You have to get used to thinking about how you can do something easily. That's a completely different approach than saying, "I'll work hard at it!"

 

Yeah. I do say, "Put forth effort," but I also say, "Don't put forth unnecessary effort."

 

When you do a poor job during times of input, there's no way your output will be good.

 

How should I put it? My parents always said, "Don't change your vessel all the time."

 

At the time, when someone came to me and said, "I'm having trouble because there isn't enough memory," I was—to be honest—really happy. (laughs) Seeing if you could achieve programming for the same functions with a smaller amount of memory was one way for a programmer to show off.

 

The above graphic is from when they first decided to make the sky blue in Super Mario Bros.

Read the Mario 25th Anniversary talk here.