Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese:宮本 茂,Hepburn:Miyamoto Shigeru; born November 16, 1952) is a Japanesevideo game designer,producer andgame director atNintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of themost acclaimed andbest-selling game franchises of all time, includingMario,The Legend of Zelda,Donkey Kong,Star Fox andPikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.
Born inSonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated fromKanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as amanga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president,Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys.[3] He helped create art for the arcade gameSheriff,[4] and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 gameDonkey Kong.
Miyamoto was born on November 16, 1952, in the Japanese town ofSonobe,Kyoto Prefecture.[3] His parents were of "modest means", and his father taughtEnglish.[3]
From an early age, Miyamoto explored the natural areas around his home. He discovered a cave, and, after days of hesitation, went inside. His expeditions into the Kyoto countryside inspired his later work, particularlyThe Legend of Zelda, a seminal video game.[6]
I feel that I have been very lucky to be a game designer since the dawn of the industry. I am not an engineer, but I have had the opportunities to learn the principles of game [design] from scratch, over a long period of time. And because I am so pioneering and trying to keep at the forefront, I have grown accustomed to first creating the very tools necessary for game creation.
In the 1970s,Nintendo was a relatively small Japanese company that sold playing cards and other novelties, although it had started to branch out into toys and games in the 1960s. Through a mutual friend, Miyamoto's father arranged an interview with Nintendo presidentHiroshi Yamauchi. After showing some of his toy creations, he was hired in 1977 as an apprentice in the planning department.[3]
Miyamoto helped create the art for the coin-operatedarcade game,Sheriff.[4] He first helped the companydevelop a game after the 1980 releaseRadar Scope. The game achieved moderate success in Japan, but by 1981, Nintendo's efforts to break it into the North American video game market had failed, leaving them with a large number of unsold units and on the verge of financial collapse. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided toconvert unsoldRadar Scope units into a new arcade game. He tasked Miyamoto with the conversion,[12]: 157 about which Miyamoto has said self-deprecatingly that "no one else was available" to do the work.[13] Nintendo's head engineer,Gunpei Yokoi, supervised the project.[12]: 158
Miyamoto imagined many characters and plot concepts, but eventually settled on alove triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter, and a woman. He meant to mirror the rivalry between comic charactersBluto andPopeye for the womanOlive Oyl, although Nintendo's original intentions to gain rights toPopeye failed.[3] Bluto evolved into an ape, a form Miyamoto claimed was "nothing too evil or repulsive".[14]: 47 This ape would be the pet of the main character, "a funny, hang-loose kind of guy".[14]: 47 Miyamoto also named "Beauty and the Beast" and the 1933 filmKing Kong as influences.[15]: 36 Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project, but lacked the technical skills to program it himself; instead, he conceived the game's concepts, then consulted technicians on whether they were possible. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, move in different manners, and react in various ways. However, Yokoi viewed Miyamoto's original design as too complex.[14]: 47–48 Yokoi suggested using see-saws to catapult the hero across the screen but this proved too difficult to program. Miyamoto next thought of using slopedplatforms and ladders for travel, with barrels for obstacles. When he asked that the game have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to make the game repeat, but the team eventually successfully programmed the game.[15]: 38–39 When the game was sent toNintendo of America for testing, the sales manager disapproved of its vast differentiation from themaze andshooter games common at the time.[14]: 49 When American staffers began naming the characters, they settled on "Pauline" for the woman, after Polly James, wife of Nintendo'sRedmond, Washington, warehouse manager,Don James. The playable character, initially "Jumpman", was eventually named forMario Segale, the warehouse landlord.[16][17][14]: 109 These character names were printed on the American cabinet art and used in promotional materials. The staff also pushed for an English name, and thus it received the titleDonkey Kong.[15]: 212
Donkey Kong was a success, leading Miyamoto to work on sequels such asDonkey Kong Jr. in 1982, andDonkey Kong 3 in 1983. In January 1983, the 1982Arcade Awards gave Donkey Kong the BestSingle-player video game award and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year.[18] In his next game, he gave Mario a brother:Luigi. He named the new gameMario Bros. Yokoi convinced Miyamoto to give Mario some superhuman abilities, namely the ability to fall from any height unharmed. Mario's appearance inDonkey Kong—overalls, a hat, and a thick mustache—led Miyamoto to change aspects of the game to make Mario look like a plumber rather than a carpenter.[19] Miyamoto felt that New York City provided the best setting for the game, with its "labyrinthine subterranean network of sewage pipes". To date, games in theMario Bros. franchise have been released for more than a dozen platforms.[20] Shortly after, Miyamoto also worked the character sprites and game design for theBaseball,Tennis, andGolf games on the NES.[21]
1985–1989: NES/Famicom,Super Mario Bros., andThe Legend of Zelda
Miyamoto'sSuper Mario Bros. was bundled with theNES in America. The game and the system are credited with helping to bring North America out of the slump of the1983 game industry crash.
