Hus said: um just how is he so influential ? |
If you go to the street and ask for a random person to name a vigeo game character, the answer is very likely to be Super Mario. If you look at the list of top selling games of all time, you'll see Miyamoto's games there. If you ask about the best game of all time from a gaming journalist, he'll probably say Ocarina of Time. If you look at the gaming phenomenons of this year, they're Nintendo's: Wii Sports, Nintendogs and Big Brain Academy are the top 3 imo. How many games have been featured in TV shows before Wii Sports? The game's been at least in Colbert Report, Late Night with COB and Dr. Phil.
Miyamoto is influential because he brings gaming to the masses. Gaming is now becoming more of a truly mass media/popular culture like books and films because Wii and DS are so easy to approach. Wouldn't it be absurd if you asked your parents if they've ever seen a film or read a book and they replied 'no'? My father has never played a video game and my mother has only tried. When people understand what games are all about through experience, pricks like Thompson aren't able to feed off of their ignorance. The Wii's social aspect is also important to clear preconceptions about a typical gamer being loner twitching his thumbs in front of a huge screen in a dark room. Playing in the internet just isn't the same as playing with people in the same room. Microsoft and Sony do the exact opposite: they concentrate on online gaming and small group of people.
On the top of all things, Miyamoto basically revived console gaming industry with SMB. That was of course important, because mass penetration is a lot more feasible in living rooms than in working rooms.
