Shigeru Miyamoto
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| Shigeru Miyamoto | |
|---|---|
 Shigeru Miyamoto | |
| Born | November 16, 1952 Sonobe, Kyoto |
| First game | Color TV Racing 112 |
Shigeru Miyamoto is an iconic video game designer born in 1952 in Kyoto, Japan. Without a doubt the most proclaimed, influential and admired developer in the world, Shigeru Miyamoto has created the industry's most lucrative franchises, the most critically successful video games, and is credited in numerous of titles that have been lauded by nearly all critics. He has appeared in Time's Top 100 and was rated the greatest video game designer of all time by IGN. His wide range of video game series that he's created include the likes of Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, Nintendogs, and various others.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] 1952-1980
Shigeru Miyamoto was born on November 16 in 1952 in the town of Sonobe, Kyoto in Japan (his family had lived there for three generations). As 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 generally 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. As a child he would partake in various other activities such as drawing and 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 would eventually bring a television home, and soon after that Miyamoto became a big fan of Japanese animation, and in middle school started to get into manga, and eventually joined a manga club upon entering high school. After awhile, his family would eventually move into Kyoto, which would offer Miyamoto greater opportunities as he grew up. One thing was evident to him was that he wanted to become an artist of some sort.
Miyamoto attended Kanazawa Munici College of Industrial Arts and Crafts, and according to him he wasn't a very good student, and wouldn't attend class as he was supposed to, but rather enjoyed various unrelated luxuries. He became interested in the banjo, and made a band with another fellow and performed in many venues in Japan. Some of his musical inspirations included the likes of The Beatles, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Doc Watson. After five years, Miyamoto finally managed to graduate from college, and would soon thereafter be given a proposal to work at Nintendo in 1977. Hiroshi Yamauchi was the president of Nintendo, and Miyamoto's father was a friend of his. Because of Miyamoto's father, he managed to get an interview, and Miyamoto showcased some simple toy ideas of his such as a three-way seesaw, children's clothes hangers with animal designs on them (including a chicken, elephant, and a bird), and a clock designed to be used at an amusement park. Amazingly Miyamoto got hired as an artist for Nintendo, and would be required to plan new products for Nintendo to develop. Miyamoto once said that one reason he joined the company was because of the wide range of products they were creating, and thought that "they'll let me do what I want to". Hiroshi Yamauchi had just hired a man who would soon become the most important employee of Nintendo.
The first project Miyamoto was involved with at Nintendo was making the housing designs for Color TV Racing 112 and a Blockbuster Color TV Game. Miyamoto knew that he wanted to make a better piece of hardware than what was available in Color TV Game 6 and Color TV Game 15, which he explained as "bad". He included a wheel in the racing game and made the hardware for the bluckbusting title a lot more accessible. Next after this Miyamoto would create the character designs for the arcade game Space Fever, a Space Invaders clone. In Japan Space Invaders had become so popular and the demand was high, so Nintendo felt like they could cash in and create their own version of the game, which was nearly identical. Following this he'd have a similar role in the games Sheriff in 1979 and Space Firebird in 1980. Then came Radar Scope.
[edit] 1980-1984
Nintendo had been interested in the video game market for some time. They had created moderate successes and mediocre games, most of which were clones of other titles. Nintendo had for some time wanted to expand to America, and thus opened up an American branch that they titled Nintendo of America in New York (years later they would move to Redmond, Washington). In the beginning there were less than ten employees, and it would remain at that number for quite awhile. Nintendo in Japan ordered a division within Nintendo to create a smash hit that would be incredibly successful in America after a few titles didn't manage to attract customers. The result was Radar Scope, an arcade title. Miyamoto worked on the casing of the arcade unit and the designs that would be sported on the hardware, though unlike some of his other games he wouldn't create the characters. Back in America, a shipment of three thousand Radar Scape units finally arrived in America after around four months at sea. By the time they got to Nintendo of America, the game was considered outdated, and they only managed to move 1,000 of them. Minoru Arakawa, the president of the American branch, desperately desired to keep NoA afloat, and requested Hiroshi Yamauchi to create a game that could be placed within the Radar Scope units. Yamauchi was reluctant because everyone who was worthwhile within Nintendo was hard at work on other things, but he agreed nonetheless, knowing that he'd have to dig deeper within Nintendo to find someone who would be able to create a game. Astonishingly, the person he found was Shigeru Miyamoto, who had no prior game design experience whatsoever. Now the question remained on everyone's mind was whether or not he'd be able to create a new game. A heavy weight was placed on Miyamoto's shoulders, and his design choices would ultimately decide the fate of Nintendo of America. It was time to prove his worth, though he'd need a little help in knowing how to actually create a video game, so Yamauchi turned to a Nintendo veteran.
