Shigeru Miyamoto's career began in 1977, when he was hired by a family friend - Hiroshi Yamauchi, then president of Nintendo - as a staff artist. Yamauchi selected Miyamoto to re-work the company's unsuccessful arcade machine Radar Scope and, after working on a range of new options, Miyamoto eventually settled on the characters and composition which became one of the first running-and-jumping "platform" games, Donkey Kong.
Two years later, Miyamoto took the lead character from this first hit and created a new identity for him - Mario. The Italian plumber has since featured in scores of spin-offs and sequels - from Super Mario Bros to Mario Kart and Super Mario Galaxy - on his way to becoming one of the most iconic video games characters of all time.
As games moved into people's homes with the advent and increasing popularity of consoles - spurred on by Nintendo's own hardware offerings - Miyamoto's influence increased further as he became involved in the development of innumerable NES, Super NES, GameCube and Nintendo 64 titles, including The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and Super Mario 64.
As well as the hugely popular Super Mario 64 DS, Miyamoto's creation of Nintendogs in 2005 heralded the start of a new direction for Nintendo into wider thinking and broader appeal. That manifested itself more fully with the release of the Wii, and in particular the rise in social games such as Wii Sports and Wii Play, and more recently Wii Music.
Miyamoto’s legacy is not only unmatched in the video games industry, but rivals the greatest contributions made by anybody in the history of any entertainment medium. His work over the decades has inspired countless others to pick up the baton and pour out creativity of their own, and as a pillar of design genius, he can take responsibility in part for the global appeal of video games today.
Source: gamesindustry.biz