As Nintendo released its first home video game console, the Family Computer (rereleased in North America as theNintendo Entertainment System), Miyamoto made two of the most popular titles for the console and in the history of video games as a whole:Super Mario Bros. (a sequel toMario Bros.) andThe Legend of Zelda (an entirely original title).[22]
In both games, Miyamoto decided to focus more on gameplay than on high scores, unlike many games of the time.[6]Super Mario Bros. largely took a linear approach, with the player traversing the stage by running, jumping, and dodging or defeating enemies.[23][24] It was a culmination of Miyamoto's gameplay concepts and technical knowledge drawn from his experiences of designingDonkey Kong,Mario Bros,Devil World (1984), theside-scrollingracing gameExcitebike (1984), and the 1985 NES port of side-scrollingbeat 'em upKung-Fu Master (1984).[25] This culminated in his concept of a platformer set in an expansive world that would have the player "strategize while scrolling sideways" over long distances, have aboveground and underground levels, and have colorful backgrounds rather than black backgrounds.[26]
By contrast, Miyamoto employednonlinear gameplay inThe Legend of Zelda, forcing the player to think their way through riddles and puzzles.[27] The world was expansive and seemingly endless, offering "an array of choice and depth never seen before in a video game."[3] WithThe Legend of Zelda, Miyamoto sought to make an in-game world that players would identify with, a "miniature garden that they can put inside their drawer."[6] He drew his inspiration from his experiences as a boy aroundKyoto, where he explored nearby fields, woods, and caves; eachZelda game embodies this sense of exploration.[6] "When I was a child," Miyamoto said, "I went hiking and found a lake. It was quite a surprise for me to stumble upon it. When I traveled around the country without a map, trying to find my way, stumbling on amazing things as I went, I realized how it felt to go on an adventure like this."[14]: 51 He recreated his memories of becoming lost amid the maze of sliding doors in his family home inZelda's labyrinthine dungeons.[14]: 52 In February 1986, Nintendo released it as the launch game for theNintendo Entertainment System's newDisk System peripheral.[28]
Miyamoto worked on various other different games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, includingIce Climber andKid Icarus. He also worked on sequels to bothSuper Mario Bros andThe Legend of Zelda.Super Mario Bros. 2, released only in Japan at the time, reuses gameplay elements fromSuper Mario Bros., though the game is much more difficult than its predecessor. Nintendo of America dislikedSuper Mario Bros. 2, which they found to be frustratingly difficult and otherwise little more than a modification ofSuper Mario Bros. Rather than risk the franchise's popularity, they canceled its stateside release and looked for an alternative. They realized they already had one option inYume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic), also designed by Miyamoto.[29] This game was reworked and released asSuper Mario Bros. 2 (not to be confused with the Japanese game of the same name) in North America and Europe. The Japanese version ofSuper Mario Bros. 2 was eventually released in North America asSuper Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.[30]
The successor toThe Legend of Zelda,Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, bears little resemblance to the first game in the series.The Adventure of Link featuresside-scrolling areas within a larger world map rather than thebird's eye view of the previous title. The game incorporates a strategic combat system and moreRPG elements, including anexperience points (EXP) system,magic spells, and more interaction withnon-player characters (NPCs). Link has extra lives; no other game in the series includes this feature.[31]The Adventure of Link plays out in a two-mode dynamic. Theoverworld, the area where the majority of the action occurs in otherThe Legend of Zelda games, is still from atop-down perspective, but it now serves as a hub to the other areas. Whenever Link enters a new area such as a town, the game switches to aside-scrolling view. These separate methods of traveling and entering combat are one of many aspects adapted from therole-playing genre.[31] The game was highly successful at the time, and introduced elements such as Link's "magic meter" and the Dark Link character that would become commonplace in future Zelda games, although the role-playing elements such as experience points and the platform-style side-scrolling and multiple lives were never used again in the official series. The game is also looked upon as one of the most difficult games in theZelda series and 8-bit gaming as a whole. Additionally,The Adventure of Link was one of the first games to combinerole-playing video game andplatforming elements to a considerable degree.[32]