The veteran was Gunpei Yokoi, a knowledgeable man who was well taught in video game design, creating almost single handedly the Game & Watch franchise. Yokoi would teach Miyamoto everything he knew, and would in addition oversee the project, adding his own input. Initially Yamauchi assumed that, perhaps even wanted, Miyamoto to simply make Radar Scope better, though Miyamoto wasn't very fond of the shooting genre, thinking that it had gotten old after awhile, and didn't want to create another tennis or maze game despite his utmost admiration for Pac-Man. He wanted to create something entirely new, and he had some ideas up his sleeve before starting development. One was including a story. He had always wondered why video games had no plot what so ever, and felt that there was an unexplored potential for engrossing stories. He looked at some of his favorite films as inspiration, and desperately wanted to get the license for a Popeye game. Nintendo was unable to get it, however, so Miyamoto resorted to creating his own characters.
The characters included in his game would be highly similar to those from Popeye, and the relationship between them was clearly based off of the love triangle from the series. Olive would be replaced by Lady, later known as Pauline, Donkey Kong would take the place of Bluto, while the character Popeye would transform into gaming's biggest superstar: Mario, originally known as Jumpman. Next, Miyamoto would have to create an idea for the game's plot. In the final version, Donkey Kong would escape his master's clutches, kidnap his girlfriend, and climb to the top of a series of girders at a construction site. Mario would naturally go off to save his girlfriend, though would be bombarded by a series of barrels that Donkey Kong sent down the girders. Mario, using his fantastic jumping powers, would, hop over the barrels and use hammers to get rid of them as well. As Mario progressed through the game, new obstacles would stand in Mario's way though after reaching the very top, Mario would cause Donkey Kong's platform to tumble and would subsequently save Pauline. Thus, gaming's first plot was created. Donkey Kong is among the first titles to have multiple stages, was the first game with a character that could jump, and featured some pretty elaborate cutscnes for the time as well. Miyamoto composed the soundtrack, and when everything was said and done, Yamauchi knew that what he had was a hit, so he sent it over to America. Upon arrival, the few employees at Nintendo absolutely hated it, and had a set thinking that this would be the company's doom. Yamauchi convinced them to release it, though, and they gutted two Radar Scope units and replaced them with the new game. Two bars in the Seattle region were reluctant to have the arcade unit, but Nintendo convinced them to have it in their venues for just a short while, and in a few days Nintendo found that each unit contained hundreds of dollars worth of quarters. Now it was time to gut the rest of the two thousand Radar Scope units. Every employee at Nintendo, which consisted of five people, pitched in, and Arakawa even enlisted the help of his wife as well. As word of the game got loose, Nintendo was forced to order thousands of more units from Japan, though the company couldn't keep up with demand. Shigeru Miyamoto's first work as a game designer proved to be one of Nintendo's most successful ventures yet in almost one hundred years.
