Well, for over a year now at my desk, a prototype program of Luigi and Mario has been running on my monitor. We've been thinking about the game, and it may be something that could work on a completely new game system.

We don't pay a whole lot of attention to the Internet until people have played the game - then we pay a lot of attention to whether people liked it. We read through it and see it, but we don't take it into consideration. ... [The Internet] is not going to dictate the direction of where the game goes.

Angry Birds is a very simple idea but its one of those games that I immediately appreciated when I first started playing, before wishing that I had been the one to come up with the idea first.

Nowadays I think it's really important that designers are really unique and individual.

What comes next? Super Mario 128? Actually, that's what I want to do.

I'm very impressed that there are so many fans - not just in Japan, but here in America - that are fond of the work that I've done. I'm actually kind of embarrassed by it all.

To create a new standard, you have to be up for that challenge and really enjoy it.