Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, born Novermber 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer and co-representative director of Nintendo. He is well known for creating popular series, like for example Donkey Kong, Pikmin, The Legend of Zelda, and of course, Super Mario.
Life
Miyamoto was born in November 16, 1952 in Sonobe, Japan. His parents were very simplistic and his father was an English teacher. When Miyamoto was young, he liked to explore areas surrounding his home. One day, he found a cave, and after much hesitation, went inside it. Along with the areas around his home and the cave, this would later inspire Miyamoto to create The Legend of Zelda.
One day, Miyamoto came across a dog nearby his home. The dog was very frightening to Miyamoto, who would later create the Chain Chomp, who is based off of the pooch.
Miyamoto graduated in the Kanazawa College of Industrial Arts, but even with his degree in Arts, no jobs were lined up for him. At this time, he had a strong passion for manga (Japanese comics) and wanted to become a professional manga artist.
Nintendo Years
In 1977, Miyamoto joined Nintendo, a company which at the time was straying from its original playing card production and evolving into video games. He was able to join when his father helped him with an interview with the former president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi.
Miyamoto became Nintendo's first artist and was appointed to design their first arcade game, Sheriff. He was also asssigned for the game Radar Scope.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, their arcade games failed in the North American market and were on the verge of finacial collapse. In an effort to save the company, President Yamauhci requested Miyamoto to convert Radar Scope into an entirely new arcade game. Along with head engineer Gunpei Yokoi, Miyamoto went on with the task.
After lots of thought, Miyamoto settled on a love triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter, and a girl. He based this on how two characters from Popeye, Bluto and the titular Popeye, each going for a girl named Olive Oyl. Miyamoto originally wanted the game to be a Popeye game, but rights could not be obtained, therefore that idea was scrapped. Bluto evolved into an ape, Popeye into the ape's owner, and Olive Oyl into the damsel-in-distress. The influence for this was the successful 1933 movie King Kong. This idea would become the very popular arcade game Donkey Kong.
In 1985, Miyamoto created The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and many other games for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In following years, he would also create games for the Super Nintendo (SNES), the Game Boy, and eventually the Nintendo 64.
In 1996, Miyamoto directed the launch game for the N64, Super Mario 64. This game proved to be a milestone in video games as it was in 3D unlike several other previous games, and it was overall a very well-praised platformer.
After the praise for SM64, Miyamoto continued creating games for Nintendo consoles, and in 2004, he created a remake of SM64, Super Mario 64 DS, this game having including Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario, as well as adding an additional 30 Power Stars. This game was also praised for its performance.
Today, Miyamoto is the Co Director of Nintendo and has created hundreds of different games for their consoles.
Personal Life
Miyamoto is married to a woman named Yasuko and has 2 children. One of them was aged 25 in 2010 and worked as an advertisement agent.
For concerns of being inundated, Miyamoto usually refrains from signing autographs, as well as appearing on TV.
Despite his job, Miyamoto doesn't spend much time on video games, reffering to play instruments like the banjo and guitar, and enjoys bluegrass music. He owns a Shetland Sheepdog named Pikku that he also enjoys spending time with (he was once a dog breeder).
Miyamoto has an obsession with rearrangling furniture within his home. A hobby of his is to guess the measurement of objects before using a measuring tape to see how accurate he was. Reportedly he carries a meausring tape everywhere he goes.
Signature