Soon after,Super Mario Bros. 3 was developed byNintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development; the game took more than two years to complete.[33] The game offers numerous modifications on the originalSuper Mario Bros., ranging from costumes with different abilities to new enemies.[33][34] Bowser's children were designed to be unique in appearance and personality; Miyamoto based the characters on seven of his programmers as a tribute to their work on the game.[33] The Koopalings' names were later altered to mimic names of well-known,Western musicians in theEnglish localization.[33] In a first for theMario series, the player navigates via two game screens: anoverworld map and a level playfield. The overworld map displays an overhead representation of the current world and has several paths leading from the world's entrance to a castle. Moving the on-screen character to a certain tile will allow access to that level's playfield, a linear stage populated with obstacles and enemies. The majority of the game takes place in these levels.[23][24]
1990–2000: SNES, Nintendo 64,Super Mario 64, andOcarina of Time
Miyamoto was responsible for the controller design of the Super Famicom/Nintendo. Its L/R buttons were an industry first and have since become commonplace.
A merger between Nintendo's various internal research and development teams led to the creation ofNintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development (Nintendo EAD), which Miyamoto eventually headed. Nintendo EAD had approximately fifteen months to developF-Zero, a launch game for theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System.[35] Miyamoto worked through various games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, one of themStar Fox. For the game, programmerJez San convinced Nintendo to develop an upgrade for the Super Nintendo, allowing it to handle three-dimensional graphics better: theSuper FX chip.[36][37] Using this new hardware, Miyamoto and Katsuya Eguchi designed theStar Fox game with an early implementation of three-dimensional graphics.[38]
Miyamoto produced two majorMario games for the system. The first,Super Mario World, was a launch game. It features an overworld as inSuper Mario Bros. 3 and introduces a new character, Yoshi, who appears in many other Nintendo games. The secondMario game for the system,Super Mario RPG, went in a somewhat different direction. Miyamoto led a team consisting of a partnership between Nintendo andSquare; it took nearly a year to develop the graphics.[39] The story takes place in a newly renderedMushroom Kingdom based on theSuper Mario Bros. series.[40]
Miyamoto also createdThe Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the third entry in the series. Dropping the side-scrolling elements of its predecessor,A Link to the Past introduced to the series elements that are still commonplace today, such as the concept of an alternate or parallel world, theMaster Sword, and other new weapons and items.[41][42]
Shigeru Miyamoto mentoredSatoshi Tajiri, guiding him during the creation process ofPocket Monsters: Red and Green (released in English asPokémon Red andBlue), the initial video games in thePokémon series. He also acted as the producer for these games and worked on social gameplay concepts such as trading.[43] Pokémon would go on to be one of the most popular entertainment franchises in the world, spanning video games, anime, and various other merchandise.[44]
Miyamoto made several games for the Nintendo 64, mostly from his previous franchises. His first game on the new system, and one of its launch games, isSuper Mario 64, for which he was the principal director. In developing the game, he began with character design and thecamera system. Miyamoto and the other designers were initially unsure of which direction the game should take, and spent months to select an appropriate camera view and layout.[45] The original concept involved a fixed path much like anisometric-type game, before the choice was made to settle on a free-roaming 3D design.[45] He guided the design of theNintendo 64 controller in tandem with that ofSuper Mario 64.[45]
Using what he had learned about the Nintendo 64 from developingSuper Mario 64 andStar Fox 64,[9] Miyamoto produced his next game,The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, leading a team of several directors.[46] Its engine was based on that ofSuper Mario 64 but was so heavily modified as to be a somewhat different engine. Individual parts ofOcarina of Time were handled by multiple directors—a new strategy for Nintendo EAD. However, when things progressed slower than expected, Miyamoto returned to the development team with a more central role assisted in public by interpreterBill Trinen.[47] The team was new to 3D games, but assistant director Makoto Miyanaga recalls a sense of "passion for creating something new and unprecedented".[48] Miyamoto went on to produce a sequel toOcarina of Time, known asThe Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. By reusing thegame engine and graphics fromOcarina of Time, a smaller team required only 18 months to finishMajora's Mask.[49]
Miyamoto worked on a variety ofMario series spin-offs for the Nintendo 64, includingMario Kart 64[50] andMario Party.
