Shigeru Miyamoto - Impact

Impact

Many of Miyamoto's games have received critical praise. Super Mario Bros. 3 was a commercial success. Levi Buchanan of IGN considered Super Mario Bros. 3's appearance in the film The Wizard as a show-stealing element, and referred to the movie as a "90-minute commercial" for the game. Super Mario 64 was the best-selling Nintendo 64 game, and as of May 21, 2003, the game had sold eleven million copies. At the end of 2007, Guinness World Records reported sales of 11.8 million copies. As of September 25, 2007, it was the seventh best-selling video game in the United States with six million copies sold. By June 2007, Super Mario 64 had become the second most popular title on Wii's Virtual Console, behind Super Mario Bros. Ocarina of Time also received universal acclaim by critics. Edge magazine referred to it as the Nintendo 64's "key launch title". The game placed second in Official Nintendo Magazine's "100 greatest Nintendo games of all time". Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess were also critically acclaimed by critics for the graphics and the gameplay. Twilight Princess was released to universal critical acclaim and commercial success. It received perfect scores from major publications such as CVG, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, GamesRadar, and GameSpy. On TopTenReviews, it has received an average score of 3.86 out of 4, the highest among all games in the Zelda franchise. In the PAL region, which covers most of Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe, Twilight Princess is the best-selling Zelda game ever. During its first week, the game was sold with three out of every four Wii purchases. The game had sold 4.52 million copies on the Wii as of March 1, 2008, and 1.32 million on the GameCube as of March 31, 2007.

Miyamoto's other franchises, such as Star Fox, were also well received. At the time of the game's release, the use of filled, three-dimensional polygons in a console game was very unusual, apart from a handful of earlier titles, including Sega Mega Drive/Genesis ports of Atari's arcade driving game, Hard Drivin', and their helicopter shooter, Steel Talons. Due to its success, Star Fox has become a Nintendo franchise, with five more games and numerous appearances by its characters in other Nintendo games such as Super Smash Bros. series. Star Fox was awarded Best Shooter of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.