Kyogoku:

No, we actually added that quite a bit later. For about the first year, Katsuya Eguchi-san4, Nogami-san, Moro-san and I were talking in a small group, and we were worried that if we said, “You can place all kinds of things around the town in the new Animal Crossing game,” then players would simply take that as being a single element of the game and not see it as a big deal.