Nintendo wouldn’t be Nintendo without Shigeru Miyamoto. We encourage more: the video game industry would not be the same if this world had not been inhabited by the Japanese developer, the famous father of Mario Bros.who today celebrates 73 years of life.
If we had to choose developer video games most famous in the worldwithout a doubt Miyamoto would appear among the main candidates. Although very famous, his biography includes some curiosities that not everyone knows and that we will review here on the occasion of his birthday.
Shigeru Miyamoto: curious facts about the creator of the Mario Bros. universe.
When in 1981 Mario Bros. first appeared in a video game —it was in an installment starring the ape Donkey Kong—, it is possible that not even Miyamoto had imagined how far his creature would go. Entertainment icon, patriarch on the scene gamer and visible face of a machinery that moves millions, not only with videogames and merchandising, but also with its own amusement parks and blockbuster movies.
Miyamoto, at the premiere of “Super Mario Bros. Movie.” (Photo: Reuters/David Swanson)
When the most famous plumber in the world was born, Miyamoto was less than 30 years old. Now, at 73 years old and with graying hair, the birthday boy confesses that he barely plays the new installments starring his sonny digital.
In a recent interview with the media Casa Brutusthis man born on November 16, 1952, in Kyoto, confessed that He hardly supervises the new Mario games anymore and that he only tests the first 30 minutes to make sure the titles are true to the essence of his character.
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“Currently, I have colleagues who help me maintain the Mario universe, so I trust them with a lot of the work. But I still play the first half hour of each new title, to make sure it really feels like Mario,” Miyamoto said.
More curiosities about Miyamoto, the Japanese who revolutionized video games with a mustachioed plumber
The famous Japanese developer, in a amusement park inspired by his creature, Mario Bros. (Photo: Reuters/Marco Bello)
- In addition to having created Mario Bros., developed iconic Nintendo franchises, including The Legend of Zelda.
- When he joined Nintendo in 1977, he did not focus on creating games from the first moment. Instead, his job was design art of arcade machine cabinetsthose hulks that in those years were the epicenter of entertainment gamerin rooms full of machines and a lot of noise.
- The deployment of Donkey KongMiyamoto’s first famous little game, had a wink of destiny. The developer was 27 years old and Nintendo commissioned him to create a title because, due to calculation errors, they had about 2,000 unused cabinets.
- The first idea behind Mario was inspired by Beauty and the beast. A classic story: a hero goes to the rescue of a maiden. A true curiosity, which is worth dwelling on: Miyamoto did not, in the first instance, place Mario as the protagonist of the game. That only happened in 1985, with the launch of Super Mario World.
- for the franchise The Legend of Zelda —also famous and on her way to having her own film—Miyamoto was inspired by her childhood years. In Sonobe, the town in Kyoto where he was born, he grew up surrounded by forested areas, just like in those games.
- Did you know that a Miyamoto game was censored? It is about Devil Worldwhich appeared in Japan in 1984 and in Europe three years later. But in the United States it was banned, due to its theme. In the title, players faced demons and to do so they had to collect crosses and Bibles.
- In 2012, the father of Mario Bros. was awarded in Oviedo, Spain, with the Prince of Asturias Award of Communication and Humanities. On the occasion, the jury highlighted that Miyamoto “is the main architect of the educational, training and constructive video game revolution.”
Miyamoto is not only the father of Mario Bros.; He is also considered the “father of the modern video game.” (Photo: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)
The comments of those who awarded the Japanese developer were conclusive: “Miyamoto is not only the father of the modern video gamebut has managed, with its great imagination, to create virtual dreams for millions of people of all ages to interact, generating new forms of communication and relationships, capable of crossing ideological, ethnic and geographical borders.
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At 73, he spends his days a little further away from day-to-day developments, although he does not let go of his child’s hand. “I just hope I stay healthy until Mario’s 50th birthday!”Miyamoto said in the aforementioned interview.
