Age: 73
male
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 has served 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 initially 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. He helped create art for the arcade game and was later tasked with designing a new one, 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. He played an essential role in creating 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Shigeru Miyamoto, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
The Mario[a] franchise is a media franchise, published and produced by video game company Nintendo, starring the fictional Italian character Mario. It is primarily a video game franchise, with the franchise's other forms of media including several television series and a feature film. It was originally created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto with the arcade game Donkey Kong, released on July 9, 1981. The games have been developed by a variety of developers including Nintendo, Hudson Soft, and AlphaDream. Most Mario games have been released for Nintendo's various video game consoles and handhelds, from the third generation onwardThe main series in the franchise is the Super Mario platform series, which mostly follows Mario's adventures in the fictional world of the Mushroom Kingdom. These games typically rely on Mario's jumping ability to allow him to progress through levels. The franchise has spawned more than 200 games of various genres and series, including Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, and Mario Golf. The Mario series is one of Nintendo's most renowned and successful franchises. Many games in its series, specifically the "Super Mario" part, are considered to be some of the greatest video games ever made. By 2011, the core Super Mario video games had grossed an estimated US$12 billion in sales.[1] More than 500 million copies of Mario games have been sold, making it the best-selling video game franchise of all time.
