The Times: Tech interview - Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto is the 'Spielberg of video games'. - and the biggest threat to Sony and Microsoft in the War of the Consoles. Interview by David Rowan
Imagine an all-action console game in which three domineering warlords - let's call them Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony - are fighting it out for supremacy. And then, just as you think Microsoft's superior engine or Sony's vast armoury has clinched victory, the warriors of Nintendo send in their secret weapon: a short, grinning Japanese man called Shigeru Miyamoto. Suddenly the outcome becomes harder to call.
You may not have heard of Miyamoto, but you will certainly know of his progeny. A graphic artist who rose to be Nintendo's head of entertainment, Miyamoto is the creative genius who brought us Donkey Kong, Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda. Now, as Nintendo prepares to launch its GameCube console here on May 3 - to take on Microsoft's new Xbox and Sony's PlayStation2 - Miyamoto is leading the advance guard which hit London last week.
Commentators tend to refer to Miyamoto as the "Spielberg of video games", or simply as "God". Last year, 24 years after joining Nintendo as an industrial designer, he helped its sales to reach £2.7 billion, due in no small part to the 70 video games that have made him a legend. Not that Miyamoto, a freckled, youthful 49-year-old, expects to be recognised. "I don't like fame much - it can disrupt your daily life," he says. "Creators should not be that visible. Besides, it is a team product."
But after Donkey Kong changed the face of arcade gaming in 1981, and his 1985 creation Super Mario Bros went on to sell 40 million copies, a consensus emerged among the international gaming community: no one designs a better game than Shigeru Miyamoto. It all stems, he confesses, from a childhood lost to the Japanese cartoon books known as manga. "When I was growing up we had no video games - manga was starting to obsess children," he recalls. "My parents worried about me reading manga all the time. Then, when I was in elementary school, I saw a puppet-theatre show on TV. I then made a marionette puppet and put on a play for my neighbourhood.
"Because I lived in the countryside, and there were virtually no toyshops, I would make my own out of bits of wood. But by the time I started junior high school, I had decided to be a cartoonist. I was always busy drawing cartoons."
He has not forgotten his origins: today he tests job applicants at Nintendo's games division by making them draw a four-frame manga that must make him laugh. His mischievous humour remains a trademark, not least in Luigi's Mansion, his latest creation for the GameCube, in which Luigi, Mario's brother, hoovers up the ghosts in his haunted house. "When I was drawing manga, I always liked the slapstick style of gag," he says. "I was influenced by the traditional professional storytellers, who rely on voice, hands and facial expressions. That is what makes me laugh."
Success has meant fewer early-morning starts at Nintendo's games lab in Kyoto, but Miyamoto still works until midnight - save one evening a week for dinner with his wife and two teenage children, and the occasional practice session on his bluegrass guitar.
The challenge, he says, is never knowing what the next trend will be. "You can never tell - so often I have seen one single game change the course of the whole entertainment industry. That is why it is such an exciting industry to work for. Whatever the future holds, we are ready to deal with it." Hence the slots on the GameCube box for both broadband and narrowband adapters.
The Internet offers game-players new opportunities to compete remotely and at high resolution. Microsoft, for one, has been making much of Xbox's readiness for online gaming. But Miyamoto remains to be convinced that this is the future. "We believe that is one of the options," he says. "We creators have to have a number of different ideas - of which online gaming is just one. When I see most games developers say the future is online, my response is, 'really'?"
He is more excited that the GameCube can be connected simultaneously to four GameBoy Advances. He admits to having played the Xbox, but makes much of its slow loading time. "The specifications may look impressive, but the numbers can be deceptive when you are making games software," he says. "I don't think Xbox can outperform GameCube when it comes to gameplaying. Of course, I am not saying it is a bad machine - they have included lots of expensive components - but GameCube will be cheap to buy and easy for the whole family to use."
GameCube is expected to cost less than £200, as opposed to Xbox's £299. "Rather than the hardware, we need to focus on what kind of software we can offer," says Miyamoto. "GameCube's design concept is to be the best machine for games software creators to work on. There are lots more third-party developers now working on Nintendo software than in the days of the N64." At launch, 20 games will be available, typically at £40, including Luigi's Mansion and another Nintendo creation, WaveRace: Blue Storm.
Third-party games, often unique to GameCube, range from Star Wars Rogue Squadron II to Tarzan Untamed. By this summer, there should be 50 more games. Miyamoto is especially fond of Pikmin, an adventure starring what appear to be brightly coloured genetically mutated ants who must be cultivated to help to repair your crashed spaceship.
"In Pikmin, we have achieved a game so part of your heart that it moves you more than any game you have touched," he says. "It is an emotion you can share regardless of your background - a human instinct." Miyamoto genuinely makes it sound more than a sales pitch.
