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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

The King of the Mushroom Kingdom 50

Posted by Zonk from the don't-call-him-shiggy dept.
This past weekend Shigeru Miyamoto visited Nintendo World in New York City. Hundreds of people stood in line for hours to get a few moments with the man behind some of Nintendo's most well known games. The Game Chair has a look at what it felt like to be on the ground at the event, while Joystiq has a more information based writeup of the event. From Joystiq's post: "While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed. That had to have been tough for him growing up, because in Japanese culture left-handedness is loaded with negative meaning and experiences. It's considered rude to hold your chopsticks in your left hand in Japan and China, for instance. It's also a helluva lot more difficult to write classic kanji with the left hand. Top calligraphers are never left-handed, as brush strokes look wrong when pushed across a page rather than pulled across the page with the right hand. It's also considered a sure sign of creativity and artistry, according to some."
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The King of the Mushroom Kingdom More

The King of the Mushroom Kingdom

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  • The best line... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @01:41PM (#13652443) Journal
    "One great story I heard was of a family who evacuated their home in Texas and decided to drive all the way to New York for the event making the best of a difficult situation."

  • Left Handed, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @01:45PM (#13652473)
    While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed.

    Could that be the reason Link is left handed? At least, I presume he's left handed, he always carries his sword in his left hand and shield in his right hand.

    • Re:Left Handed, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      The other theory is that Link is supposed to be the mirror image of the player. Personally I consider the Link==Miyamoto equation more likely. Miyamoto went on the record saying that if Link were to talk in a Zelda game, he'd do the voice work for him.
    • Actually, due to sprite flipping, in a Link to the Past he carries it both ways.
      In some (Maybe all) of the Gameboy ones, you get to select two items to have ready at once, so you can wield it either way, I believe. I may be wrong about that last one, though.

      • Re:Left Handed, eh? (Score:3, Informative)

        by edwdig ( 47888 )
        My Oracle of Ages cartridge was sitting right in front of me, so I just checked that. Link always swings the sword left handed, regardless of whether it's on A or B. Well, if you face left or right, the animation is the same, just flipped, so one of them is left handed and one is right.

  • There is no left-handed spoon (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rizzo ( 21697 ) <don@seilerEULER.us minus math_god> on Monday September 26, 2005 @01:49PM (#13652497) Homepage Journal
    My mom is Korean. My dad is American and left-handed. When my brothers and I would hold utensils with our left hands my mom would whack the hands with a large wooden spoon. You can imagine how much that really freaking hurts.

    I could have been a top baseball pitching prospect too! ;)
    • My Grandpa would stab anyone in the hand with his fork if they fell out of line at the dinner table. He was extra fiercesome at Thanksgiving. I actually witnessed him poking his mom (she was about 75 at the time) when her sleeve came close to brushing a neighbors dish. Boy oh boy did he catch hell for that one! My whole life I never saw that man intimidated, untill the time he was humbled by a woman who could barely speak audibly.

      But, yeah, I got my share of forks in the hand as he kept me close. Appar

  • I'm left handed, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson&psg,com> on Monday September 26, 2005 @02:03PM (#13652591)
    and it was hell growing up for me as well.

    My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Cuba, used to beat my left hand when i would use it. "DEVIL'S HAND! DEVIL'S HAND!!" Forcing me to write with my right hand, I found it somewhat difficult at first but I became somewhat useful writing with my right hand.

    When she died i spray painted "DEVIL'S TEACHER" on her gravestone with a spraycan in my left hand. I was 16. this is the first time i have ever told anyone.

    • "While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed. That had to have been tough for him growing up, because in Japanese culture left-handedness is loaded with negative meaning and experiences. It's considered rude to hold your chopsticks in your left hand in Japan and China, for instance. It's also a helluva lot more difficult to write classic kanji with the left hand. Top calligraphers are never left-handed, as brush strokes look wrong when pushed across a page rather than pulled across the page with th

      • I get no comments except "what's that on your hand?" and I realize I've been dragging it through the ink as I write. I had to give up on fountain pens completely (just a phase) and I discover that pencils smear too. Bic pens are about the only thing I use these days.
    • As a fellow lefthander, I salute you, sir! With my left hand, of course.
    • And it would have been even funnier if you'd have registered your slashdot account just a bit earlier ;)
      • actually I believe the UID 666 is one that was intentionally skipped.

        I remember when slashIDs came out sitting there for two hours before finally deciding to create one. I wonder what my number could have been.

  • Ambidextrous? (Score:5, Informative)

    by varco ( 792316 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @02:10PM (#13652674)
    According to Wikipedia's artice on ambidexterity [wikipedia.org], Miyamoto is ambidextrous. The article doesn't specifically say that he himself said he was left-handed, maybe he was just using it at the time?
    • I should have noted that I am left-handed, and I do realize that someone could have put unreliable information in the article.
    • My father-in-law is Japanese and technically ambidextrous... as they say, you couldn't really survive at home or at school if you were left-handed... but he never quite got rid of the ability, so he's functional with both hands. I lucked out in that way, being left-handed, because he isn't as strict about that was some other families we visited there, where I got downright nasty looks for eating with my left hand (they'd never say anything cause I think they were afraid the crazy gaijin might snap and kill

  • Eating Left Handed (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jazman_777 ( 44742 )
    It's considered rude to hold your chopsticks in your left hand in Japan and China, for instance.

    Hmm, when I went to Japan on business, nobody mentioned this, and saw it nowhere in my reading. So I blithely ate left handed. For knife-and-fork types, trying to use chopsticks with your off-hand is very difficulte, even with your strong hand it's hard. But I never stuck my chopsticks into my bowl of rice.

    • They just called you a baka gaijin behind your back.
      Another unwritten rule is that you don't use soy sauce on white rice. It's considered an insult to the chef...

    • Far more important to the Japanese is maintaining the facade (sometimes) of politeness and respect, even if they think you're being an idiot. Furthermore, because you're a gaijin (or so I'm assuming), they won't hold you to the same level of behavior that they would a native Japanese.

      This is one thing that many Japanese who grow up overseas have a lot trouble with when returning to Japan. If you're a foreigner, it's ok for you act different, you're supposed to be different because you're gaijin. Howeve

  • Waiting hours in line to get a glimpse of Miyamoto is pretty high on the almighty scales of geekiness. However, Miyamoto has done so much for Nintendo. Speaking of Miyamoto, the next Zelda game is sure to be fantastic. Miyamoto wasn't pleased with Windwaker. He made several negative comments regarding that. However, he said in a recent press release that the new Zelda game made up for Windwaker. I don't know about you guys, but I'm really excited about the new Zelda game. More excited about the Revolution.

  • Offtopic (Score:4, Funny)

    by wed128 ( 722152 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @04:47PM (#13653906)
    Can a summary be modded offtopic?

  • Pics from the event (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kamalot ( 674654 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @07:10PM (#13654948)
    I ended up wandering by the store at around 9:00 the evening before the event. There was already a large group of people there preparing to camp out for the night. What the hell, I joined them!

    I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.

    Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset [blogspot.com] I had in my pocket.

    When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset [blogspot.com] signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.

    I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out. [blogspot.com]

    http://kamalot.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

  • Things like this (Score:2, Insightful)

    by iamnerd ( 917614 )
    Are what make Miyamoto so great, IMO. You never hear about any other game designers doing this, let alone ones as great as him. Miyamoto truly is a humble man, he isn't even a millionaire. People who have watched the Icons on Miyamoto on G4TV have seen that Miyamoto is payed the same as any other game designer at Nintendo. He still considers himself part of the team.

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