In a 1997 interview with "64Dream", Itoi stated that HAL Laboratory's Satoru Iwata joined the project. Itoi said that because of this, "the tools [they're] using to make "Cabbage" are drastically modernizing. Making those tools is the most laborious part. So it looks like that part's finishing up." Furthermore, Itoi said that they were working on the project without supervision of Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi. In 2000, Itoi gave an update on "Cabbage", noting that, as Miyamoto was looking forward to the game, he'd "like to get something done relatively soon". It was planned to be playable at Space World 2000, but no demo ever surfaced. No video or screenshot of the game was ever revealed, because according to Miyamoto, Itoi, and Ishihara got occupied with other projects. Itoi was working on "Mother 3", which was being developed for the 64DD at the time, and Ishihara oversaw projects at The Pokémon Company, which he started in 1998. Around this time, it also became apparent that the requisite 64DD was a commercial failure. Miyamoto has stated in a 2006 interview that, though "Cabbage" news had stopped for so long that he considered it cancelled, "the conversations and design techniques that popped up when [we] were making "Cabbage" are, of course, connected to "Nintendogs" and other things that [we're] doing now." "Kotaku" and "1up.com" have noted that many gameplay concepts and elements in "Animal Crossing" had been first announced as features in "Cabbage".