But he never forgets that, in the War of the Consoles, you score points only by shifting boxes.
(The Times, February 27 2002)
Imagine an all-action console game in which three domineering warlords - let's call them Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony - are fighting it out for supremacy. And then, just as you think Microsoft's superior engine or Sony's vast armoury has clinched victory, the warriors of Nintendo send in their secret weapon: a short, grinning Japanese man called Shigeru Miyamoto. Suddenly the outcome becomes harder to call.
You may not have heard of Miyamoto, but you will certainly know of his progeny. A graphic artist who rose to be Nintendo's head of entertainment, Miyamoto is the creative genius who brought us Donkey Kong, Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda. Now, as Nintendo prepares to launch its GameCube console here on May 3 - to take on Microsoft's new Xbox and Sony's PlayStation2 - Miyamoto is leading the advance guard which hit London last week.
Commentators tend to refer to Miyamoto as the "Spielberg of video games", or simply as "God". Last year, 24 years after joining Nintendo as an industrial designer, he helped its sales to reach £2.7 billion, due in no small part to the 70 video games that have made him a legend. Not that Miyamoto, a freckled, youthful 49-year-old, expects to be recognised. "I don't like fame much - it can disrupt your daily life," he says. "Creators should not be that visible. Besides, it is a team product."
But after Donkey Kong changed the face of arcade gaming in 1981, and his 1985 creation Super Mario Bros went on to sell 40 million copies, a consensus emerged among the international gaming community: no one designs a better game than Shigeru Miyamoto. It all stems, he confesses, from a childhood lost to the Japanese cartoon books known as manga. "When I was growing up we had no video games - manga was starting to obsess children," he recalls. "My parents worried about me reading manga all the time. Then, when I was in elementary school, I saw a puppet-theatre show on TV. I then made a marionette puppet and put on a play for my neighbourhood.
"Because I lived in the countryside, and there were virtually no toyshops, I would make my own out of bits of wood. But by the time I started junior high school, I had decided to be a cartoonist. I was always busy drawing cartoons."
He has not forgotten his origins: today he tests job applicants at Nintendo's games division by making them draw a four-frame manga that must make him laugh. His mischievous humour remains a trademark, not least in Luigi's Mansion, his latest creation for the GameCube, in which Luigi, Mario's brother, hoovers up the ghosts in his haunted house. "When I was drawing manga, I always liked the slapstick style of gag," he says. "I was influenced by the traditional professional storytellers, who rely on voice, hands and facial expressions. That is what makes me laugh."
Success has meant fewer early-morning starts at Nintendo's games lab in Kyoto, but Miyamoto still works until midnight - save one evening a week for dinner with his wife and two teenage children, and the occasional practice session on his bluegrass guitar.
The challenge, he says, is never knowing what the next trend will be. "You can never tell - so often I have seen one single game change the course of the whole entertainment industry. That is why it is such an exciting industry to work for. Whatever the future holds, we are ready to deal with it." Hence the slots on the GameCube box for both broadband and narrowband adapters.
The Internet offers game-players new opportunities to compete remotely and at high resolution. Microsoft, for one, has been making much of Xbox's readiness for online gaming. But Miyamoto remains to be convinced that this is the future. "We believe that is one of the options," he says. "We creators have to have a number of different ideas - of which online gaming is just one. When I see most games developers say the future is online, my response is, 'really'?"
He is more excited that the GameCube can be connected simultaneously to four GameBoy Advances. He admits to having played the Xbox, but makes much of its slow loading time. "The specifications may look impressive, but the numbers can be deceptive when you are making games software," he says. "I don't think Xbox can outperform GameCube when it comes to gameplaying. Of course, I am not saying it is a bad machine - they have included lots of expensive components - but GameCube will be cheap to buy and easy for the whole family to use."
GameCube is expected to cost less than £200, as opposed to Xbox's £299. "Rather than the hardware, we need to focus on what kind of software we can offer," says Miyamoto. "GameCube's design concept is to be the best machine for games software creators to work on. There are lots more third-party developers now working on Nintendo software than in the days of the N64." At launch, 20 games will be available, typically at £40, including Luigi's Mansion and another Nintendo creation, WaveRace: Blue Storm.
Third-party games, often unique to GameCube, range from Star Wars Rogue Squadron II to Tarzan Untamed. By this summer, there should be 50 more games. Miyamoto is especially fond of Pikmin, an adventure starring what appear to be brightly coloured genetically mutated ants who must be cultivated to help to repair your crashed spaceship.
"In Pikmin, we have achieved a game so part of your heart that it moves you more than any game you have touched," he says. "It is an emotion you can share regardless of your background - a human instinct." Miyamoto genuinely makes it sound more than a sales pitch.
But he never forgets that, in the War of the Consoles, you score points only by shifting boxes.
(The Times, February 27 2002)
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