People have paid me a lot of lip service, calling me a genius story teller or a talented animator, and have gone so far as to suggest that I try my hand at movies, since my style of game design is, in their words, quite similar to making movies. But I feel that I am not a movie maker, but rather that my strength lies in my pioneering spirit to make use of technology to create the best, interactive commodities possible, and use that interactivity to give users a game they can enjoy and play comfortably.
Shigeru Miyamoto (translated)
Shigeru Miyamoto is a video game director, producer, artist, designer, and general manager at Nintendo. Born in the small town of Sonobe, Japan, he has been considered one of the most innovative, admired, prolific, influential, and acclaimed video game developers. When he was a child he would explore the surrounding areas of his town and many of his childhood experiences would go on to influence his video games. In Kyoto, there was a cave that Miyamoto frequently went to but didn’t muster the courage to enter. Eventually though with a lantern in hand, he entered the cave and explored all of what was offered within. This single experience would go on to be one of the defining influences for The Legend of Zelda series.
Miyamoto has created some of the industry’s most lucrative franchises and is credited in a variety of titles that have been lauded by virtually all critics. His contributions for the science and art of the medium within the technical software side of game development is considered to be unparalleled when it comes to having a profound impact and enduring legacy.
He has appeared in Time’s Top 100 and was rated the greatest video game designer of all time by IGN. The wide encompassing range of video game series he created which spans multiple genres and decades, include the likes of Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Pikmin, Wave Race, Excitebike, Stunt Race FX, Pilotwings, and Nintendogs, among various others.
He has been described by fans and gamers in general across the board as the “Stan Lee” and “Walt Disney” of video-games.
As a child, he would partake in various other activities such as drawing, painting, playing baseball, and participating in puppet shows. Miyamoto’s family didn’t have a car or a television. On very few occasions per year, he and his family would venture to the city in Kyoto via train and would enjoy going to movie theaters to watch a film, particularly those made by Walt Disney. Little did Shigeru Miyamoto know that he would eventually be considered the “Walt Disney of video games”. At the age of eleven, Miyamoto’s father bought home a television. Soon after that, Miyamoto became a big fan of Japanese animation. In middle school, he started to get into manga, as well as joining a manga club upon entering high school. After several years, his family moved into Kyoto, the city that offered Miyamoto greater opportunities as he grew up.
Miyamoto managed to graduate from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Art & Design and would thereafter be given a proposal to work at Nintendo in 1977. Miyamoto initially planned to make a game based on Popeye the Sailor. He set the game scene in the ruins of the factory and set jumping as the most critical element of the game. However, just as the game was about to be completed, he was told the frustrating news that the copyright negotiations for Popeye the Sailor had failed. He hurriedly redesigned the script, renamed the characters, rewritten the plot, and even made the music for the game himself. This work is Shigeru Miyamoto’s Virgo Donkey Kong. NOA’s employees gave a name to the red hat character in this game, that is Mario.
In 1983, the new work Mario Bros developed by Shigeru Miyamoto was born. In the game, Mario and his brother Luigi hit the tortoise to destroy monsters and they can also cause trouble to each other. This game became the first product of the FC console. Mario Bros was quickly sold for more than 1.6 million copies, making a considerable contribution to the popularity of FC. In 1984, Nintendo’s newly established game development department was handed over to Shigeru Miyamoto. At the same time, Miyamoto also got a difficult task: to create an enduring character like Mickey Mouse. As everyone expected, Shigeru Miyamoto succeeded. Mario became a childhood memory of generations.
After experiencing brilliance, Miyamoto’s keen awareness made him feel that it was time to do something. He found that home video games and arcade games have very different characteristics in terms of development. In response to these characteristics, he made more innovations. These innovations are concentrated in 1986 The Legend of Zelda, which is an action-adventure game with a top-down perspective. The story takes place in a fantasy land called Hyrule. The original operating platform of the Zelda game is FDS (Famicom Disk System), which can read specially formatted floppy disks. Players can write game data to the floppy disk. Therefore, The Legend of Zelda became one of the first batches of console games that allow players to save and read progress (the subsequent cassette has a built-in battery for memory). Shigeru Miyamoto added many treasures and hidden items to The Legend of Zelda to keep the player’s curiosity and dedication. In this game, he boldly designed the interaction of various objects and game scenes. For example, the fire magic scepter can not only burn trees but also light up the dark castle. Many interactions are not prompt. Players will be surprised when they discover these deliberate designs when they explore the game on their own. After successfully rescuing Princess Zelda, players get an extraordinary sense of accomplishment. In the following years, The Legend of Zelda became a model for many action RPG games to follow.
In recent years, with the growth of age, Shigeru Miyamoto has gradually shifted the focus of his work to production. His unique inspiration and rich creativity still affect the works he is responsible for.
Citations
- “Miyamoto’s Message to Everyone”, Nintendo.co, July 19, 2002; (available online in Japanese); access date: Nov 18, 2020.
- “History of Zelda”. GameSpot. Vestal, Andrew; Cliff O’Neill; Brad Shoemaker (November 14, 2000). Archived from the original on February 4, 2010. Retrieved Nov 18, 2020
- 15 Most Influential Games of All Time: The Legend of Zelda”, GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 30, 2006. Retrieved Nov 18, 2020.
- “The father of Mario and Zelda”, Muldoon, Moira (December 2, 1998). Salon. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved Nov 18, 2020.
