Because console games were more desirable at the time, the PC version's developers thought their game would only sell around 100,000 to 150,000 units, and were gobsmacked when the data came back from EA that the game sold a groundbreaking 1 to 2 million units.
The Paintings on the walls of Hogwarts in the PC release are copies of famous portraits that have their heads replaced with the developers' heads to avoid copyright infringement.
Because the production of the first Harry Potter movie was top secret, KnowWonder's request for onset photos lead to blurry photos coming back to them that were unusable. This caused them to send one of their devs named Phil to the set in order to write down everything the set designers did with all of the locations and the team then proceeded to base their environment work of their game solely off of Phil's writing and memory.
They also based the environments off of the heavy research they did on old and medieval British Architecture.
Midway through making the game, PC version developers KnowWonder had to do a hard reset and completely restart their development of the game after the lore restrictions employed by Rowling made their original game uninteresting and a "glorified walking simulator", as they put it. Specifically, much of the KnowWonder's ideas had to be abandoned or worked around because many of the spells they wanted to adapt to gameplay they couldn't because first year Hogwarts students didn't have access to such abilities.
Going back to the drawing board caused the redone game to be rushed and the developers to experience crunch, but despite this, they still "found their groove" that helped them create the final game. The team also greatly understood Rowling's strict demand as they were huge fans of the source material.
Rowling also helped KnowWonder by creating a new spell for the team which didn't appear in her novels or on-screen before: Flipendo, a movement spell. Developer Christo Vuchetich opines that Rowling knew what went into making a game by giving his team vague and simple descriptions for the list of first year spells (i.e. "Flipendo moves things").
Despite being developed by different studios, in all versions but the Game Boy Color version, during the final battle with Voldemort Spoiler:/Professor Quirrell, the player must use the Mirror of Erised in the middle of the room in order to strike and defeat him. This does not happen in either the book or movie version of the story. Spoiler:In those stories, Harry involuntarily "defeats" Lord Voldemort when the villain tries to touch him only for Lily Potter's protection spell that she put on Harry to disintegrate Quirrell and in turn Voldemort's physical vessel.
According to Eidos Senior Project Manager Kevin Gill, he stated that the game came about when he ordered tapings of backyard wrestling footage during a Christmas party:
"[Later] I went to Rob Dyer, the president of Eidos Interactive, and pitched the idea to him. It went through the whole development committee, [and then] we had the task of finding who was the best-suited, most talented developer for the project. The first thing that came to my mind was, 'Well, it could be like Thrill Kill.' Then it was like, 'let's just go right to the source, you know?'"
While Nintendo's name is often translated as "leave luck to heaven," the veracity of this is dubious at best, owed in part to a lack of historical documentation and the wide range of possible readings for the name as written in Kanji. Among other things, "Nintendo" can also be interpreted as the more mundane "the temple of free hanafuda," referring to the company's initial purpose as a playing card manufacturer. Late president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was descended from company founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, admitted that he didn't know what "Nintendo" actually meant, and that "leave luck to heaven" was only accepted by the company because it seemed plausible.
Bowser and the Koopaling's hotels are all references to real-life and fictional hotels: •Morton's WoodDoor-Hysteria = Waldorf Astoria •Roy's HardBrick Hotel = "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley •Larry's Chillton Hotel = Hilton •Lemmy's High-ate Regency Hotel = Hyatt Regency •Ludwig's Thump Castle Hotel = Trump's Castle •Wendy's Blitz Snarlton Hotel = Ritz-Carlton •Bowser's Seizures Palace Hotel = Caesars Palace
In 2018, in the Discord server of the Japanese gaming blog Gamecast, an anonymous former Sega AM2 developer revealed a previously-unknown Easter egg where at the end of the quick-time event at the New Yokosuka Harbor, if you input Hado Hado + A within 3 frames, you will perform a Shin Shōryūken as used by Ryu in Street Fighter III two years prior to Shenmue's release (Note that "Hado Hado" (or 236 236) refers to performing the command for the Hadoken move from Street Fighter by moving the D-pad down, down-right, right in rapid succession, twice in a row).
The developers had originally planned to include this in the game as a tribute, but producer Yu Suzuki stepped in and disabled it from being useable in the final release. For the average player to make the move, it takes 6 frames to perform, but the game lowers the window to successfully perform it to 3 frames, making it impossible to perform under normal circumstances. However, the secret itself was not removed, and would later be discovered and executed by a modder in 2019.
