Shigeru Miyamoto
The Man Behind the Legend
Who is Shigeru Miyamoto? What significance does he have concerning critical thinking? Given the well-deserved title as "...one of the most successful designers of all time" [1], Shigeru Miyamoto, now 47, has been credited for setting new standards in the video game industry. "Throughout his career, Mr. Miyamoto has consistently created wonderful worlds filled with memorable characters who have taken us on the most amazing and challenging adventures. It is not an understatement to say that Mr. Miyamoto's games set the standards for the video game playing experience through several generations of both game players and game hardware!". [2]
In June of 1981, his first game, Donkey Kong, was granted an overnight success. "...Every platform game created since then, on the PC or consoles, owes some credit to the influence of Miyamoto's first game." [3] His next project was Super Mario Bros., which landed in arcades during 1983. In 1985 came the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which launched with the smash hit Super Mario Bros. To date, Super Mario Bros. has sold more than fifty million copies worldwide. "Make no mistake: it was the creativity and imagination of Super Mario Bros. that single-handedly revived the console gaming market and put an NES in virtually every American home." [4] Today, Mario is "arguably the most famous video game character in the world and a household name across the U.S." [5] Mario has also become Nintendo's official mascot.
Mr. Miyamoto's influential games like Super Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time have revolutionized the way games are made and what many players have come to expect form video games in the industry today. Mr. Miyamoto states, in response to being influential, "I'm glad that making games has come to influence people's daily lives so much. At the same time though, it makes me think about the responsibility we have as the ones who have such influential power."[6] Surprisingly, "Even superstars like Paul McCartney and Steven Spielberg have made pilgrimages to meet the Japanese fellow." [7] Having said that, to date, the video game industry outperforms the movie box office in revenue and in growth. It seems that the west obviously has something to learn from Mr. Miyamoto's golden touch.
Mr. Miyamoto's greatest epic, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, hailed as "The Game of the Century" [8], takes players into a 3-D world like no other. Mr. Miyamoto stresses that the environment, the story and the action are all designed to evoke emotional responses from players, that doesn't involve frustration, a first of its kind. Some of the most impressive sights, however, are the special effects such as fire, shifting lights, casting of shadows, dramatic camera angles and pans of cinematic effects. "Over one and a half hours of cinematic scenes were used to set the stage for major events and battles and to tell the story." [9] Some of the scenes are photo-realistic with rich, detailed graphics. The animations also portray emotions as well as a sense of reality. One of the major innovations that really makes this game truly great is that the game gives a player a sense of passage concerning time. The time cycle in the game, from the time the sun rises from the east till the time the sun sets in the west, is in twenty-minute revolutions. So twenty-four hours in real life is twenty minutes in the game. It is an element that truly reaches new levels in the gaming experience.
In addition to the special effects, Mr. Miyamoto takes it a step further by conveying emotions from the player through using stimulating music and sound effects in relation to the situation. For instance, danger and suspense in a fighting sequence. The music and sound effects added intensify the overall emotional impact of the game, similar to a movie. A nice touch to the game is that the enriched world is so vast that a horse was added for the young heroine as a form of transportation. This is what makes Mr. Miyamoto so great. It is his attention to detail and his devotion in making extraordinary experiences for the player.
As of August 24, 1999, Seven million copies of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been sold since its release date in November 23, 1998 [10]. That is a milestone all its own. In light of that, Zelda: Ocarina of Time has won several prestigious awards including Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design, Outstanding Achievement in Software Engineering, Console Role-playing Game of the Year, Console Adventure Game of the Year, Console Game of the Year, and Game of the Year. If that doesn't make other game developers go back to the drawing board to reevaluate how they make games I don't know what will.
In retrospect, "No single human has had as much influence on video gaming as Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto." [11] His beloved games clearly demonstrate his immense impact on the video game industry as well as society as a whole. He poses as a positive role model through developing wonderful games and touching upon the child's imagination that we all possess within us. Without Shigeru Miyamoto, the video game industry would be nowhere close to what it is today. He has brought the world joy through bringing Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, among others, into our living rooms. He has given society countless hours of entertainment and fun. Shigeru Miyamoto is truly one of the greatest developers of his time.
- Work Cited
- [1] Videogames.com / ZDNet, 1999
- [2] GameNews-WIRE
- [3] GameSpot, SportsMedia Communications, 1998
- [4] Hecklers Online, Inc.
- [5] Videogames.com, ZDNet, 1999
- [6] Sam Kennedy, Gaming Age Online, 1997-1999
- [7] Sam Kennedy, Gaming Age Online, 1997-1999
- [8] Nintendo Power, February Issue, 1999
- [9] Nintendo Power, May Issue, 1999
- [10] Electronic Gaming Monthly, November Issue, 1999
- [11] Nintendo Power, July Issue, 1997
- Photo Attribution
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shigeru_Miyamoto_at_GDC_2007.jpg
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MarioSMBW.png
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Link_Twilight_Princess.png
