Iwata
Why did you choose Kid Icarus this time?
Sakurai
Your first request was to make an original game.
Iwata
Yes. After Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out for Wii, I didn't think the right course was to make a game in the same series right away. So I said, "Let's do something a little different." Also, the new hardware, the Nintendo 3DS, was coming out, so to appeal to consumers, I wanted you to make something the in-house Nintendo development team wouldn't. I made those two requests.
Sakurai
After I’ve thought about those requests and other various factors, I thought we would make a shooting game with air battles and land battles. At the same time, I wondered if we couldn't revive a stalled series from the Nintendo lineup. I thought of which titles would be effective, and the central protagonist, Pit, is an angel who can't fly, so I thought it might be interesting if he could fly via a kind of magical power and headed down toward earth.