Miyamoto produced various games for theGameCube, including the launch gameLuigi's Mansion. The game was first revealed atNintendo Space World 2000 as atechnical demo designed to show off the graphical capabilities of the GameCube.[51] Miyamoto made an original short demo of the game concepts, and Nintendo decided to turn it into a full game.Luigi's Mansion was later shown atE3 2001 with the GameCube console.[52] Miyamoto continued to make additionalMario spinoffs in these years. He also produced the 3D game seriesMetroid Prime, after the original designer Yokoi, a friend and mentor of Miyamoto's, died.[53] In this time he developedPikmin and its sequelPikmin 2, based on his experiences gardening.[3] He also worked on new games for theStar Fox,Donkey Kong,F-Zero, andThe Legend of Zelda series on both the GameCube and theGame Boy Advance systems.[54][55][56] With the help ofHideo Kojima, he guided the developers ofMetal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.[57] He helped with many games on the Nintendo DS, including the remake ofSuper Mario 64, titledSuper Mario 64 DS, and the new gameNintendogs, a new franchise based on his own experiences with dogs.[58] AtE3 2005, Miyamoto showed offNintendogs withTina Wood, where he promised to show her "a few more tricks" backstage.[59]
Miyamoto played a major role in the development of theWii, a console that popularized motion control gaming, and its launch gameWii Sports, which helped show the capability of the new control scheme. Miyamoto went on to produce other titles in theWii series, includingWii Fit. His inspiration forWii Fit was to encourage conversation and family bonding.[3]
2011–present: Wii U, 3DS, Switch and other projects
Unlike in the 2000s, during which he was involved in many projects as producer, Miyamoto's activities in development were less pronounced in that decade with Miyamoto only producingLuigi's Mansion: Dark Moon andStar Fox Zero.[63][64] Otherwise, Miyamoto was credited as General Producer, Executive Producer and Supervisor for most projects, which are positions with much less involvement in comparison to a producer.
Following the death of Nintendo presidentSatoru Iwata in July 2015, Miyamoto was appointed as an acting Representative Director, alongsideGenyo Takeda.[65] He was relieved of this position in September 2015 whenTatsumi Kimishima assumed the role of the company's president. He was also appointed the position of "Creative Fellow" at the same time, providing expert advice to Kimishima as a "support network" alongside Takeda.[66] In his capacity as Creative Fellow, he provides feedback and guidance to game directors during development.[67][68]
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.
