things like this about yourself is quite interesting.

Iwata Asks: Wii Fit [Nintendo via CVG]

Mario has a creator, Miyamoto, and you have to consider Mr. Miyamoto's thoughts when you're making a Mario game. But we share thoughts back and forth first for quite a long time. And once I start to outline some really broad strokes about where we're going with the game, then I can get a little more feedback from Miyamoto. Then, getting a version together, I have to go to Miyamoto as soon as possible as we can get more feedback.

Over time, as all of these broad ideas get a little more narrowly defined, the feedback becomes a little more subtle, until finally it gets to the point where Miyamoto will give us feedback, and the only person who has any idea what it means is me. And everyone else who is CC'ed on these emails from Miyamoto have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. So I'll translate for everyone else, "I think he's trying to say this." Having that sort of information gap is sort of like a puzzle or a riddle. It's like playing Brain Age.

While 19th out of 50 out of billions isn't bad, his 81.75 rating may draw some harsh criticism from a strong fanbase. I mean, c'mon. Look at that smile, those teeth. Look at that camel hair sport coat. Our man Shigeru is at least a 92.493. He was robbed.

Top 49 men [via gonintendo]

Eds Note: PhotoShop time stamp is ours.

"Cliffy B dropped by to see Haze...He liked the drugs and the violence. Mr. Miyamoto dropped by to see Haze - and he didn't.

Free Radical legend David Doak meets Mr. Mario [gamesradar]

AUTOGRAPHED Club Nintendo Mario Family Set eBay
[Thanks, Steven]

In Part 1, Miyamoto answers a question that many people have been wanting to ask: Are you going to retire anytime soon? You hope the answer is no.

Then we asked him about the future of the DS, and whether another iteration of the Lite is in the works. He said there are no concrete plans for it anytime soon.

The follow up in Part 3 was a lot tougher for him to answer: did Nintendo intentionally manipulate the Wii supply? But if you have been holding out for an apology from Miyamoto for that fact that you couldn't find one this holiday season, then here it is.

The big question on everyone's mind: is E3 dead? In Part 4, we asked Miyamoto for his thoughts on the future of the triple-e, and whether Nintendo would now participate more fully in the Tokyo Game Show.

A Wii upgrade is inevitable. In Part 5 Miyamoto told us about Nintendo's plans for the evolution of the console - including support for HD.

In Part 6, we asked Miyamoto about whether Nintendo has given up on the hardcore gamer market in favor of casual. He challenged us to re-think the definition of hardcore gaming. Touche!

Finally, in Part 7, we corned him about the GameBoy Advance - has Nintendo given up on the platform? You may not like his answer...