Everything about Shigeru Miyamoto totally explained
is a
Japanese video game designer. He is the creator of the
Mario,
Donkey Kong,
The Legend of Zelda,
Star Fox,
Pikmin and
F-Zero franchises for
Nintendo game systems. He has also supervised many titles published by Nintendo on behalf of other developers, including
Metroid Prime and
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
Miyamoto is a world-renowned
game designer, and is often called the "father of modern
video gaming". Video games designed by him typically feature refined control-mechanics, intuitive gameplay, simple story lines, and imaginative worlds in which the players are encouraged to discover things for themselves.
Employed by Nintendo as an artist in
1977, he was given the task of working on one of their first coin-operated
arcade games. The resulting title was
Radar Scope, which wasn't as big of a success in the United States as Nintendo had hoped. Miyamoto later reused the game's hardware and
modded it into
Donkey Kong which was a huge success as well as a turning point in video game history. The game's lead character,
Mario — then called Jump Man — became an easily recognizable video game character and Nintendo's
mascot. Miyamoto quickly became Nintendo's star producer, designing many franchises for the company, most of which are still active.
He is currently the Senior Marketing Director of
Nintendo and General Manager of
Nintendo EAD. In
1998, Miyamoto was the first person inducted into the
Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Shigeru Miyamoto was born in
Sonobe (now
Nantan),
Kyoto,
Japan. He is the second child of Iijake Miyamoto and Hinako Aruha. As a young boy, Miyamoto loved to draw, paint pictures, and explore the area surrounding his house. Stories describe his boyhood discovery of hidden caves, lakes, and other natural features near his home which were linked to his later work.
The Legend of Zelda in particular took inspiration from his childhood exploration. As a child Miyamoto was menaced by a neighbor's dog - kept at bay by a chain attached to a post - inspiring the
Chain Chomp enemy from the Mario series. In
1970, he enrolled in the
Kanazawa College of Art and graduated five years later - though he'd later remark that his studies often took a backseat to doodling. In an interview, Miyamoto stated that as a child he wished to have a disease that wouldn't harm him, nor be life threatening, but merely keep him in the hospital all day long so he could doodle. Miyamoto was said to have had an eclectic taste in music for his age, being interested in such groups as the
Lovin' Spoonful, the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the
Ramones, and
The Beatles.
Nintendo
In 1977, having completed a degree in industrial design, Miyamoto arranged a meeting with his father's friend
Hiroshi Yamauchi, head of Nintendo of Japan. Yamauchi hired Miyamoto as a "staff artist" and assigned him to the planning department.
In 1980, the fairly new
Nintendo of America was looking for a hit to establish itself as a player in the growing arcade market. After successful location tests using prototypes, then-NoA CEO
Minoru Arakawa ordered a very large number of units of the
arcade game Radar Scope. But by the time the arcade machines could be produced and shipped to the U.S., interest had evaporated, and the game flopped. To stay afloat and clear the costly inventory of
Radar Scope, Nintendo of America desperately needed a smash-hit game that the unsold machines could be converted to play. Yamauchi assigned Miyamoto the task of creating the required game.
Miyamoto consulted with some of the company's engineers, composed the music on a small electronic keyboard, and created
Donkey Kong. When the game was complete, the chips containing the new program were rushed to the U.S. and Nintendo employees worked around the clock converting the
Radar Scope machines. It was fortunate that Nintendo had so many units on hand, because
Donkey Kong was an overnight success, and not only saved the company, but introduced a character who would be eternally identified with Nintendo.
The three famous characters Miyamoto created for the game were
Donkey Kong,
Jump Man, and
Lady. It was Jump Man, who would later be known as
Mario, who has found the most success. Since his debut in
Donkey Kong he's appeared in more than 100 games spanning over a dozen gaming platforms.
Miyamoto is usually listed as "producer" in the credits of
Mario games. The few exceptions include the
Super Mario Land series for the
Game Boy, with which he'd virtually no involvement. (
Gunpei Yokoi, Miyamoto's mentor, produced the
Super Mario Land series.) There are also rare instances where Miyamoto is heavily involved in a game, almost to the point of director, but for reasons unknown, doesn't credit himself that way. Such examples include, Ice Climber and
Pikmin. In an interview with Famitsu, Miyamoto said "That's right. I was the director of
Mario 64, and half producer, half director on Zelda. As for Pikmin, I'd say half producer, half director." Other titles include,
Nintendogs,
Wii Fit, and most recently,
Super Mario Galaxy, which Miyamoto has stated his involvement was even greater than when he directed Super Mario 64. In early U.S. releases of a few Mario games, he was sometimes credited as "Miyahon", a mistranscription of the
kanji in his name (— which can be read as either or ). The misread surname was Miyamoto's development nickname in the 1980s (having a nickname was a common practice among
Japanese game developers at the time).
At
E3's convention in 1997, Miyamoto revealed that he was constantly working with around four hundred people on a dozen or so projects at a time.
Competition with Sony and Microsoft
Holding the intellectual reins of the
Wii was Miyamoto's first taste of the hardware battle. He has claimed his peers within the industry have been "too focused on hardcore gamers". His belief that his project could out-sell
PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360 is influenced by his business motto; "Games should be what we'd want to play". However, he admits changes had to be made before the
Wii was a serious contender. "There was a time when Nintendo wasn't influencing the world in the way it would have liked", Miyamoto claims, "That's why I've spent so much time trying to find new, exciting control systems we can use."