Miyamoto, and Nintendo as a whole, do not use focus groups. Instead, Miyamoto figures out if a game is fun for himself. He says that if he enjoys it, others will too.[3] He elaborates, citing the conception of thePokémon series as an example, "And that's the point – Not to make something sell, something very popular, but to love something, and make something that we creators can love. It's the very core feeling we should have in making games."[71] Miyamoto wants players to experiencekyokan; he wants "the players to feel about the game what the developers felt themselves."[3]
He then tests it with friends and family. He encourages younger developers to consider people who are new to gaming, for example by having them switch their dominant hand with their other hand to feel the experience of an unfamiliar game.[3]
Miyamoto's philosophy does not focus on hyper-realistic graphics, although he realizes they have their place. He is more focused on the game mechanics, such as the choices and challenges in the game.[3] Similar to how manga artists subverted their genre, Miyamoto hopes to subvert some of the basic principles he had popularized in his early games, retaining some elements but eliminating others.[3]
His game design philosophy typically prioritizes gameplay over storytelling. In a 1992 interview, he said "the important thing is that it feels good when you're playing it" and "that quality is not determined by the story, but by the controls, the sound, and the rhythm and pacing". However, he requires a "compatibility [between] the story and gameplay [because] a good story can smooth over that discrepancy and make it all feel natural".[72]
His use of real-time rendered cinematics (not prerendered video) serves both his own rapidly interactive development process with no rendering delays, and the player's interaction with the game's continuity. He prefers to change his games right until they are finalized, and to make "something unique and unprecedented". He prefers the game to be interactively fun rather than have elaborate film sequences, stating in 1999, "I will never make movie-like games";[71] therefore, the more than 90 total minutes of short cutscenes interspersed throughoutOcarina of Time[11] deliver more interactive cinematic qualities.[71][73] His vision mandates a rapid and malleable development process with small teams, as when he directed substantial changes to the overall game scenario in the final months of the development ofOcarina of Time. He said, "The reason behind using such a simple process, as I am sure you have all experienced in the workshop, is that there is a total limit on team energy. There is a limit to the work a team can do, and there is a limit to my own energy. We opted not to use that limited time and energy on pre-rendered images for use in cinema scenes, but rather on tests on other inter-active elements and polishing up the game".[11]
For these reasons, he opposes prerendered cutscenes.[11][9][71] OfOcarina of Time, he says "we were able to make use of truly cinematic methods with our camera work without relying on [prerendered video]."[11]
Miyamoto has occasionally been critical of therole-playing game (RPG) genre. In a 1992 interview, when asked whetherZelda is an RPG series, he declined but classified it as "a real-time adventure"; he said he was "not interested in [games] decided by stats and numbers [but in preserving] as much of that 'live' feeling as possible", which he said "action games are better suited in conveying".[72] In 2003, he described his "fundamental dislike" of the RPG genre: "I think that with an RPG you are completely bound hand and foot, and can't move. But gradually you become able to move your hands and legs... you become slightly untied. And in the end, you feel powerful. So what you get out of an RPG is a feeling of happiness. But I don't think they're something that's fundamentally fun to play. With a game like that, anyone can become really good at it. WithMario though, if you're not good at it, you may never get good."[74] While critical of the RPG gameplay system,[74] he has occasionally praised certain aspects of RPGs, such asYuji Horii's writing in theDragon Quest series, the "interactive cinematic approach" of theFinal Fantasy series,[72] andShigesato Itoi's dialogue in theMother series.[74]
While Miyamoto had been frequently quoted as having said "a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad", Kate Willaert ofA Critical Hit deduced that it was likely taken from a quote by Siobhan Beeman, who worked on theWing Commander franchise atOrigin Systems. She first uttered the phrase atGDC in 1996, or something close to it, "a game's only late until it ships, but it sucks forever". It somehow was misconstrued as a Miyamoto quote, circulating on the internet for many years.[75][76][77]
Time called Miyamoto "theSpielberg of video games"[78] and "the father of modern video games,"[10] whileThe Daily Telegraph says he is "regarded by many as possibly the most important game designer of all time."[79]GameTrailers called him "the most influential game creator in history."[80] Miyamoto has significantly influenced various aspects of the medium.The Daily Telegraph credited him with creating "some of the most innovative, ground breaking and successful work in his field."[79] Many of Miyamoto's works have pioneered new video game concepts or refined existing ones. Miyamoto's games have received outstanding critical praise, some being considered the greatest games of all time.
