Nintendo's upcoming competitive paint shooter, Splatoon, could have been another Mario game, the company's iconic game designer and senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto has said.

“There were heated debates over who the main character should be [in Splatoon],” Miyamoto told Edge magazine in an interview (via MCV). “Whether it should be Mario, or the squid. When we talked about the possibility of it being Mario, of course we could think of the advantages: anybody would be willing to touch it as soon as we announced that we had a new Mario game. But at the same time, we had some worries. If it were Mario, we wouldn’t be able to create a new IP.”

Nintendo first revealed Splatoon at E3 2014. It was a surprise both because it's the first new IP Nintendo has announced a long time, and because it's a competitive shooter, not a genre the family-friendly company is known for. However, as GameSpot's Managing Editor Randolph Ramsay said in our first hands-on coverage of the game, it's exactly how you'd imagine a Nintendo-made competitive shooter would be: colorful, charming, and non-violent.

In the game, two teams of four players armed with paint guns have to try to cover the level with as much of their team's color. Players also have the ability to transform into a squid, and swim through any area splashed with their team's color.

Splatoon is set to release on Wii U in 2015.

Are you happy to see new IP from Nintendo, or do you wish Splatoon was a Mario game? Let us know in the comments below.