The game's success clearly warranted a sequel, which Miyamoto was assigned to. He had a few ideas for another game which he couldn't implement in the first due to various constraints. In the new game he wanted the playable character to be Donkey Kong to sort of balance the relationship between Mario and him, though because of his size he resorted to creating a smaller ape called Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong's son. In this new game, appropriately titled Donkey Kong Jr., DK's son would climb on various vines in order to save his father who was placed in a caged prison by Mario. He eventually managed to do so, and afterwards Donkey Kong kicked Mario away. Miyamoto was once again the person most involved with the game, and later went to work on Donkey Kong 3.
After the series' success, Miyamoto wanted to focus more on Mario and thus created an arcade game titled Mario Bros. which would introduce Mario's twin brother Luigi. An employee at Nintendo of America took note that Mario looked strikingly similar to a plumber, so Miyamoto changed his occupation accordingly and placed the new game in the sewers of Brooklyn. The game was, like Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., a platformer, though this one was multiplayer enabled. Players would collect coins, thwart various types of enemies and each player, if they were playing the multiplayer mode, had a common goal of acquiring more coins. Like Donkey Kong, this game achieved instant success and caused Yamauchi to assign Miyamoto to a new position, one where he would control an entire gaming division that would eventually become the most important video game developer in the world. The division was created in order for Nintendo to make games specifically for the recently released Famicom, which came out a year prior. It was time for Miyamoto to prove himself once more, though this time an entire team would be at his disposal. A new generation of games has started, and Miyamoto was at the forefront.
[edit] 1984-1989
Nintendo had previously infiltrated the console market with their Color TV Games and, in Japan only, their manufacturing of the Magnavox Odyssey. But, this time they would venture into the realm of interchangeable cartridges and create games that would feature developing characters, exciting worlds and stories, among other things. Yamauchi knew that Miyamoto would be the key in developing the best that the console would have to offer, and thus put him in command of many of the titles that Nintendo would release. Miyamoto wouldn't direct every title, and some titles he wouldn't even be involved with, though he clearly would have a looming influence on all the developers who would be employed by Nintendo.
The first game that Miyamoto worked on in 1984 for the Famicom was Devil World, a Pac-Man-like game that wasn't released elsewhere due to its biblical themes. Following this he served the role as designer in Excitebike and publisher for Ice Climber, though there was one game in particular that would prove to be one of the most successful and important games of all time. In Japan, the gaming industry could be considered strong though the same wasn't the case in America. The Atari empire had failed and video games were no longer popular. Arcades all across the country shut down, and console manufactures quit making hardware. So it was quite a shock when retailers were told that Nintendo was attempting to enter the market once again. They claimed that what they had wasn't just a video game but an entertainment system, and said that the inclusion of R.O.B., a robot who would interact with a few games, made it more of a toy than anything. This convinced retailers to purchase what would soon be known in America as the Nintendo Entertainment System (the English name for the Famicom).
That game was The Legend of Zelda, originally for the Famicom Disk System and later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System when it hit the states and Europe. The game was inspired by various events that Miyamoto experienced as a child. For example, Miyamoto has expressed that he found it enjoyable to travel through an unknown city without the use of a map. This way, the person won't know what they'll find at every corner. He also found a maze like structure near his home as a child, which was also an influence for the game. Finding new things, such as the cave mentioned above and a lake when hiking, all brought joy to Miyamoto which would be incorporated into his game. He filled more roles in this game than any other he's ever worked on, including director, producer, and designer. The game would end up being the first standalone game to sell over a million units. Directly after the success of these two games he was promoted to being a producer on his games. As a producer, he wouldn't have as much of an on hands role, though would often still cast his ideas over the entire staff and get in on the concepts and designs of the entire game. After being promoted he, along with fellow teacher Gunpei Yokoi, both produced the NES game Kid Icarus. Kid Icarus was developed by Intelligent Systems. According to Miyamoto, he greatly appreciated being promoted because he would now have the same role as George Lucas, who had made Miyamoto's favorite movies, most specifically Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Miyamoto was later involved with games such as Doki Doki Panic, known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in America, and award winning game Ice Hockey. In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link he didn't play as big as a role as he did in the original game. He also was a major player in the NES game Mother. He once again played the role as director in the final Super Mario Bros. game for the NES titled Super Mario Bros. 3, which to day is considered one of the greatest games in the series. Not only that, but when released Super Mario Bros. 3 ended up becoming the best selling standalone game of all time. Miyamoto had proved his worth at Nintendo, yet there was more to come. More challenges and more problems to overcome. Miyamoto has said that he has had to deal with so much stress that it has caused terrible heart problems for him.