Miyamoto's games have also sold very well, becoming some of the bestselling games on Nintendo consoles and of all time. As of 1999, his games had sold 250 million units and grossed billions of dollars.[79]
Calling him one of the few "video-gameauteurs,"The New Yorker credited Miyamoto's role in creating the franchises that drove console sales, as well as designing the consoles themselves. They described Miyamoto as Nintendo's "guiding spirit, its meal ticket, and its playful public face," noting that Nintendo might not exist without him.[3]The Daily Telegraph similarly attributed Nintendo's success to Miyamoto more than any other person.[79]Next Generation listed him in their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995", elaborating that, "He's the most successful game developer in history. He has a unique and brilliant mind as well as an unparalleled grasp of what gamers want to play."[81]
Industry
Miyamoto's first major arcade hitDonkey Kong was highly influential. It spawned a number of other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal.[82] Particularly novel, the vertical genre was initially referred to as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style",[83][82] before finalizing as "platform".[82] Earlier games either use storytelling orcutscenes, butDonkey Kong combines both to introduce the use of cutscenes to visually advance a complete story.[84] It has multiple, distinctlevels that progress the storyline.[85][84]Computer and Video Games calledDonkey Kong "the most momentous"release of 1981.[86]
Miyamoto's best known and most influential game,Super Mario Bros., "depending on your point of view, created an industry or resuscitated a comatose one".[3]The Daily Telegraph said it "set the standard for all future videogames".[79] G4 noted its revolutionary gameplay and its role in "almost single-handedly" rescuing the video game industry after theNorth American video game crash of 1983.[87] The game also popularized theside-scrolling video game genre.The New Yorker described Mario as the first folk hero of video games, with as much influence asMickey Mouse.[3]
At the time of the release ofStar Fox, the use of filled,three-dimensionalpolygons in a console game was very unusual, apart from a handful of earlier titles.[90] Due to its success,Star Fox has become a Nintendo franchise, with five more games and numerous appearances by its characters in other Nintendo games such as theSuper Smash Bros. series.
His gameSuper Mario 64 defined the field of 3D game design, particularly with its use of a dynamiccamera system and the implementation of its analog control.[91][92][93]The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's gameplay system introduced features such as a target lock system and context-sensitive buttons that have since become common elements in 3D adventure games.[94][95]
The Wii, which Miyamoto played a major role in designing, is the first wireless motion-controlled video game console.[3]
Critical reception
Miyamoto's games have received outstanding critical praise, and are widely considered among the greatest of all time.[3]
Games in Miyamoto'sThe Legend of Zelda series have received outstanding critical acclaim.A Link to the Past is a landmark game for Nintendo and is widely considered today to be one of the greatest video games of all time.Ocarina of Time is widely considered by critics and gamers alike to be one of the greatest video games ever made.[96][97][98][99]Ocarina of Time was listed byGuinness World Records as the highest-rated video game in history, citing itsMetacritic score of 99 out of 100.[100]Twilight Princess was released to universal critical acclaim, and is the third highest-rated game for the Wii.[101] It received perfect scores from major publications such asCVG,Electronic Gaming Monthly,Game Informer,GamesRadar, andGameSpy.[102][103][104][105][106]
Critical analysis ofSuper Mario Bros. has been extremely positive, with many touting it as one of thebest video games of all time.[107] In 2009,Game Informer putSuper Mario Bros. in second place on its list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time", behindThe Legend of Zelda, saying that it "remains a monument to brilliant design and fun gameplay".[89]
A 1995 article inMaximum stated that "in gaming circles Miyamoto's name carries far more weight thanSteven Spielberg's could ever sustain."[114]
Commercial reception
More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.[115]
Miyamoto'sMario series is, by far, thebest-selling video game franchise of all time, selling over 800 million units.Super Mario Bros. is the sixthbest-selling video game of all time. The game was the all-time bestselling video game for over 20 years until its lifetime sales were surpassed byWii Sports.[116]Super Mario Bros.,Super Mario Bros. 3, andSuper Mario Bros. 2 were, respectively, the three bestselling games for theNintendo Entertainment System. Levi Buchanan of IGN consideredSuper Mario Bros. 3's appearance in the filmThe Wizard as a show-stealing element, and referred to the movie as a "90-minute commercial" for the game.[117]Super Mario World was the bestselling game for theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System.[118][119]Super Mario 64 was the bestselling Nintendo 64 game,[120] and as of May 21, 2003, the game had sold eleven million copies.[121] At the end of 2007,Guinness World Records reported sales of 11.8 million copies. As of September 25, 2007, it was the seventhbest-selling video game in the United States with six million copies sold.[122] By June 2007,Super Mario 64 had become the second most popular game onWii'sVirtual Console, behindSuper Mario Bros.[123]Super Mario Sunshine is the thirdbest-selling GameCube game.[124]The Mario series continued to see success in sales with entries like Super Mario 3D Land and New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS and New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, and Mario Maker all topping the charts for the Wii U. The Mario series continued its success on the Nintendo Switch with titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Bros. Wonder selling tens of millions of copies.