When asked why the Easter egg was added in the first place, the developer added:
"Although we were employees at Sega, we were far from staid workers, and all we wanted to do was make our games fun. We told ourselves we mustn't ever lose that way of thinking.
We attributed a minimum number of various events in parallel to all the characters, so even if the ending is the same, the path to get there will be different for every player. We were trying to do something like that. Quite different from multiple endings. The main story alone was followed without exception, but at the same time we wanted to give all the players a differing experience."
Homeworld's closing theme "Homeworld (The Ladder)" was composed by the British progressive rock band Yes for the game. It was originally released on the band's 1999 album "The Ladder" eight days before the release of Homeworld. The collaboration was spearheaded by lead singer Jon Anderson who wanted a piece of Yes' music to be worked into a video game, which resulted in the band discovering and becoming interested in Homeworld's plot and development, writing lyrics that fit with the themes of the game such as "thoughts that we're all trying to find our way home". Sierra Studios CEO Alex Garden commented that they tried to do as much as they could to tie the real world into their games to enhance the experience and provide a grounding in reality, and that the collaboration with Yes just came together with that philosophy.
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The game's creators Marcus Smith and Drew Murray pitched the game to numerous companies, but all of these pitches broke down over Insomniac's condition that they own the IP for Sunset Overdrive. They ended up pitching the game directly to Microsoft several times, who were more open to Insomniac owning the IP, and they ended up publishing the game as an Xbox One exclusive. The "main pitch" that presented the core ideas of the game to several executives however was noted for being unconventional, with Murray arriving wearing his "lucky shoes", riddled with holes, which he had not changed in two weeks:
Murray: "We're presenting, and I have these wet socks up in Seattle. I swear, there must have been six or seven levels of [Microsoft executive] hierarchy at this thing."
Smith: "It's the guy we know, and his boss, and his boss, and his boss... But it started off with us cluing into the speaker system in the conference room and playing the sample from the beginning of MC5's 'Kick Out the Jams', where it's like, "kick out the jams, mother fucker,' not knowing that one of the executives there hates swearing. And then it ended with Drew on top of a chair, mimicking how the game was going to play, and the last minute heroics. It was epic, and I'm shocked they didn't walk away from the table at that point. But for some reason, here we are."
Nintendo Power held a Turok contest where the Grand Prize winner would have their likeness used in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Juan Gaspar won the contest and was also given a trip to Iguana Entertainment to have his image digitized and voice recorded for the game. His face can appear on the Life Force tokens by activating the "HEEERESJUAN" and "YOQUIEROJUAN" cheats on both the Nintendo 64 and PC versions.
When completing Arcade Mode as Bridget, one possible ending depicts her coming out as a transgender girl, having previously been depicted in earlier games as a cisgender boy who was raised as a girl. This plot development attracted rumors that it was a "bad ending" exclusive to the English localization and that Bridget was still a crossdressing boy in the Japanese release. Eventually, director Akira Katano and developer Daisuke Ishiwatari confirmed on their "Developer's Backyard" blog that Bridget was indeed intended to be a trans girl in the Japanese version and that the game's endings were not written under the pretense of them being "good" or "bad," stating that they simply showcase different, coexisting aspects of each character, indicating that Bridget's trans identity is in place across both of her Arcade Mode endings.
Although the lack of Final Fantasy characters in later Kingdom Hearts titles (such as the base game of Kingdom Hearts III) was met with backlash from some KH fans, Nomura found this to be quite bizarre as he always viewed the series as not at all being the "Disney and Final Fantasy crossover" that it is commonly seen as.
"I understand there weren't that many Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts III. One thing I want to clear up is that a lot of fans are saying that Kingdom Hearts is this collaboration between Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. But I really feel like that's not the basic concept of Kingdom Hearts; that's not exactly what Kingdom Hearts is.
When we released the first title, we had only a few original Kingdom Hearts characters. When they were interacting with really well-known, beloved Disney characters, I felt nobody really knew these new characters, so it was harder for them to stand their ground just yet. And so, we had a lot of Final Fantasy characters involved to lend a hand for everyone to get to know these [original Kingdom Hearts] characters better.
Now, there are so many original characters from Kingdom Hearts that are so well-loved, and people want to see more of those characters. With Kingdom Hearts III, since we did have so many original Kingdom Hearts characters, it was hard to find room for including more Final Fantasy characters. We're trying to find a good balance for that. I know that some fans were concerned about that and weren't too happy and wanted to see more Final Fantasy characters. That's something we definitely are thinking about. But just with the sheer number of original characters that we have now, it's hard to say what the exact balance is going to be [in future games]..."
