He might not be a household name, but Shigeru Miyamoto is one of the past century's most successful artists and, undisputedly, the video game industry's most respected designer. The father of Mario and countless other gaming icons, Miyamoto's genius is stamped on every product he touches. Miyamoto, 56, is the creative force behind many of the world's most popular video games. Nintendo has sold hundreds of millions of Miyamoto-designed games worth billions of dollars. His masterpieces Super Mario 64 and The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time are often cited as the best games ever made, and his more recent products have proved pivotal in the astonishing success of Nintendo's Wii and DS platforms. Just a few years ago, critics claimed Miyamoto was out of touch with the industry he helped create. After joining Nintendo in 1977 and designing the arcade smash Donkey Kong just a few years later, Miyamoto enjoyed a string of hits, including Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox. But as the designer entered his 50s and Nintendo's share of the ever-growing interactive entertainment industry began to wane at the expense of Sony's trendsetting PlayStation, Miyamoto was often berated for refusing to grow up. In recent years the rest of the industry has chased the holy grail of photo-realism and explored increasingly violent and mature content typified by the Grand Theft Auto series. But, like a Japanese Peter Pan, Miyamoto refused to follow suit and continued to produce abstract, childlike cartoon worlds. In the last console generation, Nintendo's GameCube was outsold dramatically by the PlayStation 2 and even the brash newcomer, Xbox. Nintendo's future became increasingly uncertain and it seemed that Miyamoto and his beloved company were becoming anachronisms in a rapidly changing and maturing industry now suddenly more focused on adults than children. Yet today Nintendo is again the industry leader. Miyamoto and his president, Satoru Iwata, have orchestrated an astonishing comeback by producing incredibly novel experiences such as Nintendogs, Brain Training, Wii Fit and Wii Sports, as well as clever updates of more traditional Nintendo fare such as New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart and Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo has now sold more than 50 million Wii consoles and in excess of 100 million DS handhelds, capturing the public's attention with their novel control schemes and vibrant software. Crucially, Nintendo has been able to capture an extremely wide and diverse audience, including those who previously seemed immune to video gaming's charms, such as young girls (Nintendogs), middle-aged housewives (Wii Fit) and even senior citizens (Brain Training and Wii Sports). Ad Feedback At the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, The Age questioned Miyamoto about whether he felt vindicated by Nintendo's recent success after being so regularly criticised for making "childish" games. But the softly spoken Miyamoto said through an interpreter: "I think the criticism (that) the things that I was creating were childish was really more of a PR strategy that other companies may have used. "I don't think what I was creating was childish at all. I just make things that are very positive and bright. I think that creating something for children is different than creating something that has a bright and positive attitude." Anyone who has sampled a Miyamoto game will undoubtedly agree that their visuals and instant accessibility often belie his games' rich depth and challenge. Miyamoto says Nintendo's success has not come through any particular focus on a specific audience, such as older players or women. "What we have always been saying is that we are focused on a really broad audience and we're trying to make games that appeal to everyone." It is not a strategy Nintendo stumbled upon by chance or in desperation. In an interview with The Age at E3 2004, Miyamoto did not hide his disdain for the products his industry typically spat out. "In the realm of entertainment, you need innovation. "There's this habit of seeing one hit, then everybody runs in that direction trying to replicate its success. Once you do that, innovation dies and people are no longer entertained." As Nintendo's senior managing director and general manager of the company's entertainment analysis and development division, Miyamoto is today ultimately responsible for every game Nintendo releases. But the designer still enjoys getting hands-on during the lengthy development process and "knows all that there is about each title from start to finish". "What's really difficult is when there's a lot of different projects at once and you don't know where they are leading," Miyamoto adds. Presumably that is when he clashes with the many junior designers he mentors, resulting in delays to the game or the entire project being cancelled. No doubt there will be plenty of heated discussions in the coming months as his team considers what to do with Nintendo's latest gadget, a heart-rate monitor dubbed the Wii Vitality Sensor. The sensor follows the astonishing success of Wii Fit's Balance Board, which has already sold more than 20 million units. "But despite Nintendo's marketing push that its latest products might help people get fit or sharpen their minds, Miyamoto bristles at the suggestion Nintendo is becoming more of a "lifestyle" company than an entertainment giant. He says his perspective when contemplating radical new products is to look at the different activities a family does together in the living room and ponder "what could be turned into some kind of video game or interactive experience". "With the Wii Vitality Sensor, it's not a question of what can we do to measure or track different elements of the body, it's more of a question of what can a new type of interface do to create a new experience. If there was, for example, a way for your feelings to become some type of input rather than simply something that is being evaluated or tracked, what could be done with that to turn it into a video game? "If you were in an adventure game, maybe there was something where you had to tell the truth or lie, maybe it could tell if you were lying who knows?" Miyamoto has also been recently spending time completing what is "the essence" of his seminal Zelda franchise of adventure games and "what is the best way to keep Zelda moving forward". "My idea is the player would have such an impactful experience that they feel like they have travelled to the places that (the game's hero) Link visits. I think it's really important to stress that these are your individual memories of how you played the game." Whichever direction he chooses, Miyamoto says his determination is always to innovate. "It's something we cherish. We will always try to do things that no other company can do, that only Nintendo can do: creating entertainment that people will continue to come back to and enjoy." Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/2516512/Nintendos-game-genie

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