Editing Shigeru Miyamoto (section)

===1977–1984: Arcade beginnings and ''Donkey Kong''===
{{Rquote| align=right|text=I feel that I have been very lucky to be a game designer since the dawn of the industry. I am not an engineer, but I have had the opportunities to learn the principles of game [design] from scratch, over a long period of time. And because I am so pioneering and trying to keep at the forefront, I have grown accustomed to first creating the very tools necessary for game creation.|source=Shigeru Miyamoto <small>(translated)</small><ref name="GDC: Miyamoto Keynote">{{cite web | title=GDC: Miyamoto Keynote Speech | date=March 18, 1999 | author1=IGN Staff | first2=Shigeru | last2=Miyamoto | url=http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/03/19/gdc-miyamoto-keynote-speech | access-date=October 23, 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171024043859/http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/03/19/gdc-miyamoto-keynote-speech | archive-date=October 24, 2017 | url-status=live }}</ref>}}
In the 1970s, [[Nintendo]] was a relatively small Japanese company that sold playing cards and other novelties, although it had started to branch out into toys and games in the 1960s. Through a mutual friend, Miyamoto's father arranged an interview with Nintendo president [[Hiroshi Yamauchi]]. After showing some of his toy creations, he was hired in 1977 as an apprentice in the planning department.<ref name="New Yorker" />

Miyamoto helped create the art for the coin-operated [[arcade game]], ''[[Sheriff (video game)|Sheriff]]''.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/punchout/vol1_page2.jsp |title=Iwata asks – Punch Out! |publisher=Nintendo |access-date=February 28, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100111070103/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/punchout/vol1_page2.jsp |archive-date=January 11, 2010 }}</ref> He first helped the company [[Video game development|develop]] a game after the 1980 release ''[[Radar Scope]]''. The game achieved moderate success in Japan, but by 1981, Nintendo's efforts to break it into the North American video game market had failed, leaving them with a large number of unsold units and on the verge of financial collapse. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to [[Radar Scope#Conversion to Donkey Kong|convert]] unsold ''Radar Scope'' units into a new arcade game. He tasked Miyamoto with the conversion,<ref name="Ultimate History" />{{rp|157}} about which Miyamoto has said self-deprecatingly that "no one else was available" to do the work.<ref name="The father of Mario and Zelda">{{cite web | url=http://www.salon.com/1998/12/02/feature_252/ | date=December 2, 1998 | title=The father of Mario and Zelda | first=Moira | last=Muldoon | website=Salon | access-date=June 18, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714221207/http://www.salon.com/1998/12/02/feature_252/ | archive-date=July 14, 2014 | url-status=live }}</ref> Nintendo's head engineer, [[Gunpei Yokoi]], supervised the project.<ref name="Ultimate History" />{{rp|158}}