In the first 6 months of straight competition,
Wii outsold both its rivals, Sony and Microsoft, with gamers buying more than twice as many
Wiis as
Xbox 360s and four times as many
Wiis as
PS3s. When asked about his vision of this rivalry in the future, he said, "My dream is that the Wii becomes this device everybody sees as being the natural thing next to the TV."
Awards and recognition
Miyamoto was the first person inducted into the
Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame in
1998, an award that outlines his lifetime achievement and dramatic effect on the video game industry. In
March 2005, Miyamoto was among the first honorees in 2004 to receive a star on the
Walk of Game: a section of
San Francisco's
Metreon Center that's modeled on
Hollywood's
Walk of Fame.
As part of the
French video game policy effort, on
March 13,
2006 the French honored Miyamoto by inducting him as a Chevalier ("Knight") into the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, alongside game designers
Michel Ancel and
Frédérick Raynal.
The name of the main character of the infamous PC game
Daikatana, Hiro Miyamoto, is an homage to Miyamoto.
The rival character in the first generation of
Pokémon games was named Shigeru. Likewise, the main character was named Satoshi, for the
developer of the Pokémon series.
In
Perfect Dark, enemy soldiers' faces are mapped from the game staff and from Nintendo employees. Notably, Shigeru Miyamoto's face is seen on the patrolling guard in the opening movie for the Pelagic II stage.
A hidden easter egg in
Nintendogs reveals a character named Shiggy (Shigeru) & his Sheltie Pik (Pikku). In events, though (Such as ones at
Nintendo World Store in New York), his name is Miyamoto with the Daschund Mario.
On
November 28,
2006 Miyamoto was featured in
TIME Asia's "60 Years of Asian Heroes" with
Hayao Miyazaki,
Mahatma Gandhi,
Mother Teresa,
Bruce Lee, and the
Dalai Lama.
At the
Game Developers Choice Awards, on March 7, 2007, Shigeru Miyamoto received the Lifetime Achievement Award for a career that spans the creation of
Donkey Kong,
Super Mario Bros., and
The Legend of Zelda. He was also given credit for the company's recent revolutionary systems such as the
Nintendo DS and the
Wii. He was the Keynote speaker at that conference, along with
Eiji Aonuma and
Satoru Iwata.
Shigeru Miyamoto was chosen as one of the 100
TIME Magazine's 2007 Most Influential People of the Year. . He has once again been nominated for the list in 2008, and topped this list..
Shigeru Miyamoto appeared on a
Mega64 video as himself, along with the two main stars who were dressed as Mario and Luigi.
Current activities
Miyamoto has recently completed development for
Wii Fit and
Mario Kart Wii for the Wii and has supervised
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Wii and
Nintendo DS. Both versions of the latter were developed by
Sega, not
Nintendo. Miyamoto unveiled
Wii Fit at
E3 2007. Both have since been released.
Miyamoto also said in
July 2007 he'll focus his attention on helping develop
Wii Music after he's completed developing
Wii Fit and
Super Mario Galaxy. He also pointed out in an interview that he likes to focus on "games in order, one by one" rather than concentrating on many games at once.
Personal life
Although a game designer, he spends little time playing games. In his spare time, Miyamoto plays the
guitar and
banjo. Shigeru Miyamoto has two children with his wife, Yasuko Miyamoto, who was general manager of Nintendo of Japan in 1977. Neither of their children has expressed a desire to go into the family business. He claims that Yasuko doesn't like video games, but she's beginning to enjoy playing games like
Brain Age and using the Wii's
Everybody Votes Channel. His son, Kenshi Miyamoto has allegedly expressed a desire to become a pro surfer rather than a professional gamer Miyamoto has a
Shetland Sheepdog named Pikku (pronounced Pick) that was the inspiration for
Nintendogs. Miyamoto is described as being a semi-professional dog breeder.
Despite being an influential figure in video games and responsible for multi-million dollar franchises, Miyamoto is said to be very humble. He insists on an average income and often rides a bicycle to work.
Delays
As Producer and R&D member of several games, Miyamoto has had Nintendo implement delays "in order to make a game [...] of the high quality standards that Nintendo is known for." At times, the entire development of a game is scrapped.
Miyamoto and fellow developers refer to this scrapping as "
Chabudai Gaeshi" (ちゃぶ台返し, "upending the tea table"), a reference to manga and anime
Star of the Giants. It is also referred to as "Miyahon Check" (Miyahon is an alternative kanji reading of Miyamoto) or "Miyamoto Test".
- "Twinkle Popo" was a completed product with a pre-order of 26,000 units. It was supposed to be released under the game's developer, HAL Laboratory. Miyamoto intervened, arguing that with a tiny bit of tweaking it would become a great game. After canceling the pre-order, the game was eventually released under Nintendo with the title Kirby's Dream Land, selling 5 million units globally.
- was supposed to be released immediately after the release of the Nintendo 64 (Japanese release date, 6 June 1996). Instead, Miyamoto, who was the producer, repeatedly ordered the game to be redone, resulting in numerous announcements of delays by Nintendo until the game's eventual release on 21 November 1998. Ocarina of Time sold over 7.6 million units, is frequently ranked among the greatest games of all time, and has one of the highest average review scores of any game ever made.
- Eiji Aonuma was initially the producer of . However, between 2005 to 2006, he assumed direction duties while Miyamoto replaced him as producer. Aonuma stated that the switch was the result of a year-long development being "Chabudai Gaeshi"ed. In the same interview, Miyamoto said that he'd to clean up the mess from his Chabudai Gaeshi, so he joined as a producer and assisted in the development of the GameCube and Wii versions of the game. Twilight Princess was released to critical acclaim and commercial success in the West.
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