Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto

Introduction

Shigeru Miyamoto (born on November 16, 1952 in Sonobe, Japan) is the man who created not only Mario, but other various other video game characters as well, and has worked on many famous Mario games, and the well known Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2, Doki Doki Panic.

Miyamoto is lots of times considered the "father of modern video games."

Early Life

Miyamoto was born and bred in Sonobe in Japan, near Kyoto (the location for the Nintendo headquarters). In his youth he spent a large amount of time exploring the surrounding countryside. At one point, he actually discovered a series of caves, and consequently returned with a lantern in his hand. He actually spent almost his entire summer searching them.

Miyamoto had a desire wanted to create things that astonished the world. He considered fulfiling the role of a puppeteer, a painter, and later made toys. He decided to study industrial design at the Kanazawa Munici College of Industrial Arts and Crafts. It took him five years to graduate, because he was too lazy to attend all the classes.

At age 24, his father contacted a friend of his by the name of Hiroshi Yamauchi from an old toy company - and yes, the company's name was indeed Nintendo - that he used to work at. Yamauchi requested to see some designs. Miyamoto's response was to go to Nintendo headquarter's with a bag of goodies. One of these goodies, was one of the greatest portfolios Nintendo had ever seen, resulting in Miyamoto eventually becoming Nintendo's first staff artist in 1977.

Career

Three years later, in 1980, Nintendo of America was looking for a hit to establish themselves in the arcade market. They ordered a large number of units of an arcade game called Radar Scope. This, however, was a diabolical idea since by the time Nintendo had received them, the interest in them had hit rock bottom. Desperate, Yamauchi called Miyamoto into his office, and interrogated him on his knowledge on this new concept. He claimed to have loved video games in university. After licenses fell through, Donkey Kong was born.

Donkey Kong turned out to be a success. In fact, the success was so epic, that Miyamoto was actually given his own team, which he called R&D4, although today it is known as Nintendo EAD. They would go on to make some of Nintendo's most memorable games.

Current Life

He rides his bike, or walks to work each day, usually with his wife (who he actually met on the job, as she was general manager of Nintendo when he joined). Despite being an influential figure in video games and responsible for the multi-million dollar franchise that is the Mario series, Miyamoto is said to be very humble, insisting on settling for an average income.