The original game inThe Legend of Zelda series is the fifth-bestselling game for the Nintendo Entertainment System.The Wind Waker is the fourth bestselling GameCube game.Twilight Princess was commercially successful. In thePAL region, which covers most of Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe,Twilight Princess is the bestsellingZelda game ever. During its first week, the game was sold with three out of every four Wii purchases.[125] The game had sold 4.52 million copies on the Wii as of March 1, 2008,[126] and 1.32 million on the GameCube as of March 31, 2007.[127] Moving forward,The Legend of Zelda series continued to prove a force for sales and critical acclaim with titles likeThe Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword for the Wii in 2011,The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for the Nintendo 3DS, and the titular titles on the Switch,The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which sold 32.62 million copies on the Switch[128] (in addition to modest sales on the Wii U version) andThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which sold 21.04 million units.[129] Both of these Zelda games rank among the top sellers for the Nintendo Switch.
TheMario Kart series is currently themost successful racing game franchise of all time.Mario Kart titles tend to be among the bestselling games for their respective consoles;Super Mario Kart is the third bestselling video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System,Mario Kart 64 is the second bestselling Nintendo 64 game,Mario Kart: Double Dash is the second bestselling game for theGameCube,[124] andMario Kart Wii is the second bestselling game for theWii."Mario Kart 8 is the best selling game for theWii U and its enhanced edition,Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains the best selling game on theNintendo Switch as of April 2025.Mario Kart games similarly sell millions, such as inMario Kart Super Circuit for theGame Boy Advance,Mario Kart DS for theNintendo DS, andMario Kart 7 for theNintendo 3DS.
[Miyamoto] approaches the games playfully, which seems kind of obvious, but most people don't. And he approaches things from the players' point of view, which is part of his magic.
On November 28, 2006, Miyamoto was featured inTIME Asia's "60 Years of Asian Heroes".[135] He was later chosen as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the Year in both 2007[136] and also in 2008, in which he topped the list with a total vote of 1,766,424.[137] At theGame Developers Choice Awards, on March 7, 2007, Miyamoto received the Lifetime Achievement Award "for a career that spans the creation of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong to the company's recent revolutionary systems,Nintendo DS andWii."[138]GameTrailers andIGN placed Miyamoto first on their lists for the "Top Ten Game Creators" and the "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" respectively.[139][140]
In a survey of game developers by industry publicationDevelop, 30% of the developers, by far the largest portion,[3] chose Miyamoto as their "Ultimate Development Hero".[141] Miyamoto has been interviewed by companies and organizations such as CNN's Talk Asia.[142] He was made a Fellow ofBAFTA at theBritish Academy Video Games Awards on March 19, 2010.[143] In 2012, Miyamoto was also the first interactive creator to be awarded the highest recognition in Spain, thePrince of Asturias Award, in the category of Communications and Humanities.[144][145]
Miyamoto was awarded Japan'sPerson of Cultural Merit in 2019 in recognition for his contributions towards Japan's video game industry.[146] He was the first person in the video game industry to receive the honor.[147]
Personal life
Miyamoto is married to Yasuko, and they have two children. In 2010, his son was 25 and working at an advertising agency, while his daughter was 23 and studying zoology at the time. His children played video games in their youth, but he also made them partake in outside activities. Although Miyamoto can speak some English, he is not fluent and prefers to speak in Japanese for interviews.[3]
Miyamoto does not generally sign autographs, out of concern that he would be inundated. He also does not appear on Japanese television, so as to minimize his chance of being recognized. More foreign tourists than Japanese people approach him.[3]
Miyamoto isambidextrous but usually favors his left hand, which is why his characters Mario and Link were designed to be left-handed.[148]
Miyamoto spends little time playing video games in his personal time, preferring to play the guitar,mandolin, andbanjo.[149] He avidly enjoysbluegrass music.[3] He has been quoted as stating, "Video games are bad for you? That's what they said aboutrock and roll."[150] Miyamoto said in a 2016 interview that when he had his own family he took up gardening with his wife, which influenced other games that he was making at the time.[151] He has aShetland Sheepdog named Pikku that provided the inspiration forNintendogs.[152] He is also a semi-professionaldog breeder.[153]
^abcdVestal, Andrew; Cliff O'Neill; Brad Shoemaker (November 14, 2000)."History of Zelda".GameSpot. Archived from the original on February 4, 2010. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Kohler, Chris (February 17, 2012)."Game Life Podcast: When Jay Mohr Met Tomonobu Itagaki".Wired. Archived fromthe original on April 17, 2014. RetrievedSeptember 28, 2024.And so we thought, 'This guy [Segale] is a recluse. No one's ever actually met him.' So we thought, 'Wouldn't it be a great joke if we named this character Mario?' And so we said, 'That's great,' and we sent a telex to Japan, and that's how Mario got his name. Interview with Don James starts at 51:16. Quotation occurs at 52:00.
