Shigeru Miyamoto, The Walt Disney of Our Time

circletimessquare writes "The New York Times has a gushing portrait of Shigeru Miyamoto. His creative successes have spanned almost 30 years, from Donkey Kong, to Mario (as well known as Mickey Mouse around the world, the story notes), to Zelda, to the Wii, and now to Wii Fit — which according to some initial rumors is selling out across the globe in its debut. The article has some gems of insight into the man's thinking, including that his iconic characters are an afterthought. Gameplay comes first, and the characters are designed around that. Additionally, his fame and finances and ego are refreshingly modest for someone of his high regard and creative stature: 'despite being royalty at Nintendo and a cult figure, he almost comes across as just another salaryman (though a particularly creative and happy one) with a wife and two school-age children at home near Kyoto. He is not tabloid fodder, and he seems to maintain a relatively nondescript lifestyle.'"

If that is the case...

[vertinox]

Does that mean we will have a Nintendo-land theme park in Florida anytime soon?

Re:The decay of time

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I find many of the old Disney films not very appealing, either. The newer ones are alright, but stuff like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast etc. are awful in my opinion.

Re:Japanese not creative?

[KDR_11k]

Most japanese games tend to use more creativity, their weakness tends to be in technical problems like pathfinding algorithms, AI, random/procedural content generation, sandbox-style games, etc. Usually the japanese games have better stories and more new ideas but the western games have better technology, more meaningful choices for the player (even the more simplistic RPGs these days seem to have a basic good/evil choice, the jRPGs I see lack even that), etc. Or at least that's the impression I got.

Re:Japanese not creative?

[KDR_11k]

Once you get over the novelty of the cultural difference most anime tends to be even less creative than your average sitcom.

Characters vs Gameplay

[SanityInAnarchy]

âoeI feel that people like Mario and people like Link and the other characters weâ(TM)ve created not for the characters themselves, but because the games they appear in are fun,â he said. âoeAnd because people enjoy playing those games first, they come to love the characters as well.â

That sums it up perfectly. He's the polar opposite of games like Final Fantasy, where the characters and story are the most memorable parts, and gameplay supports them.

It fits in nicely with the reason the Wii works -- it's about gameplay, and everything else is secondary.

Re:The decay of time

[dingen]

I guess the N64 isn't as easy on the user as the NES and SNES.

While this is true to some extend, Miyamoto always makes sure the learning curve isn't too steep for anyone. Zelda: Ocarina Of Time for example (a game that was supposed to be released at the same time the N64 was introduced, but was delayed and improved for 2 years by mr Miyamoto until he felt it was good enough) starts off with a village that is designed as a practice zone where you can get to know the controls and interface. If you are an experienced player you can get to the action right away, but if you don't there's easily half an hour of gameplay there for you to explore and learn the game. Whatever your initial level, by the time you've spent a few hours with it, you'll be attacking monsters, solving puzzles and finding secrets like it's second nature to you.

It's absolutely ridiculous to state that old games are harder to understand or play than newer ones, especially the high quality works of Shigeru Miyamoto.

Re:Japanese not creative?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean 101 shitty ones, and one Arrested Developmet.

Re:The decay of time

[anyGould]

I'm the opposite - I prefer most of the older Disney flicks to the recent ones. Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, Jungle Book, Fantasia... there's some fantastic animation there. The new stuff tends to be entirely too... bleh. (Emperor's New Groove, anyone?)

Wrong Hayao Miyazaki already owns that title.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Learn about Hayao Miyazaki, then watch all of Studio Ghibli's work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki [wikipedia.org]

Also do yourself a huge favor and see Grave of Fireflies by Isao Takahata. It's a Studio Ghibli film by Miyasaki's long time friend and partner. Its incredible, especially since its based on a real story.

Learn about Isao Takahata here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takahata_Isao [wikipedia.org]

Re:Not quite, Miyamoto also does hardware

[dq5 studios]

Gunpei created the Gameboy, Virtual Boy and the Wonderswan. He also died in a car accident just as Nintendo and him were making up for blaming him for the failure of the Virtual Boy. It's possible he could've become Miyamoto's equal, or even surpassed him had he lived.

Re:Japanese not creative?

[wanderingknight]

The difference between Japanese and Western RPGs is one of concept.

When the Japanese first learned about RPGs, they saw it associated mainly with roguelike games, due to a lack of proper tabletop RPGs exposure. What they only took about that was the fact that you're a guy inside a dungeon looting treasure and killing monsters... Which was exactly what the American idealization of what an RPG was tried to avoid. The Japanese built on that concept and completely strayed away from what an RPG truly means. That, coupled with their Engrish tendence to adapt Western words and give them completely different meanings gave birth to the genre of the jRPG.

Re:Japanese not creative?

[Dogtanian]

I don't think it is every useful to presume abilities based on race.

I was not "presuming abilities based on race"; that's something you read into it.

If I presumed anything (and I would argue that what I said was reflecting and to some extent arguing *against* others' views anyway), it was on the basis of national *culture*, not race.

And yes, that's a generalisation of people in all societies to some extent, but it does exist, and it does have an effect on the large scale of things.