The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild has been a smashing success, mostly thanks to the open world experience, but it seems like the development team wasn't sure the game was going to do well, according to Shigeru Miyamoto.

　　Speaking with Game Informer, the legendary video game designer touched upon the development process of Zelda Breath of the Wild, noting how the team started feeling they were going in the right direction only after they started putting the final touches. And even then, they were not sure if the game was going to do well.

　　Have you been watching the positive reception for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Has it given the Mario team a confidence boost?

　　This concept of open world is something I had when I built the very first Zelda and so it’s not that I have played a lot of open world games to get that concept, but I did feel that, as the franchise was moving forward, that we were losing that concept of open world and so we decided to go back to the essence and really kind of build a game that really brings to life that concept and I was definitely not sure how it was going to be accepted and I think the team was the same way in that we just built a game we thought would really bring to life what we were really trying to accomplish. And even with the last year to six months before the release all we could do was really try to believe in what we created and really polish and finish it up and make sure we felt good about it, and it wasn’t until those final touches that we felt like were going in the right direction. And even then, we definitely weren’t sure if it was going to do well or not, so I was very relieved when it did well.

　　Miyamoto has also been asked about a possible remake of Super Mario 64, stating that he would prefer porting classic Mario games and take advantage of the Switch's unique features, a clear hint at the Virtual Console service that has yet to launch on Nintendo's latest console.

　　Nintendo did such a beautiful job for remaking the Nintendo 64 Zelda titles for 3DS. Do you feel like you’d ever want to see an update of Mario 64 as well? Or do you feel that that game visually holds up well?

　　We have a version of Mario 64 on the DS, and as you mentioned there are Zelda ports on the 3DS, but rather than focus on trying to remake them, I would rather if we were to think about porting them, focus on more recent titles, but using the unique gameplay elements of the Switch. When you think about the playstyle of the Switch it would be great if I could play all classic games on it.

　　The next big Nintendo first party title to release is Super Mario Odyssey, which launches tomorrow in all regions exclusively on Switch