Shigeru Miyamoto

I first became aware of my personal hero was when I was six years old and I played the Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo 64 and I beat it and saw his name in the credits. The title he had at the time was director of the game and I was impressed because I loved the game and it inspired me to come up with my own video game ideas. By the time I was seven years old I had decided that I wanted to be just like Shigeru Miyamoto when I grew up. Ever since I decided that I have constantly been coming up with my own game ideas and writing them down for future use if I needed them. My favorite video games of all time are still the ones made by Shigeru Miyamoto and I would always get the game system with Shigeru Miyamoto games first. I have always enjoyed video games, but what I enjoy even more than playing the games is thinking of my own games. That is the reason why I have always been into the career of video game producer/director.

A portrait of Miyamoto (http://www.poggystyle.com/Nintendo/miyamoto.jpg)

Shigeru Miyamoto’s job that I want to aspire to was his previous position before he became a manager, which was a director, designer, and sometimes programmer. This position is coming up with ideas and sketching out the fine details to a game without doing the actual programming. The education requirements that Shigeru Miyamoto was a bachelor’s degree in art and design, although you are more likely to get an entry level position as a programmer if you get a degree in programming. All in all, you really just need a bachelor’s degree to get the job. As an entry level programmer, you get approximately $55,000 a year and you get a varying salary later on depending on the success of the game that you create. The outlook for this field of work is only growing as video games are played by people in countries all over the world. In 2007, the videogame industry made more money than that of the movie industry. That is the summary of Shigeru Miyamoto’s job.

As a young boy, Shigeru Miyamoto moved to the countryside near Kyoto, Japan and always showed an artistic talent. He would salvage old parts and make toys out of them as well as frequently draw. As a boy he also liked to explore the woods near his house which inspired many of his most popular game franchises like The Legend of Zelda. As a college student he majored in art, but his degree didn’t do him much as he took a few years off after college. Then, a friend of his dad’s who worked at a toy company called Nintendo decided to give him a job as a toy designer. Soon he was the given the task to put the minimal programming skills he’d learned in college to use and reprogram arcade machines on a boat.

Miyamoto at work. (http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/006z4WGdiG7hk/340x.jpg)

As a video game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto has done many positive things for society. His games have brought hours upon hours of joy to countless people young and old alike. He has also shown what technology really can do with the Nintendo Wii that he created. His games have shown that some of the best things in life aren’t always the flashiest or the most expensive things. His Nintendo Wii which is significantly cheaper than all other home videogame consoles and doesn’t have as good of graphics, but was still the best selling home console system of 2007. His creative concepts have shown that some of the stranger and more unique things can a lot of times be significantly better than other more generic things. That is what Shigeru Miyamoto contributed to society.

In high school I intend to take advanced math and science courses, as well as advanced English to prepare me for game design and programming. I also intend to learn at least one programming language, such as Java, in high school. I also plan on continuing to come up with ideas for games and playing games as well as analyzing these games thoroughly. For college, I intend on going to one with a good video game design program and want to go to a four-year school right out of high school. I intend to take a computer science or programming major in undergraduate school. After college I plan on going to try and get a job doing programming or any job I can get in the direct industry right out of school. For my life, my goal is to get a job as a head designer on a game design team and com e up with a game idea that becomes popular. Those are my goals to become like Shigeru Miyamoto.