What I Learned from Shigeru Miyamoto
I’ve always loved Nintendo. I was first in line to watch ‘The Wizard’, I met my future college roommates playing Super Smash Brothers, and these days, Divya and I settle minor disputes over a friendly game of Wii tennis. Given the debt of fun I owe Nintendo, I decided to learn more about the man most responsible for the company’s success: Shigeru Miyamoto. When I started reading, I was just curious about Miyamoto’s life story (highly recommended). But, I also discovered that Miyamoto is full of wisdom and inspiration, especially for an aspiring entrepreneur. Here's what I learned from Mario's Papa:
Find Inspiration Everywhere
Miyamoto finds inspiration for his games everywhere, from personal experiences, to hobbies, to daily chores. He recalls exploring a cave as a child, which eventually inspired the imagery for Legend of Zelda. More recently, 
“…I started weighing myself every day in the hope of becoming more healthy and I found something that was fun and interesting in that and turned it into a videogame.”
Inspiration might come in that latest TechCrunch article or from your day job, but it could just as easily come from a walk outside, a conversation with your Mom, or personal reflection.
Aspire to Create Truly Unique Experiences
Miyamoto begins his games by trying to capture a single unique gameplay experience. In describing the genesis of Mario, he explains:
“It started with a simple idea. I thought…what it would be like to have a character that bounces around. And the background should be a clear, blue sky.’ I took that idea to a programmer, and we started working on it."
These joyful experiences – playing music with friends, exploring a forest, running and jumping, raising a puppy – make Miyamto’s best games timeless and universal. His clarity of purpose lets other game ingredients (music, characters, and the technology platform itself) evolve naturally. Relentless focus on creating unique and joyful experiences set Miyamoto apart from legions of game designers toiling to produce yet another side-scrolling platform game or first-person shooter.
I find myself spending too much time worrying about the features of competitors or the latest trend sweeping Silicon Valley. Miyamoto reminded me that creating great products requires singular focus on the needs of the user, not achieving feature parity with competition.
Take Risks
Aspiring to create something truly original is risky. It’s easy to forget that the gaming community openly mocked the Wii (then known as Revolution) for its inferior processor and childish controller. Nintendo’s decision to abandon the technology arms race brewing between Microsoft and Sony was incredibly risky. But as Miyamoto explains:
For every Wii, there have been failures – VirtualBoy, the PowerGlove, and countless games now forgotten. But reading Miyamoto’s stories reminded me that if you don’t feel nervous about your product, it probably wasn’t worth building in the first place.
Listen, Refine, Repeat
Miyamoto is so prolific that it’s easy to imagine that he simply dreams up polished games day and night. In actuality, those who have worked with Miyamoto report that he’s incredibly dedicated to refining, refining, and then refining again. In a lecture to young game designers, Miyamoto advised:
"…be willing to show a game that you've created to other people and then hear their criticisms. Sometimes that can cause a lot of frustration for you. But you have to be able to take that criticism, bring it back with you, and then reflect it in the next version of the game that you make or use it to improve a game you are currently developing."
Miyamoto likely learned these lessons early in his career. In 1980, he helped design Radar Scope. The arcade game was to be Nintendo’s first foray into the US market. It was a colossal flop and thousands of machines went unsold. To recoup the cost, Nintendo’s CEO asked Miyamoto design a new game that could be retrofitted to the much-maligned Radar Scope machines. Miyamoto created Donkey Kong and the world has been happier ever since.