Miyamoto imagined many characters and plot concepts, but eventually settled on a [[love triangle]] between a gorilla, a carpenter, and a woman. He meant to mirror the rivalry between comic characters [[Bluto]] and [[Popeye]] for the woman [[Olive Oyl]], although Nintendo's original intentions to gain rights to ''Popeye'' failed.<ref name="New Yorker" /> Bluto evolved into an ape, a form Miyamoto claimed was "nothing too evil or repulsive".<ref name="Game Over" />{{rp|47}} This ape would be the pet of the main character, "a funny, hang-loose kind of guy".<ref name="Game Over" />{{rp|47}} Miyamoto also named "[[Beauty and the Beast]]" and the 1933 film ''[[King Kong (1933 film)|King Kong]]'' as influences.<ref name="Kohler Sound Great" />{{rp|36}} Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project, but lacked the technical skills to program it himself; instead, he conceived the game's concepts, then consulted technicians on whether they were possible. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, move in different manners, and react in various ways. However, Yokoi viewed Miyamoto's original design as too complex.<ref name="Game Over" />{{rp|47–48}} Yokoi suggested using see-saws to catapult the hero across the screen but this proved too difficult to program. Miyamoto next thought of using sloped [[Platform game|platforms]] and ladders for travel, with barrels for obstacles. When he asked that the game have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to make the game repeat, but the team eventually successfully programmed the game.<ref name="Kohler Sound Great" />{{rp|38–39}} When the game was sent to [[Nintendo of America]] for testing, the sales manager disapproved of its vast differentiation from the [[List of maze video games|maze]] and [[shooter game]]s common at the time.<ref name="Game Over" />{{rp|49}} When American staffers began naming the characters, they settled on "Pauline" for the woman, after Polly James, wife of Nintendo's [[Redmond, Washington]], warehouse manager, [[Don James (video games)|Don James]]. The playable character, initially "Jumpman", was eventually named for [[Mario Segale]], the warehouse landlord.<ref name=donjames1>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/2012/02/gamelife-podcast-episode-18/ |title=Game Life Podcast: When Jay Mohr Met Tomonobu Itagaki |first=Chris |last=Kohler |magazine=Wired |date=February 17, 2012 |access-date=September 28, 2024 |archive-date=April 17, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417022605/https://www.wired.com/2012/02/gamelife-podcast-episode-18/ |quote="And so we thought, 'This guy [Segale] is a recluse. No one's ever actually met him.' So we thought, 'Wouldn't it be a great joke if we named this character Mario?' And so we said, 'That's great,' and we sent a telex to Japan, and that's how Mario got his name."}} Interview with Don James starts at 51:16. Quotation occurs at 52:00.</ref><ref name=donjames2>{{cite web |date=June 14, 2018 |title=Nintendo Treehouse Live - E3 2018 - Arcade Archives Donkey Kong, Sky Skipper |website=[[YouTube]] |publisher=Nintendo Everything |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CizC6MqyiJM&t=138s |url-status=live |access-date=September 28, 2024 |archive-date=October 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231003035157/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CizC6MqyiJM |quote="Mr. Arakawa, who was the president, and myself looked at the character, and we had a landlord that happened to be named Mario as well, and we'd never met the guy, so we thought it'd be funny to name this main character Mario after our landlord in Southcenter. And that's actually how Mario got his name."}} Quotation occurs at 2:25.</ref><ref name="Game Over" />{{rp|109}} These character names were printed on the American cabinet art and used in promotional materials. The staff also pushed for an English name, and thus it received the title ''[[Donkey Kong (1981 video game)|Donkey Kong]]''.<ref name="Kohler Sound Great" />{{rp|212}}

''Donkey Kong'' was a success, leading Miyamoto to work on sequels such as ''[[Donkey Kong Jr.]]'' in 1982, and ''[[Donkey Kong 3]]'' in 1983. In January 1983, the 1982 [[Electronic Games|Arcade Awards]] gave Donkey Kong the Best [[Single-player video game]] award and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year.<ref name="eg_archive">{{cite web|title=Electronic Games Magazine |url=https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28collection%3Aelectronic-games-magazine%20OR%20mediatype%3Aelectronic-games-magazine%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection |publisher=[[Internet Archive]] |access-date=February 1, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130102234721/https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28collection%3Aelectronic-games-magazine%20OR%20mediatype%3Aelectronic-games-magazine%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection |archive-date=January 2, 2013 }}</ref> In his next game, he gave Mario a brother: [[Luigi]]. He named the new game ''[[Mario Bros.]]'' Yokoi convinced Miyamoto to give Mario some superhuman abilities, namely the ability to fall from any height unharmed. Mario's appearance in ''Donkey Kong''—overalls, a hat, and a thick mustache—led Miyamoto to change aspects of the game to make Mario look like a plumber rather than a carpenter.<ref name="historyofmariopg1">{{cite web |title=IGN Presents The History of Super Mario Bros |url=http://games.ign.com/articles/833/833615p1.html |date=November 8, 2007 |website=IGN |access-date=September 26, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723144458/http://games.ign.com/articles/833/833615p1.html |archive-date=July 23, 2008}}</ref> Miyamoto felt that New York City provided the best setting for the game, with its "labyrinthine subterranean network of sewage pipes". To date, games in the ''Mario Bros.'' franchise have been released for more than a dozen platforms.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://toadscastle.net/list-games.html|publisher=Toad's Castle|first=Eric|last=Marcarelli|title=Every Mario Game|access-date=October 1, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014064028/http://www.toadscastle.net/list-games.html|archive-date=October 14, 2008|url-status=live}}</ref> Shortly after, Miyamoto also worked the character sprites and game design for the ''[[Baseball (1983 video game)|Baseball]]'', ''[[Tennis (1984 video game)|Tennis]]'', and ''[[Golf (1984 video game)|Golf]]'' games on the NES.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Kohler|first1=Chris|title=Miyamoto Spills Donkey Kong's Darkest Secrets, 35 Years Later|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/10/miyamoto-donkey-kong-secrets/|magazine=Wired|access-date=October 17, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161016014738/https://www.wired.com/2016/10/miyamoto-donkey-kong-secrets/|archive-date=October 16, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>