A couple weeks ago I talked about Yamauchi and his impact on Nintendo. In that same post I mentioned someone he gave an opportunity to. That man was Shigeru Miyamoto and the opportunity he was given gave life to some of the most iconic gaming characters in history. Today we’ll take a look at just which characters Miyamoto created as well as his earlier works and what he’s been working in the present. Miyamoto was born in 1952. He would go on to join up with the company of Nintendo in 1977 when Nintendo began to stray away from producing items such as trading cards and pitching machines to producing video games ( a fairly new concept in the late 70s/early 80s). Yamauchi knew that Miyamoto had great ideas for these games and so let him come up with the concepts behind these games. One of these concepts he had was the idea of Donkey Kong (based on the concept of King Kong) and also the idea of the Mario Bros. arcade game, both of which would become instant arcade classics in the 80s. Miyamoto would benefit from the success of his games taking off in arcades when Nintendo released their first home gaming system the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) (also called the Famicon in Japan). The NES was released in Japan in 1985, but would come to the states in 1989. Nintendo would port Miyamoto’s arcade hit Donkey Kong. Miyamoto would also release a new soon to be classic game on the NES in The Legend of Zelda. Miyamoto also would go on to release a sequel to his Mario Bros. arcade game in Super Mario Bros. one of the best-selling games on the NES. Miyamoto would work on many other classic NES games including Ice Climbers, Kid Icarus, Devil World, and Excitebike. All these games would help launch Miyamoto in the limelight of game developers and helped him earn the title of the father of modern gaming. Miyamoto continued his successful game developing career when Nintendo released its next gaming system in the Super Nintendo Entertain System (SNES). On the SNES Miyamoto worked on and developed the F-Zero game, one of the launch games for the SNES. He also worked on two new Mario titles in Super Mario World the first game to introduce the character of Yoshi the green dinosaur, and the other being Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars. Super Mario RPG is the first time Mario was involved in a role playing game. Miyamoto worked on one other big titled game on the SNES, and that would be The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Miyamoto used his knowledge from making games on the NES to develop many hits on the SNES and help make it one of Nintendo’s most successful systems. Miyamoto carried over his success from the SNES to help make games for Nintendo’s next system in the Nintendo 64 (N64). With the release of the N64 Miyamoto would create the game’s launch title in Super Mario 64, as well as the game of Star Fox 64 both of which were some of the best-selling and critically acclaimed games of the N64. Miyamoto also led the development of a new Zelda game in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Ocarina of Time was revolutionary and was/still is praised to be one of the greatest games of all time. Miyamoto would continue to develop games for Nintendo throughout the 2000s. On Nintendo’s Gamecube Miyamoto would release hit games such as Lugi’s Mansion, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Metroid Prime, and Pikmin (which he made based of his own personal experiences gardening). Miyamoto would also go on to help develop the new Nintendog series on the Nintendo DS, on which he developed based off his own experience with dogs. As for the Wii Miyamoto would develop hits such as Wii Sports, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Super Mario Galaxy 1&2. Miyamoto is still currently employed and helping develop games with Nintendo. He is currently working on an unknown project for Nintendo’s newest system the Wii U. He also worked on some of the games for the Wii U including New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World. Miyamoto is rumored to be contemplating retirement once he is done with his latest project. Miyamoto is definitely one of gaming’s journeyman/pioneer. He created many of the greatest characters in gaming such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Link. He also is still working hard for Nintendo, always providing them with hits and bringing back the elements of gaming we fell in love with early on. If Miyamoto retires soon, then let me just say it’s been a great ride Mr. Miyamoto and we thank you for all you have done for the world of gaming.