Princess Peach, Samus And Zelda As Miyamoto’s Angels (Picture)

Shigeru Miyamoto. If you don’t know the name walk carefully to your bathroom, look in the mirror and slap yourself in the face.

If you ever even heard the words ‘super’ and ‘mario’ in the same sentence your thoughts should turn to this man. If you can hum the entire overland song from the ‘Legend Of Zelda’ then you once loved his workmanship.

Again, his name is Shigeru Miyamoto. Kiss the rings, bitch. Show some respect.

Mr. Miyamoto single-handedly made the Nintendo Entertainment System the system to beat back in the mid-80′s. An impressive feat considering the potential for competition. In fact, the Sega Master system was actually superior hardware, but couldn’t pass the NES in mass appeal.

What you don’t know is that Mr. Miyamoto also single-handedly rescued the videogame industry as a whole.

It was 1983. Christmas of 1982 was still fresh on the minds of children everywhere and why wouldn’t it be? It was high times for videogames. There were more than seven major consoles on the market and each of them had their own library of games. Choices were in abundance.

So much so that most of them, however, sucked.

Everyone and their mother, their sister, their brother and the family dog had a startup videogame company back then. All these brand new companies flooded the market with crappy product trying to get in on the videogame rush of the late 70′s.

By the time 1983 hit people were sick of all the bad games and glitchy consoles. And so, seemingly out of nowhere, the bottom dropped out of the market. People stopped by systems, games and anything videogame related.

Startups when bankrupt. Arcades shut down. And videogames, for all intents and purposes, were dead and buried. Gone. Forgotten. Lost relics of a games era done. Just find yourself a ‘Pong’ standup machine and reminisce on the good times.

Shigeru Miyamoto and the ‘Nintendo Entertainment System’ aka ‘Famicom’ showed not only Japan and America, but the world, what it was to be passionate about video games.

‘Super Mario Bros.’ was actually a sequel to his 1982 game ‘Mario Bros.’ but differed vastly in design and focus. Gutsy thing to do, changing the entire nature and design of a game to make the sequel.

But Shigeru Miyamoto would not be deterred because he, clearly, had mighty, golden balls.  That peed money. In the end, he was right. The game was a runaway success so hard they went ahead and gave the damn thing away with every system purchased.

‘Super Mario Bros.’ was his first major smash. But Shigeru Miyamoto believed that lightning could strike twice and invented ‘Legend Of Zelda.’ Instead of a points/lives system he made the game have a story and a definite ending. He also required the game to have a save system embedded within so you could record your progress. Again, he blew the doors off the money vault.

Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t get involved in the ‘Metroid’ series until ‘Metroid Prime’ after his buddy that started ‘Metroid’ died. Since he took over the franchise it has enjoyed a resurgence in interest, popularity and, most importantly, cash money.

Were it not for Shigeru Miyamoto many of your fondest childhood videogame memories would never have existed. So hum that ‘Super Mario Bros.’ theme music and enjoy this parody pic of three of his most popular heroines: Princess Peach, Samus, and Zelda.

Got your lips pursed to kiss those rings now, don’tcha?