Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong are all hallmarks of Nintendo and have been going strong since 1981. All of those popular titles started with legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and he also had a big hand in crafting the first-ever Mario game for iOS.
Vox sat down with Miyamoto and discussed the release of Super Mario Run and the challenges Miyamoto faced creating the game and released a short, but beautiful video featuring a little history lesson and insight from Shigeru Miyamoto himself.
"Making the first Mario game for a non-Nintendo platform meant using the touchscreen — quite possibly the simplest controller they've (Nintendo) ever worked with — and creating a game users could play just by tapping one finger."
You may think it's a little mind boggling to think that someone like Shigeru Miyamoto (and a company like Nintendo) would find it hard to build a game with such simple controls, but you'd be forgetting that almost every Nintendo console to come out over the past 30 years has had an innovative controller.
My biggest takeaway from this video is that as long as Nintendo continues to employ Shigeru Miyamoto (and other designers like him), they will continue to strive to make games that everyone can play. That philosophy of accessibility is one of the reasons I keep coming back to Nintendo every time they release a new product, because what good is being a gamer if you can't share it with the ones you love?
What did you takeaway from Vox's video?
Did you know that Donkey was based on Popeye? Let me know your favourite part of the video in the comments below!
