Shigeru Miyamoto

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Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto
Born November 16, 1952 (1952-11-16) (age 56)
Sonobe cho, Kyoto, Japan[1][2]
Occupation Game designer, EAD General Manager

Shigeru Miyamoto (宮本 茂 Miyamoto Shigeru?) (born November 16, 1952 in Sonobe cho, Kyoto, Japan[1]) is a Japanese video game designer and producer who has been called the "father of modern video games" and "the Walt Disney of electronic gaming"[3] for helping create the Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin and F-Zero franchises and games such as Nintendogs and Wii Music.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Miyamoto described childhood experiences such as exploring fields, woods and caves outside Kyoto as an inspiration for The Legend of Zelda[4] and an antagonizing experience with a neighbor's chained dog, which inspired the Chain Chomp enemies in the Mario series.[5]

[edit] Nintendo

First employed by Nintendo as an artist in 1977, he designed one of their first coin-operated arcade games, Radar Scope,[6] which was less successful in the United States than Nintendo hoped. He then reused the game's hardware and modified it into Donkey Kong, which was a huge success.

[edit] Work style

At 1997's E3 convention, Miyamoto revealed that he was constantly working with around four hundred people on around a dozen projects at a time.[7] However, he has also stated that he prefers to focus on "games in order, one by one" rather than many at once.[8]

Miyamoto has also been known to have Nintendo implement delays "to make a game [...] of the high quality standards that Nintendo is known for",[9] at times even scrapping the entire development of games. He 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.[10] It is also referred to as "Miyahon Check" (Miyahon is an alternative kanji reading of Miyamoto) or "Miyamoto Test".[11]

An example of this was Eiji Aonuma's replacement as producer on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Miyamoto between 2005 to 2006 so that he could assume direction duties. Aonuma stated that the switch was the result of a year-long development being Chabudai Gaeshi'ed.[12] In the same interview, Miyamoto said that he had to clean up the mess from his Chabudai Gaeshi, so he joined as a producer and assisted in the development of the Nintendo GameCube and Wii versions of the game.

[edit] Personal life

Although a game designer, Miyamoto spends little time playing games, preferring to play the guitar and banjo.[13] He has a Shetland Sheepdog named Pikku that was the inspiration for Nintendogs.[14] He is also a semi-professional dog breeder.[15]. He has been quoted as stating, "Video-games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll."[16]

[edit] Awards and recognition

The name of the main character of the PC game Daikatana, Hiro Miyamoto, is an homage to Miyamoto.[17]

In 1998, Miyamoto was honored as the first inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame.[18]

On November 28, 2006, Miyamoto was featured in TIME Asia's "60 Years of Asian Heroes," alongside Hayao Miyazaki, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Bruce Lee and the Dalai Lama.[3] He was later chosen as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the Year in both 2007[19] and 2008.[20]

At the Game Developers Choice Awards, on March 7, 2007, Miyamoto received the Lifetime Achievement Award "for a career that spans the creation of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda to the company's recent revolutionary systems, Nintendo DS and Wii."[21]

Both GameTrailers and IGN placed Miyamoto first on their lists for the "Top Ten Game Creators"[22] and the "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time"[23] respectively.

In a survey of over 9,000 game developers by industry publication Develop, 30% of the developers chose Miyamoto as their "Ultimate Development Hero".[24] Miyamoto has been interviewed by companies and organisations such as CNN's Talk Asia[25] and NextLevel.com.[26]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Nintendo Power staff (1997). Star Fox 64 Player's Guide. Nintendo of America. pp. 116-119. 
  2. ^ Nintendo Power staff (June 2007). "Power Profiles 1: Shigeru Miyamoto". Nintendo Power (216): 88-90. 
  3. ^ a b Wright, Will. "Shigeru Miyamoto: The video-game guru who made it O.K. to play". TIME Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/bl_miyamoto.html. Retrieved on 2006-11-28. 
  4. ^ Vestal, Andrew, et al. (2000-09-14). "History of Zelda". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hist_zelda/index.html. Retrieved on 2006-09-30. 
  5. ^ Sheff, David (1993). Game Over. Random House. ISBN 0-679-40469-4. 
  6. ^ "Developer Profile: Intelligent Systems". IGN. 2001-01-10. http://cube.ign.com/articles/089/089831p1.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
  7. ^ Imamura, Takao; Miyamoto, Shigeru (August 1997), "Pak Watch E3 Report "The Game Masters"", Nintendo Power 99: 104–105 .
  8. ^ N-Europe: News: Wii Music On Track For 2008
  9. ^ "An Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto". http://www.the-nextlevel.com. http://www.the-nextlevel.com/feature/interview-shigeru-miyamoto/. Retrieved on 2007-10-24. 
  10. ^ "Iwata Asks: The Indefinable Essence Of Zelda". Nintendo. Archived from the original on 2006-12-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20061209104018/http://ms.nintendo-europe.com/wii/?site=v5_01.html&expand=5&l=enGB. Retrieved on 2006-11-16. 
  11. ^ スクリーンショット
  12. ^ "【任天堂】ラウンドテーブルにて『ゼルダの伝説 Twilight Princess』の全貌が明らかに!" (in Japanese). Famitsu. 2005-05-18. http://www.famitsu.com/game/event/2005/05/18/264,1116367600,39303,0,0.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
  13. ^ "Shigeru Miyamoto Developer Bio". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,36620/. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
  14. ^ Totilo, Stephen (2005-09-27). "Nintendo Fans Swarm Mario's Father During New York Visit". VH1. http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/1510449/09272005/id_0.jhtml. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
  15. ^ Gibson, Ellie (2005-08-23). "Nintendogs Interview // DS // Eurogamer". Eurogamer. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/i_nintendogs_ds. Retrieved on 2008-05-02. 
  16. ^ http://thinkexist.com/quotation/video-games-are-bad-for-you-that-s-what-they-said/406209.html
  17. ^ "A Hardcore Elegy for Ion Storm". Salon.com. p. 5. Archived from the original on 2006-12-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20061206142311/http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/01/02/ion_storm/index.html?pn=5. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
  18. ^ "Miyamoto Will Enter Hall of Fame". GameSpot. 1998-05-12. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2463264.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-30. 
  19. ^ Wendel, Johnathan. "The TIME 100 (2007) - Shigeru Miyamoto". TIME Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615737_1615521,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  20. ^ "Who is Most Influential? - The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists". TIME Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725112_1726934_1726935,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-12. 
  21. ^ Carless, Simon (2007-02-12). "2007 Game Developers Choice Awards To Honor Miyamoto, Pajitnov". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12732. Retrieved on 2007-02-12. 
  22. ^ GT Countdown Video Game, Top Ten Game Creators | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com
  23. ^ IGN - 1. Shigeru Miyamoto
  24. ^ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92401-Miyamoto-Is-Developers-Hero
  25. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/14/miyamoto.script/index.html
  26. ^ http://www.the-nextlevel.com/feature/interview-shigeru-miyamoto/

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