[edit] 1990-1996
The NES era had finished and in 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, though Miyamoto wasn't directly involved and wouldn't produce a game for it until 1992. In 1990 Nintendo released the Super Famicom, and enlisted the help of Miyamoto and his team to create three games that could launch with the title. So, with over thirty people on board, they tirelessly worked on the three games, one of which would be packaged with the console as Super Mario Bros. had been for the NES. Naturally, that game would be the new Mario title, which was called Super Mario World. Super Mario World wasn't directed by Miyamoto as the prevoius Mario games were, but rather was done by series veteran Takashi Tezuka who had played a prominent role in development of the series since Super Mario Bros. Miyamoto played the role of producer. Sixteen people worked on Super Mario World, and it is perhaps most notable for introducing the character Yoshi, a character Miyamoto wanted to include in a much earlier Mario game but couldn't because of technical limitations. Said Miyamoto: "We wanted to have Mario ride a dinosaur ever since we finished the original Super Mario Bros., but it was impossible technically. We were finally able to get Yoshi off the drawing boards with the Super NES." The other two games Miyamoto worked on were F-Zero and Pilotwings. Like Super Mario World, Miyamoto produced both of these games.
All three games proved that Miyamoto could adapt to the new console format, as all of them were critically acclaimed and successful. Miyamoto would truly shine even more when he created the third game in the Zelda franchise, titled The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The game, in which Miyamoto served as a producer, went back to the series' roots as a game viewed from a bird's eye perspective. Following this game Miyamoto went to work on Super Mario Kart and Mario Paint, both for the SNES. Following both of these games' successes Shigeru Miyamoto worked on his first handheld title, Wave Race for the Game Boy. After this he'd work on the system again by producing The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. His next game would push the SNES to its limits and be lauded worldwide. It was developed in conjunction with a European developer known as Argonaut, and would eventually be known as Star Fox, or Lylat Wars in Europe due to copyright issues. The game is so well known for containing polygonal graphics that use the Super FX chip, and wowed gamers due to this feature. But perhaps more importantly, and this was something gamers may not have realized at the time, was that it was one of the first collaborations between a Western and Eastern developer. But development on the title wasn't so smooth, which should be expected for one of the original pioneering console games with polygons to this extent.
Argonauts' first version of the game was shown to Miyamoto, and as they describe it his thoughts towards the game were clear when he sucked air into his teeth. The team who made it apparently had no game designer, but rather just programmers who wanted to make great looking graphics. So, with this, Nintendo's team in Kyoto was tasked with actually designing the game. After the team from London went down to Japan, they created another prototype that yet again Miyamoto wasn't impressed by. He then requested one of the developers to create a game using the system by himself, and he created an on-rails game that was played through a tunnel. Miyamoto liked the idea of making the game an on-rails shooter, which was easier to comprehend. So, they went with this idea and thus had to start from scratch. The team then created what the game is today, though the lack of interesting characters or a plot made Miyamoto discouraged, so he got a sketch book and made the four playable characters that are in today, including Fox McCloud, Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi, and Slippy Toad. These are the four characters that Miyamoto designed, and it's no wonder that today they are the most popular Star Fox characters. While the game managed to sell over a million copies in America alone in just a couple of days, partially due to Nintendo Power's heavy promotion of the title, it is perhaps even more important because, in Europe, it was so successful that it allowed Nintendo to set up a branch there, which they titled appropriately Nintendo of Europe.
Following Star Fox, Miyamoto worked on Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES, which featured all four Super Mario Bros. games from the NES with enhanced graphics and sounds. Miyamoto is credited as the director of the game, though it's not entirely clear if the game is referring to his role in the original four games. Next after this he was the producer of Yoshi's Safari for the SNES, a Super Scope enabled game, and then following that Kirby's Adventure, his last NES game ever, and his only credited Kirby title. He'd later go on to publish titles such as Donkey Kong '94 on the Game Boy, and Stunt Race FX and Killer Instinct on the SNES. Miyamoto didn't play a large role in the creation of Donkey Kong Country, and is known for not being very fond of the title. He once stated that Donkey Kong Country proves that gamers will be willing to play a mediocre game if it had good graphics. Because of this, it distressed him when Nintendo informed him that they wanted Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, to have similar graphics. Instead of following orders, Miyamoto instructed his team to create graphics that resembled pastel crayons. When Miyamoto showcased his design, Nintendo approved of it and development continued on. Miyamoto after this worked on Mole Mania for the Game Boy and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES. With that he ended his career on both systems, and was getting prepared for an much bigger console, the Nintendo 64.
[edit] 1996-2001
Miyamoto hadn't directed a game since Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, and most assumed that this would remain the case since he was promoted to producer. However, with the new console, Miyamoto became the director of the most pivotal game that would be released on the console, the new Mario game. Titled Super Mario 64, Miyamoto had been coming up with concepts for the game for years, though didn't get to writing specs until just awhile before the game was released. Miyamoto tested with polygons in the games Star Fox and Stunt Race FX, and according to him he even wanted to do a similar title before the Super Famicom was released. According to Miyamoto, it took around five to six years total to complete the game from its early conception. Upon release, the game sold millions upon millions of copies worldwide and to this day is considered one of, if not the most important video game of all time.
Around the release of Super Mario 64, Miyamoto published titles Pilotwings 64, Wave Race 64, Mario Kart 64, and Yoshi's Story were released. Star Fox 64 was also released without the assistance of the European developers of the original, though nevertheless contained a major innovation, which was the inclusion of rumble feedback through the Rumble Pak. Rumors circulated that Miyamoto was going to direct the game, though he confirmed that he simply did some of the basic game designed and relied upon others to direct it. Apparently there was something missing in the finished product, and Miyamoto felt that they needed to add more excitement and change some of the rules of the game too. Though Miyamoto has stated that he's not 100% satisfied with the game, he said he felt they did a better job of using the Nintendo 64's capabilities than they did with Super Mario 64.
After Star Fox 64, Miyamoto worked on 1080° Snowboarding and F-Zero X, but at the end of the year he would release what to this day is considered the greatest game of all time according to Metacritic and Gamerankings. The game is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and it revolutionized video games. Ocarina of Time was originally known as Zelda 64, and was one of the earliest games with a development structure that contained directors for many segments. Miyamoto was the producer of this game. In all, there were around four co-directors, and they each had their own responsibilities. Miyamoto changed various aspects of the game. Some sources say that he was so involved that he was close to being a director, or at least the person who kept everyone in order. Miyamoto came up with the idea of the horse, which became the game's most enduring image. To date, Ocarina of Time remains the series' most successful game. It is also the most critically acclaimed.
The success of Ocarina of Time caused various other titles to be released, including a sequel in 2000 called The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, also for the Nintendo 64. This was the first game in the series completely headed by Eiji Aonuma, who had previously worked as a leader on Ocarina of Time. Miyamoto had given his beloved series over to Aonuma, though her certainly wouldn't be kept out of the loop when they were creating new games in the series, and in fact would prove to "upend the teatable" more than ever before, making developers completely start from scratch at times. Other games released during this time were titles like F-Zero X, its expansion kit, Mario Artist for the Nintendo 64DD, Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., Paper Mario, and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons\Ages. The Nintendo 64 era was finished, and a new one was set to begin.
