Shigeru Miyamoto

"Miyamoto" redirects here. For the Japanese surname, see Miyamoto (surname). For the crater, see Miyamoto (crater).

The native form of this personal name is Miyamoto Shigeru. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Shigeru Miyamoto
宮本 茂
Miyamoto in 2015
Born (1952-11-16) November 16, 1952 (age 72)
Sonobe, Kyoto, Japan
Alma materKanazawa College of Art
Occupations
  • Game designer
  • game producer
  • game director
EmployerNintendo (1977–present)
Notable work
TitleGeneral Manager of Nintendo EAD (1984–2015)
Senior Managing Director at Nintendo (2002–2015)
Representative Director at Nintendo (2002–present)
Fellow at Nintendo (2015–present)[1]
SpouseYasuko Miyamoto
Children2
AwardsAIAS Hall of Fame Award (1998)[2]
BAFTA Fellowship (2010)
Person of Cultural Merit (2019)
Signature

Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, Hepburn: Miyamoto Shigeru, born November 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.

Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys.[3] He helped create art for the arcade game Sheriff,[4] and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 game Donkey Kong.

Miyamoto's games Super Mario Bros. (1985) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) helped the Nintendo Entertainment System dominate the console game market. His games have been flagships of every Nintendo video game console, from the arcade machines of the late 1970s to the present day. He managed Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development software division, which developed many Nintendo games, and he played an important role in the creation of other influential games such as Pokémon Red and Blue (1996) and Metroid Prime (2002). Following the death of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in July 2015, Miyamoto became acting president alongside Genyo Takeda until he was formally appointed "Creative Fellow" a few months later.[5]

  1. ^ "Annual Report 2019" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 14, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  2. ^ "D.I.C.E Special Awards". Archived from the original on November 4, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference New Yorker was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Notice Regarding Personnel Change of a Representative Director and Role Changes of Directors" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 14, 2015. Retrieved September 15, 2015.