Shigeru Miyamoto continues to inspire a younger generation of game creators
Image: IGN

One of Shigeru Miyamoto's most revolutionary and influential games was Super Mario 64, on which he was the lead director. It took the franchise he'd co-created, and which came to embody the identity of Nintendo, and completely changed the game. 3D gaming, at that point, was a fantastical thing, and no title kickstarted the 64-bit era quite like it.

Shigeru Miyamoto, 64 today, continues to seek ideas and gameplay to excite gamers around the world. It doesn't always work, as the mixed response to his GamePad-driven ideas in Star Fox Zero attest, but it's still at the heart of Miyamoto-san's approach to gaming.

Miyamoto-san's role at Nintendo is also rather different in the current day, with the legendary game designer leading less projects directly, but rather providing managerial oversight for a broad library of content. Since the passing of former company President Satoru Iwata, a restructure led to Miyamoto-san becoming 'Creative Fellow', one of the highest-ranking positions within the company. In this role he leads creative policies and output, a major executive-level job that ultimately enables Miyamoto-san to pass his experience and knowledge on to a younger generation of developers, while also no doubt having a key role in identifying broad development strategies.

In some respects, then, Miyamoto-san's days of being at the head of individual games may have mostly passed, though his role is arguably more important than ever. Educating and empowering young teams, like those behind titles such as Splatoon, is vital for ensuring that the company is well-set for a strong future of producing exceptional games. In the past rumours of his retirement (all false at those times) saw Nintendo's share price dive; hopefully the building blocks that he helps to establish now mean that, when he does decide to stand down, there will be plenty of talent in place to continue without him.

That, alongside all of the iconic franchises and games that he's created, could be his greatest legacy.

Happy Birthday Miyamoto-san.

With thanks to ThanosReXXX for the reminder.