Shigeru Miyamoto was born on November 16, 1952 in Sonobe cho, Kyoto, Japan. He spent his childhood exploring the countryside around his home. Blessed with a vivid imagination, Shigeru Miyamoto pretended the halls of his home were chambers of a medieval castle. A nature lover with a thirst for adventure, he enjoyed running through fields, rolling down hills and fishing in a nearby river. He was also highly creative, painting, drawing and puppet making at an early age. Although his parents were teachers, Shigeru Miyamoto decided to try to be an artist.

Shigeru Miyamoto was hired by Nintendo in 1977, where he worked doing artwork and character design for the company. Shigeru Miyamoto was hired in part because his father was a friend of Hiroshi Yamauchi. Although there wasn’t a true position for him, when Nintendo saw some of Miyamoto’s imaginative sketches, they gave him a job as a graphic artist. Before long, Shigeru Miyamoto began assisting other developers with games and eventually got assigned to do a game. His first project was to complete a sub-par game named Radarscope. Unhappy, Miyamoto trashed the project and began developing new ideas. After Nintendo’s first three arcade games flopped in the US, President Hiroshi Yamauchi asked the ever-creative Miyamoto to come up with a fresh video game concept of his own.

Creating a lighthearted ape on the loose, a hero originally christened “Jumpman” and a damsel in distress, Miyamoto created Donkey Kong—one of the most popular arcade games of all time and the first appearance of Nintendo’s biggest star of all, Mario. Miyamoto actually programmed the game himself down to the music and sprites. Hardware limitations greatly limited the design of the game, but Miyamoto rose to the challenge, incorporating recognizable features for his hero that would be easy to render. A mustache was used instead of a mouth because it was easily distinguished; a hat was used because it would remain motionless and be easier to animate than hair. Mario’s trademark overalls were chosen they were a costume that would clearly show arm movement. After being told by engineers that hair would be difficult to accurately represent hair, Miyamoto slapped a red hat on his protagonist. History was in the making!

Following the enormous success of Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto continued making games for Nintendo, many featuring Donkey Kong and Mario returning many times over the years, yet in many different types of games. Mario began taking over the spotlight in Mario Bros., which introduced Luigi to the world. Miyamoto and his teams continued to revolutionize gaming with Super Mario Bros., which invented the side-scrolling platformer and took gamers to the Mushroom Kingdom for the very first time.

Along with DK and Mario, he has created several other successful game franchises including the Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pilotwings and most recently, Pikmin! Almost every one of them is a classic. Miyamoto currently serves as director of Nintendo’s many development teams, guiding and overseeing game design. In his off-hours, he doesn’t play video games so much, except with his children. In his spare time, Miyamoto enjoys playing the guitar.

Although it’s Shiggy’s birthday, it seems gamers are the ones getting the gifts, as Nintendo GameCube being released in North America over the weekend. On this system, we will continue to see this wonderful creator’s visions come to life.

So, really, there’s only one more thing to say: