Geekery

Geek God – Shigeru Miyamoto

Posted on 15. Jul, 2009 by Jake in Geek God

If you have never heard of Shigeru Miyamoto, the chances are you have heard of at least one of his creations. Originally joining Nintendo as an artist in 1977, he is the man responsible for launching the modern era of gaming and creating some of the most beloved and well-recognised gaming franchises of all time.
 
Miyamoto’s quest to revolutionise gaming began when he was tasked with redesigning an unpopular arcade game called Radar Scope. Repurposing the software from Radar Scope, Miyamoto came up Donkey Kong, a game which was to set the template for video games for years to come.
 

Donkey Kong introduced the “platform” element to gaming and offered vastly improved gameplay when compared to other games of the time. Platform games went on to become the dominant game genre of the Eighties, and early Nineties, while Donkey Kong itself proved to be a massive hit. It was the profits from Donkey Kong that allowed Nintendo to enter the home entertainment market with the NES in 1983.
 
Aside from being hugely innovative and massively profitable, Donkey Kong also introduced the character of Mario. After producing a sequel to Donkey Kong, Miyamoto took the Mario character and created what is perhaps the best-know game of all-time: Super Mario Bros.
 
Super Mario Bros, with was released with the Nintendo Entertainment System, set the standard for home video games and has been one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises. The original Super Mario Bros is the second best selling Nintendo game of all time, and total sales from all Mario games exceed 140 million units. Mario helped popularise the concept of home gaming; without Miyamoto’s creation it’s unlikely that gaming technology would have had the drive to evolve to where it currently stands.  
 
While Mario may be Miyamoto’s most successful property, his artistic triumph has been his involvement with the Legend of Zelda series. Miyamoto created the first Zelda title for the NES in 1986 and, with it, introduced many elements that have come to define the RPG genre. His crowning achievement, however, was the creation of Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64.
 
Along with another Miyamoto creation, Mario 64, the Ocarina of Time heralded the transition from 2D gaming to the next generation of 3D. It regularly ranks near the top of “best game” lists and has the highest score of any game on review aggregator Metacritic. To date, it is the only game to ever receive a perfect score from the highly-rated Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
 
Having pushed the limits of what was possible within games, Miyamoto then turned to producing consoles. His latest innovation, the Nintendo Wii, revolutionised gaming with its use of motion-sensitive technology and left Nintendo’s rivals struggling to catch up. The Wii is currently the best-selling seventh-generation console, having sold a total of 50 million units worldwide and is credited with introducing gaming to a broader, more mainstream audience.
 
With the video game industry currently experiencing massive growth in profits and popularity, it’s safe to say that none of it would have happened without Miyamoto. No wonder the man is known as “the father of Modern Gaming”.

Tags: gaming, Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto, super mario