[This post is the second in a series that recounts the chain of questions I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

Yoshio Sakamoto, longtime designer of many Metroid games responds: "I want him to be there forever. [pause] That's quite a question!"

Sakamoto gave me this answer over much laughter. But Miyamoto had it easy, asking a question of one of his co-workers. Sakamoto had a tougher challenge. I explained that I was next going to interview Xbox Live software and services corporate vice president John Schappert (aka the guy who delivered most of Microsoft's E3 press briefing.) I needed a question. Sakamoto, through his translator, obliged.

Yoshio Sakamoto asks Microsoft corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services John Schappert: "Do you like Metroid?"

And he can't resist throwing in a second question: "Do you like Mr. Miyamoto?"

Later in the day, in a meeting room on the second floor of Microsoft's always-gleaming, always-white E3 Xbox 360 booth, Schappert reached the finish line of my interview with him when I sprang Sakamoto's two questions.

John Schappert responds: "I do like Metroid. And I think Nintendo has made absolutely amazing games. I grew up playing Nintendo. I grew up as a Nintendo SNES programmer… the Metroid on the SNES was phenomenal."

Note that Schappert founded Madden development studio Tiburon and had been making games for multiple hardware generations. The SNES was not an alien object to him. And to the second question about Miyamoto?

"He's my hero. And I proudly have an original Mario drawing that he made for me in my office. He is my inspiration in the industry. I think he crafts some amazing experiences and I think that he is an icon for us all to look up to."

Schappert was my final interview of the day. I'd start the next day with a Sony interview. I needed a Schappert question for it.

John Schappert asks Sony Computer Entertainment of America senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille: "What do you think of Xbox Live?"

Peter Dille's answer will run tomorrow, along with two more links to the chain.

I had tried a chain interview once before. It was March. I still worked for MTV. I traipsed through the Game Developers conference stitching together an interview that began with Boyd Multerer of Microsoft's XNA group, wound its way through Brutal Legend's Tim Schafer, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime, and ended shortly after Fable's Peter Molyneux answered PixelJunk's Dylan Cuthbert's question about what color underwear he was wearing.

I considered my first chain interview a success (though I regretted that it was an all-male thing). Crecente greenlit a second chain effort for E3.

You'll get to follow the links in this chain all week, starting today with the kick-off. The chain began as Crecente and I wrapped up our 30-minute sit-down interview with Nintendo's star designer Shigeru Miyamoto. As with most people, he laughed when I described the concept.

Because he was starting, Miyamoto didn't get to answer a question. He was only allowed to ask one, for the next person I'd be interviewing, who happened to be on the other side of a wall at Nintendo's E3 meeting area.

Shigeru Miyamoto, lead game designer at Nintendo asks long-time Metroid developer Yoshio Sakamoto: "When does he want me to retire?"

Tomorrow: The answer from Sakamoto along with two more links in the chain…