According to Tetsuya Nomura, he said that he did not expect the side characters from 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep (i.e. Roxas, Xion, Axel, Saix, Terra, Ventus, Aqua, etc.) to be incredibly popular among fans, especially compared to the main reoccurring cast.
"I really didn't think that the characters from these two titles would become this popular. I had thought that players wanted to see more of characters like Sora or Riku. It was kind of unexpected that the characters from these two titles were so well received. [...] So, if possible, it would be great to include more of them or continue to share more of their story in future opportunities."
Tetsuya Nomura, one of the creators of Kingdom Hearts and the series' recurring director and lead writer, admitted in an interview with Game Informer that it was actually him, not Disney, that was almost hesitant for his character Sora to get in Smash.
"Obviously, I was very happy that we were able to have Sora make an appearance in Smash Bros. Ultimate. Most of the feedback when Sora was [announced] for Smash Bros. Ultimate was, ‘I can’t believe Disney okayed for him to be in this game.’ Behind the scenes, I was actually the one being very picky about his appearance in Smash Bros. Disney was the one that was like, ‘Go ahead! This is a great opportunity.’ I thought it would be tough to pull off because it might clash with the established lore in Kingdom Hearts and the Disney worlds, so it was an opportunity I had to consider very carefully. After seeing how happy everybody was in welcoming Sora to Smash Bros., I feel like the end result was really great."
According to Masahiro Sakurai in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, the game started out as a requested NES adaptation of Kirby's Dream Land, but Sakurai and HAL Laboratory successfully negotiated with Nintendo to make a new game in the series for the home console instead, which became this game. Sakurai also said he and his team wanted this game to be on the SNES, but they simply didn't have the money or resources at the time as HAL was also on the verge of bankruptcy.
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The game contains a lot of debug text, starting at offset 0xC6370 and mixing with the rest of the game's text. Of note, two dates appear in the debug text that may be the dates the game finished development in North America and Europe:
North America: Jun 6 1997.21:45:51 Europe: Nov 17 1997.20:23:27
The rest of this submission contains a few examples of the debug text scattered throughout the ROM. Most of it is routine stuff, but there are some interesting gems in there. The developers were certainly not in a good mood or this was "kinda" a joke from them. Note that "tell dave" likely refers to David Pridie, one of the programmers:
"*** GAME CRASH CONFIRMED!!! ***
ERRRRRRORRR
*** WARNING! generatelevel.c -> PlacePiece is going to plot z+1!
*** ERROR! generatelevel.c -> PlacePiece did not function to avoid breaking a piece!
In 1984, Namco's sound team released Video Game Music, a compilation album produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra bandleader Haruomi Hosono that gathered together various songs from Namco's arcade games. While not the first album to incorporate video game music (being predated by Yellow Magic Orchestra's self-titled debut in 1978), it was the first to consist entirely of it. In turn, Namco composers Shinji Hosoe, Nobuyoshi Sano, Takayuki Aihara, and Hiroto Sasaki would later form Oriental Magnetic Yellow, a parody group based on Yellow Magic Orchestra.
While Nintendo's name is often translated as "leave luck to heaven," the veracity of this is dubious at best, owed in part to a lack of historical documentation and the wide range of possible readings for the name as written in Kanji. Among other things, "Nintendo" can also be interpreted as the more mundane "the temple of free hanafuda," referring to the company's initial purpose as a playing card manufacturer. Late president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was descended from company founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, admitted that he didn't know what "Nintendo" actually meant, and that "leave luck to heaven" was only accepted by the company because it seemed plausible.
Nintendo Power held a Turok contest where the Grand Prize winner would have their likeness used in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Juan Gaspar won the contest and was also given a trip to Iguana Entertainment to have his image digitized and voice recorded for the game. His face can appear on the Life Force tokens by activating the "HEEERESJUAN" and "YOQUIEROJUAN" cheats on both the Nintendo 64 and PC versions.
The North American box art appears to feature a less-detailed replica of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.
In 1984, Namco's sound team released Video Game Music, a compilation album produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra bandleader Haruomi Hosono that gathered together various songs from Namco's arcade games. While not the first album to incorporate video game music (being predated by Yellow Magic Orchestra's self-titled debut in 1978), it was the first to consist entirely of it. In turn, Namco composers Shinji Hosoe, Nobuyoshi Sano, Takayuki Aihara, and Hiroto Sasaki would later form Oriental Magnetic Yellow, a parody group based on Yellow Magic Orchestra.