[edit] 2001-2004
Unfortunately, each console since the NES had dropped in sales and performed worse than its predecessor. Nintendo 64 proved to be the worst selling console of them all, and Nintendo was doing all they could to make sure that wouldn't happen with the GameCube, originally known as Dolphin. During the same time they were releasing the successor to the Game Boy Color called the Game Boy Advance. To ensure that the GameCube would be successful, Miyamoto was designated by Nintendo to create a new and unique title. He and a team of Nintendo veterans showcased a tech demo titled Mario 128 that would be shown at a press conference. Basically, it was made to showcase the unique features that the GameCube could perform.
Other games at this time that Miyamoto produced included Super Mario Advance, Wario Land 4 and Mario Kart: Super Circuit for the Game Boy Advance and for the GameCube he was credited in Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. The next year he'd be a huge influence over Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, an American made game in which Miyamoto heavily assisted. In Doshin the Giant Miyamoto desired for the game to have the players walk around spheres, an idea he came up with in Mario 128, though the designers eventually abandoned the idea for another time. Miyamoto served as the producer of Metroid Prime and convinced Retro Studios, the developer, to make the game a first person title, whereas they wanted it to be a third person game. Some were so determined within the Texas based company to make it a third person game that they wanted to quit if it wasn't, though Nintendo eventually made it clear that the game would be a first person title, and in the long run it heavily benefited it. Miyamoto also told Retro that if they were unable to make the transition from regular Samus Aran into her Morph Ball mode seem seamless, then they would not be given the rights to make the game. They followed through, however, and it ended up being one of the most highly praised game of the year. This was the first Metroid game where Miyamoto was mentioned in the credits. Also released in 2002 was Super Mario Sunshine. Miyamoto played the role as producer for this title whereas in Super Mario 64 he was the director. He would hand the torch over to Yoshiaki Koizumi as he had done with Zelda and Eiji Aonuma. Miyamoto also worked as producer on Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 and Star Fox Adventures this year. With Star Fox Adventures, even though he was credited as producer, he has admitted that he wasn't really involved with the game, and didn't have much input since he had faith in Rare. Unfortunately, this would be Rare's last game on a Nintendo console.
In 2003 Nintendo released another juggernaut called The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the GameCube. Once again, Eiji Aonuma served as the director while Miyamoto was nevertheless a key component instead of the figurehead he supposedly is for some titles, especially ones where he's credited as supervisor, which he has claimed he's barely involved with at all during a lecture at the Tokyo University. Also released this year was F-Zero GX for the GameCube, important due to the collaboration between Nintendo and former competitor Sega. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga were other titles were he was mentioned in the credits. GiFTPiA for the GameCube was released this year with Miyamoto's name in the credits, though he felt that the game could be so much more if the director did what he wanted instead of just go with the norm. Another Zelda game called The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for the GameCube was also released this year, and was met with terrible sales. The game went on to become the worst selling game in the series, much to the dismay to Miyamoto, Aonuma and the developers behind the game. Throughout the year Miyamoto expressed his disappointment in the reaction to the game. Pac-Man Vs. was also released this year as one of the primary GBA to GameCube connection games. It was revealed during E3 that year. Miyamoto had always said that Pac-Man was his favorite game not made by Nintendo, and finally he was able to create his own version of it. In 2004 Miyamoto worked on The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Pikmin 2, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat. But there was something else that bared Miyamoto's name.
[edit] 2004-present
The Game Boy franchise's long reign was coming to an end. Nintendo had fully revealed its successor, the Nintendo DS, earlier in the year, and it was revealed to have two screens, the bottom one a touch screen, a microphone and graphics that are more impressive then those of the Nintendo 64's. Miyamoto worked with the hardware developers and served as producer on the primary launch title Super Mario 64 DS. Nintendo made sure that people knew Miyamoto was working on Nintendo DS software, as this could've been the reason that the ill-fated Virtual Boy performed so badly - that Miyamoto didn't support it whatsoever. This time around, Miyamoto was behind a plethora of titles ranging from the previously mentioned Super Mario 64 DS to Mario Kart DS to the worldwide sensation Nintendogs, which Miyamoto created because of his increasing enjoyment with his dog. Other games on the DS he's worked on include Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis, New Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, though he didn't work as much as he usually does on the latter two games. Instead, he was gearing up for Nintendo's next console the Wii. If Nintendo could replicate the success they had with the Nintendo DS, then Nintendo would be able to shoot back to the top when they had been at the bottom for so long. It was time for a comeback, and Miyamoto would be at the helm of many of the triple-A titles.
