Siheyuan starts from the stationmaster

Chapter 257 Attracting Shigeru Miyamoto

Most of the people Shigeru Miyamoto associates with are artists with unrestrained looks and weird costumes.Five years passed in a hurry, and he finished his studies like walking on eggshells.

Shigeru Miyamoto has no interest in entering a large company and working in a regular manner. He knows that he cannot adapt to that rigid and restrictive environment.

Shigeru Miyamoto hopes that his career will give full play to his imagination, and the working environment should be comfortable and pleasant.Obviously this is a bit idealized, and he is not a rich second generation.

After living at home for more than a year, Shigeru Miyamoto's father recommended him to Hiroshi Yamauchi, the boss of Nintendo, through his relationship. In 1977, Nintendo was actively entering the field of video games. In addition, Nintendo has always valued science over writing. Compared with talented people who write a thousand words, creative electromechanical technicians are employees with real practical value.

Therefore, the atmosphere of Shigeru Miyamoto and Hiroshi Yamauchi's first meeting was slightly awkward, and Hiroshi Yamauchi said bluntly: "What we need here are engineers, not painters like you."

At the second meeting a week later, the atmosphere eased a lot, and the conversation between the two touched a lot of practical things.Hiroshi Yamauchi suggested that Miyamoto provide some actual children's toy design ideas at the next meeting.

When they met for the third time, Shigeru Miyamoto brought a lot of toys made by himself, and explained to Hiroshi Yamauchi one by one with his masterpieces.Hiroshi Yamauchi recognized Shigeru Miyamoto's talent and decided to formally invite him to join Nintendo.

Since there is no suitable position for the time being, Shigeru Miyamoto was assigned to the planning department, and the direct leader is Junpei Yokoi.At that time, most of Nintendo's products were related to machinery. The work that Yokoi Gunhei arranged for Shigeru Miyamoto was mainly sporadic errands such as the exterior decoration of arcade machines.
However, with Shigeru Miyamoto's ingenious combination of colors and patterns, the arcade machines produced by Nintendo at the time were very popular.

From these experiences, it is not difficult to see that Shigeru Miyamoto's entry into Nintendo was not smooth sailing, and now his status in Nintendo is a marginal role, and it can even be said that he has achieved nothing.

During the period before Shigeru Miyamoto was appointed as the leader of the 1984th R&D Department by Hiroyuki Yamauchi in 4, his road to fame was still relatively tortuous.

In 1980, Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo of America, demanded the development of the latest arcade products due to a large number of outdated products that were unsalable.At that time, Nintendo's three major development departments were operating at full capacity, and there was no way to spare manpower to add new projects.

In the video game industry in Japan and the United States at this stage, the development of software and hardware products does not have a clear division of departments, and the hardware manufacturing team often undertakes the software design work at the same time.

Therefore, Junhei Yokoi proposed to set up a special software development department. Hiroshi Yamauchi agreed with this, and focused his attention on Shigeru Miyamoto, the only idler in the whole society.

Shigeru Miyamoto, who tried his skills for the first time, was the first to go on the market in Japan at the end of 1980 as "Donkey Kong".

For Shigeru Miyamoto, the failure of "Donkey Kong" was a major blow. The entire Nintendo company, including Yokoi Gunpei, was skeptical of his ability.

Perhaps only Hiroshi Yamauchi thought that Shigeru Miyamoto still had greater potential to be tapped. In addition, the GAME&WATCH department was in urgent need of manpower, so he was directly transferred to Yokoi's first development department.

But a dramatic scene happened. "Donkey Kong" achieved great success after it landed in North America the following year, with a cumulative sales of more than 6 units, creating a profit of about 1.2 million U.S. dollars for Nintendo of America.

After earnestly summarizing the failures of "Donkey Kong", Miyamoto seems to have completely found the feeling of making games. He successfully designed the "Super Mario" series and the "Legend of Zelda" series. Almost all Miyamoto Shigeru The games that participated in the development have received good market response.

Junpei Yokoi, the head of Nintendo's first R&D department, Bai Zirui may not be able to poach anyone, but Shigeru Miyamoto is very likely to be poached by him. Therefore, after signing the contract, Bai Zirui asked Mitsuo Nakamura to meet with Shigeru Miyamoto.

Although Shigeru Miyamoto was a little surprised by the invitation from Mikio Nakamura, a senior executive of Sculin Co., Ltd. (Deans), he still accepted the invitation. This meeting was in a high-end coffee shop in Kyoto.

After Shigeru Miyamoto came to the coffee shop, Mitsuo Nakamura introduced the two of them to each other. When Shigeru Miyamoto learned that Bai Zirui, who was about his age, was the boss of a game company, he couldn't help showing envy on his face .

When Mitsuo Nakamura was exchanging greetings with Shigeru Miyamoto, Bai Zirui looked at Shigeru Miyamoto, who was still a little shy despite having worked for several years, and at the same time adjusted his lobbying plan in his mind.

For a game designer like Shigeru Miyamoto with an artistic temperament, those simple and crude methods may not work, and some skills must be paid attention to.

Therefore, Bai Zirui did not rush to ask Shigeru Miyamoto if he would like to change jobs, but chatted with him about music to find a common topic.Bai Zirui said casually: "Miyamoto-kun, do you still like Beatles music?"

Shigeru Miyamoto replied without hesitation: "Of course!"

Bai Zirui asked pointedly: "Miyamoto-kun, do you feel that your work at Nintendo is free, happy, and reflects your self-worth?"

Shigeru Miyamoto hesitated and replied, "It's okay!"

Bai Zirui smiled and said: "It's okay? That means Miyamoto-kun's current job is not satisfactory. Miyamoto-kun already knows that I have a game company in Xiangjiang. Although our company has just started, we have already developed a Classic arcade games, Nakamura-kun can testify to this, and our company has a comfortable and pleasant working environment, encouraging employees to give full play to their imagination, is Miyamoto-kun interested in joining?"

Shigeru Miyamoto asked suspiciously: "Mr. Bai, I'm just a small game designer, and I also designed a failed game. Why did Mr. Bai invite me?" He didn't know that "Donkey Kong" was a big hit in the United States. news.

Bai Zirui said: "To look at a person's development, we need to look at the long-term. You can't just look at his fame, but also his talent. The game industry pays more attention to a designer's love for games. Otherwise, everything is empty talk. I think Although some of Miyamoto-kun's works are not very mature, they are full of creativity. This is what I admire about Miyamoto-kun.

My game company and Nintendo have different development mechanisms. You are now doing software and hardware together, while my company divides the two.After Mr. Miyamoto came, he was responsible for the research and development of game programs. This job requires the creative thinking of artists like you.

In addition, game ideas are specially prepared for Miyamoto-kun, so that you can quickly enter the working state.I have a good game idea but suffer from lack of excellent talents to implement it, so I can give it to you to practice. It doesn’t matter if you fail, as long as you sum up the experience and lessons. "

If it weren't for Mikio Nakamura, an executive from a well-known company of Scalin Co., Ltd. (Deans), Shigeru Miyamoto would have thought that this man named Bai Zirui who kept admiring his talent was a liar.

(End of this chapter)