Development of "Mother 3" began in 1994 for the Super Famicom with Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata as producers. The team mostly consisted of members involved in the development of the previous "Mother" game, "EarthBound." Inspired by "Super Mario 64", the team transitioned from the Super Famicom to the Nintendo 64, believing that they could also creatively flourish by making a 3D world without technical restrictions. However, their early specifications exceeded the capabilities and memory limits of Nintendo 64; halfway through development the team scaled back its large scope and changed the platform to the 64DD, a Nintendo 64 expansion peripheral that was later released only in Japan in 1999. "Mother 3" was expected to be a 64DD launch game, but development shifted back to the Nintendo 64 after the 64DD's commercial failure.