^"Nintendo Treehouse Live - E3 2018 - Arcade Archives Donkey Kong, Sky Skipper".YouTube. Nintendo Everything. June 14, 2018.Archived from the original on October 3, 2023. RetrievedSeptember 28, 2024.Mr. Arakawa, who was the president, and myself looked at the character, and we had a landlord that happened to be named Mario as well, and we'd never met the guy, so we thought it'd be funny to name this main character Mario after our landlord in Southcenter. And that's actually how Mario got his name. Quotation occurs at 2:25.
^"放課後のクラブ活動のように" [Like after-school club activities].社長が訊く. Nintendo Co., Ltd. November 19, 2009.Archived from the original on February 10, 2010. RetrievedJune 8, 2010.１９８６年２月に、ファミコンのディスクシステムと同時発売された、アクションアドベンチャーゲーム。 / An action-adventure game simultaneously released with the Famicom Disk System in February 1986.
^Scott Pelland; Kent Miller; Terry Munson; Paul Shinoda (April 1996). "Epic Center".Nintendo Power. Vol. 83. Nintendo. p. 56.Led by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, teams at Nintendo Company Ltd. and Square Soft spent more than a year developing the visuals.
^Star Fox Assault Instruction Booklet. Nintendo of America. 2005. pp. 7, 29,34–35.
^Satterfield, Shane (March 28, 2002)."Sega and Nintendo form developmental partnership".GameSpot.Archived from the original on February 13, 2009. RetrievedJune 20, 2007.The companies [Sega and Nintendo] are codeveloping two F-Zero games... Nintendo will be handling the publishing duties for the GameCube version while Sega will take on the responsibility of releasing the arcade game.
^"Interview: Sega talk F-Zero".Arcadia magazine. N-Europe. May 17, 2002. Archived fromthe original on June 9, 2008. RetrievedFebruary 2, 2008.We're [Amusement Vision] taking care of the planning and execution. Once things really begin to take shape, we'll turn to Nintendo for supervision.
^"75 Power Players: The Wizard".Next Generation. No. 11. November 1995. p. 50.
^abcAltice, Nathan (2015). "Chapter 2: Ports".I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform.MIT Press. pp. 53–80.ISBN9780262028776.
^"Ocarina of Time Hits Virtual Console".1UP.com. Archived fromthe original on June 29, 2011. RetrievedNovember 30, 2017.the apex of 6-4bit[sic] gaming and oft-cited "Best Game Ever Made, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, has touched down over the pond for play on the Wii Virtual Console in most PAL-enabled regions.
^"Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time".Metacritic.Archived from the original on November 21, 2010. RetrievedFebruary 3, 2010. Metacritic here states thatOcarina of Time is "[c]onsidered by many to be the greatest single-player video game ever created in any genre".
^Ryan, Michael E. (July 24, 2013) [2000]. "I Gotta Have This Game Machine!".Familypc. Vol. 7, no. 11. p. 112.Considered by many to be the greatest video game ever
Peckham, Matt; Eadicicco, Lisa; Fitzpatrick, Alex; Vella, Matt; Patrick Pullen, John; Raab, Josh; Grossman, Lev (August 23, 2016)."The 50 Best Video Games of All Time".Archived from the original on August 30, 2016. RetrievedAugust 30, 2016.
^"Getting That "Resort Feel"".Iwata Asks: Wii Sports Resort. Nintendo. p. 4.Archived from the original on September 27, 2016.As it comes free with every Wii console outside Japan, I'm not quite sure if calling it "World Number One" is exactly the right way to describe it, but in any case it's surpassed the record set by Super Mario Bros., which was unbroken for over twenty years.
.jpg)