The first two games Miyamoto would work on was Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Miyamoto's involvement with Wii Sports was minimum but with Twilight Princess he was there since the beginning, though Eiji Aonuma retained his position as director. Miyamoto has been said to "upend the tea table" quite a lot, meaning that in the middle of development he may decide that something doesn't fit and he demands that it be changed. In Twilight Princess, some of the game's designers felt like he did while others disagreed. Eiji Aonuma explained that he did so in a "considerate manner", while Miyamoto said that rather than upending the tea table, he just rearranged it.
After Twilight Princess, Miyamoto went on to supervise Super Paper Mario and Mario Strikers Charged. However, Miyamoto has once said that when he is credited as a supervisor, this usually means that he was barely part of the project and didn't have much influence over it. He was also a part of the staff with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which he felt was the best of the series. Then came Super Mario Galaxy. With this Wii title developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo (Donkey Kong Jungle Beat), Yoshiaki Koizumi was the director. Miyamoto came up with the entire game concept of spheres and gravity. He had wanted to use these things for years. In fact, he came up with the idea back with Mario 128. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata didn't understand how spheres would benefit the game, and neither did the director. After they created a prototype, however, it all became clear. Miyamoto was there to make sure that development went smoothly and would constantly pitch in his ideas. According to Koizumi, Miyamoto was the least bit concerned about altering the Mario formula, and was really excited when some of the team members came up to him with bold new ideas, whereas ironically people who had previously not worked on a Mario game didn't want to mess with the formula that Miyamoto had created. When Super Mario Galaxy was released, it ended up becoming the best rated game of the year and to date is the third highest rated video game of all time.
After Galaxy , Miyamoto worked on games such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Link's Crossbow Training, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii and Punch-Ou!! for the Wii. He also made two new Wii series games including Wii Fit, which was made due to his daily interest of measuring his weight, and Wii Music.
[edit] List of games
- Color TV Racing 112 - Created the housing design.
- Color TV Block Kusure - Created the housing design.
- Space Fever - Character designer. The characters in the game resembled those of Space Invaders.
- Sheriff - Character designer.
- Space Firebird - Character designer.
- Radar Scope - Cabinet designer. Would go on to direct the game that replaced the cabinets.
- Donkey Kong - Director and designer. One of his most well known video games of all time.
- Donkey Kong Jr. - Director and designer. The direct sequel to the above game.
- Mario Bros. - Designer. Introduced Luigi.
- Devil World - Designer. This is Miyamoto's first Famicom video game.
- Donkey Kong 3 - Director and designer.
- Excitebike - Designer.
- Ice Climbers - Producer. First game where Miyamoto is credited as producer.
- Super Mario Bros. - Director and game designer. Miyamoto nearly created this masterpiece all by himself with the help of a few other employees. One of the most influential games of all time.
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels - Director. Known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan, this was never released in America or Europe until Super Mario All-Stars was released.
- The Legend of Zelda - Director, producer, and game designer. This is the first game that Miyamoto both directed and produced. The Legend of Zelda is the first game in the immensely popular series.
- Kid Icarus - Producer. Miyamoto produced this game alongside Gunpei Yokoi.
- Doki Doki Panic - Producer. This game would end up becoming Super Mario Bros. 2 in America and Europe.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Producer.
[edit] See also
- Shigeru Miyamoto/gallery - Image gallery.
[edit] External links
- Miyamoto Shrine—A website dedicated to Shigeru Miyamoto
- N-Sider—Shigeru Miyamoto profile
