Shigeru Miyamoto is the most successful, influential figure in video games history.
Almost immediately after joining Nintendo in 1977, he created Donkey Kong and Mario - both still gaming leviathans today. Not a bad start in a new job.
Since then, he's gone on to sell hundreds of millions of games - and invented a generation-defining piece of technology in the Wii. Earlier this month, BAFTA rewarded his remarkable career with the Fellowship - the Academy's highest honour.
When CVG sat down with Miyamoto-san shortly before he collected his gong, we asked him about his life, his incredible career - and what the future holds.
In this first instalment of our giant interview, he discusses his own influences, his formative years and the making of his latest epic, Mario Galaxy 2...
You've often talked about how your childhood influenced the making of your games, but do you take anything from your surroundings today for your work? Whatever I do in terms of making video games is always influenced through my own experiences. Anything which takes place in front of me or surrounding me has some influence in my way of making games in one way or the other.
It's true that in the past, at the beginning of making my own games, I used to take inspiration from my childhood memories. But quite recently things that have taken place near me or information I can get to on a day-to-day basis has given me some inspiration.
Anything in particular? As far as Mario Galaxy 2 is concerned, I can't think of one particular memory or experience that has contributed as inspiration to what I incorporated into the design.
However, the way I have been involved in Mario Galaxy 2 is that I have been working with much younger creators, artists and designers. When they propose an idea to me - some character or stage construction, or storyline - sometimes I feel it's something strange that should not be incorporated into any Mario game, or sometimes I find them really good.
[If it's something I don't accept] I then try to identify or explain the reason I felt any disagreement within myself. Then I try to explain to them with my own words.
In that process I'm trying to make together with young people what can eventually be called 'a Mario game', such as Mario Galaxy 2. So rather than relying upon any particular personal experience, I think I've been tried to gather the experiences and memories of working on past Mario games in order to make recent titles.
More basically, the way I make games is to try and draw out the sympathy from the user. My understanding and belief is that I [in life] have experiencing things in common with many other people [that I can put in my games]. A lot of the time, memories from playing in our childhood have something to do with that.
For example, in Mario Galaxy 2, Yoshi is trying to drag out something deeply rooted from the ground, but it's not simply popping up - you can't expect it will help you try to swallow it. First of all, he has a hard time dragging it out of the ground and then suddenly, when it's leaving the ground it's very quick.
I think anybody must have some kind of sympathy with that and - "I can really relate to that kind of feeling." Or when Mario is falling down from somewhere very high and scary, of course some of us have had an accident or other people have seen friends hurt themselves. So we know how scary it is.
We as game creators have to integrate that kind of sympathy into the making of the game. That's kind of the work I try to explain to the younger development team - how important trying to have sympathy with the game players is, and how we should do so.
How do you maintain such excitement for these games - which are a lot of the time star the same characters they did 30 years ago? I don't know how we can. But come to think about it, in the first place there aren't so many so-called 3D action games today. So [Mario Galaxy 2] is unique and whenever we are trying to do something unique, that's fun.
Even though 3D action games are fun, once you get accustomed to the control mechanism in the first place they can become less so. Novice players often have a hard time getting a grip on how to control their character freely in the 3D world. I'm always trying to improve the system so that whenever we are working on a new 3D action game like Mario Galaxy 2, it's my dream to come up with the perfect control mechanism, so that people can use it intuitively and naturally be able to play around in the world very freely.
We have to admit that this difficulty level of Galaxy 2 is rather high because it has been made specifically for the people who have finished Galaxy 1. But when it comes to the accessibility - in other words the easiness to control the Mario character - it's even easier than the original Galaxy 1. It's fun all the time because we are trying to do something unprecedented and unique.
When a new idea simply pops out it's very exciting whenever we can find something unique. After all, the priority reason we wanted to introduce Mario Galaxy 2 is that with Mario Galaxy 1, we were not able to include all the ideas we had at that time.
For example, particularly we wanted to take advantage of the [earth]-like terrain with such a very unique terrain this time around. For example, the player will be able to utilise a drill-type of device to go to the other end of the bowl by drilling through the earth, which gives a sheer good emotion.
You've been a huge inspiration for many of today's most successful video games designers. But what influenced you - in a world without a video game industry? I see you have a fetching Beatles t-shirt on today... Yes, I loved The Beatles - but when it comes to music, my particular taste is the American bluegrass music. I think bluegrass music was a great influence upon myself. When it comes to the pop culture in general, the movie Easy Rider was kind of a bible for our generation. I also saw the Stanley Kubrick Space Odyssey movie which was great also.
A writer or director like Peter Fonda, who made Easy Rider, must have had a great influence upon myself when I was young. I was living in Kyoto, which belongs to the Kansai region. In Japan - and in Kansai region particularly - when we were young there was tendency to love certain types of entertainment called Rakugo, which is one storyteller telling you sometimes a sad story, and sometimes one that would make you laugh very much.
I would also watch the Manzai - which is a comic duo or trio on the stage trying to make you laugh. Those kind of things, as well as Japanese cartoon culture must have something greatly influenced me, so much so that I really wanted to become a professional cartoonist when I was in Junior High.
If we're talking about the United Kingdom, I really like the Irish music like Chieftains and I like [UK folk band] Pentangle.
Despite all your success, you're not instantly recognisable to many people. Are you at all envious of the adulation that movie stars and directors get when their successes don't compare to yours? I'm not envious, no. I enjoy not being recognised. It allows me to get on with my life. All I want is to be recognised through my work. I don't want to be on television a lot because it's not right for an individual to take all the attention for making these games - there is a whole team that work on them.
It's funny - in America and the UK, they introduce me as being famous in Japan. In Japan, they introduce me as being famous in America and the UK.
You mentioned Stanley Kubrick before - also a BAFTA fellow. What does it mean to you to be in that group? Honestly speaking, I would never try to compare making movies with making video games. It's a great honour for me that today, video games can be talked about and discussed in the same regard as an entertainment medium with such a long history as movies.
I can't express what it means to me to receive the same previous award as such big names a Kubrick and Hitchcock. Movie has such a long history and has advanced to become the most established [form of] entertainment. So from now on, 20 years from today, we should strive to do our best in order to have the same degree of appreciation for video games from the general public [as film].
What is important here is for the young video games industry to never forget to innovate, and always try to challenge ourselves with something new. We have such future potential, and I feel a strong personal responsibility within myself to advance that right now.
Check back on CVG tomorrow for the second part of our exclusive interview with Miyamoto-san, in which he talks about the difference in developing for the hardcore and casual audiences - and gives his view on violent games.
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