http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=108087Another "we can't animate a skirt" article.
Since this has occurred another time, it kinda raises a flag regarding Miyamoto's "joke". Is it really that hard or is this some running gag we don't understand?
The comments offer up quite a few explanations; read them if you like, but let me condense them down to the three main points they're making (these summaries don't necessarily reflect my personal opinions):
1.) Nintendo, a multi-billion dollar company with tons of resources and experts at its disposal, can animate everything but a skirt. What the hell, Nintendo, what the hell.
Note: Please understand that they're not complaining that it's "not realistic" to omit animation for a dress, but rather because them not wanting to animate skirts can change the premise of a whole game, basically.
2.) Skirts are extremely difficult to animate, so leave them alone (yet HAL can do it, and other "skirt" related things have already been animated such as Link's hat in various games, Ganondorf's cape in Smash Bros, cloths in Luigi's Mansion, etc.) and it all circles back to "Nintendo is a juggernaut of a company and they can't find people to do the back-breaking work for them at the
very least?".
3.) They're obviously joking about the whoooole thing because it's Japanese culture, and as American/Canadian/British/Australian/etc. English speakers, we are apparently incapable of understanding the "true" meaning of their claims.
As for me, I'm gonna lean heavily towards #1.