Despite the heavily-featured multiplayer mode of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the game’s level design has focused on delivering a single-player experience.

In an exclusive interview with Nintendo Power magazine, Mario Inventor Shigeru Miyamoto has divulged that “We really didn’t think about designing the courses or levels for multiplayer. They’re designed for that single-player experience. But it’s just fun to have more people playing together. We really didn’t go out of our way to build anything specifically for multiplayer. I think the thing that we really had to focus on was kind of the opposite--we had a single-player mode, and all we had to do was make sure that within this level that it could be played with more.”

The game, developed by the same team that brought us the DS version as well as Super Mario Advance, was unveiled by Cammie Dunaway last month at E3- introduced as a four-player game. As such, don’t be expecting much in the way of co-operative tasks like those in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures’. Don’t write multiplayer as an after-thought, however, as both the co-operative and competitive modes are sure to bring plenty of multiplayer joy to your living room when the game ships later this year.

The game was shown off with four playable characters- Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad. Those hoping for a broader selection of characters or perhaps a replacement for the two different toads might be disappointed, since according to Miyamoto- ‘That’s it’.

Source: Nintendo Power Magazine via GoNintendo