As the First Game Creator Awarded Japan's Order of Culture, Shigeru Miyamoto Warns It Is Getting Harder to Keep Nintendo Original at 10,000 Employees
In a historic first since the imperial decoration was established in 1937, the Japanese government has selected Shigeru Miyamoto to receive the prestigious Order of Culture (Bunka Kunshō) under the Media Arts category.
At 73, the legendary creator of Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikmin, and The Legend of Zelda becomes the very first person from the video game industry to be awarded Japan's highest civilian cultural honor, which will be presented in person by the Emperor of Japan at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on November 3, 2026 (Culture Day).
Fifty Years of Collaborative Creation, From Donkey Kong to Theme Parks
Having previously been named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2019, Nintendo's Representative Director and Executive Fellow greeted the national milestone with his trademark humility during a press conference in Kyoto.
Speaking beneath a framed calligraphy scroll reading "Dokusō" (the spirit of originality), Miyamoto immediately credited the generations of colleagues who built Nintendo's worlds alongside him.
"I feel incredibly embarrassed, but I am truly honored to have been selected for such a prestigious award. As I always say, I don't make games by myself. This award is the result of working together with many people, so I intend to accept it as a representative of them."
Shigeru Miyamoto, Representative Director and Fellow at Nintendo
In a year marking the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda and the return of deeper cuts from his catalog as Shigeru Miyamoto's forgotten Game Boy gem Mole Mania joins Nintendo Switch Online, the veteran designer also noted a personal chronological milestone.
Although he had long introduced himself as having made games for 45 years, joining Nintendo in 1977 and immediately working on arcade projects means he has now spent a full 50 years shaping a medium that was barely tangible when he started.
To Miyamoto, seeing video games formally recognized as high culture simply means the wall that once separated gamers from non-gamers has disappeared, allowing Nintendo's creations to become part of everyday life across theme parks like Super Nintendo World and major theatrical films.
Why Instilling the "Spirit of Originality" Is Getting Harder at 10,000 Employees
Beyond celebrating the imperial medal, the Q&A session offered a candid look at how Nintendo's massive expansion is testing its internal creative culture.
Asked how he passes Nintendo's design DNA down to younger generations, Miyamoto admitted that the company's sheer size has made preserving its founding spark much more challenging.
"We have no choice but to communicate through our daily work, so we're steadily working on it. However, Nintendo has 3,000 to 4,000 developers alone, and if you include everyone, it's about 10,000 people worldwide, so it's becoming difficult to instill the spirit of 'originality' that was at the beginning in everyone."
Shigeru Miyamoto
To keep that mindset alive across thousands of staffers, Miyamoto explained that teams deliberately debate "what originality is" during the actual process of building projects together.
Realizing that many developers he once viewed as newcomers have now become senior veterans, he also launched a dedicated internal forum where mid-career professionals can gather and discuss Nintendo's creative philosophy directly.
Lessons From Yamauchi and Yokoi, and a Desire to Make One More Surprising Game
Reflecting on the figures who shaped his own career long before Satoru Iwata transformed how Nintendo speaks to fans through Nintendo Direct, Miyamoto highlighted two indispensable mentors inside the company.
He credited Game Boy inventor Gunpei Yokoi for teaching him how to make whatever is right in front of you compelling, and former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi for driving his focus on uniqueness.
According to Miyamoto, Yamauchi used to tell his staff, "You guys are weak at fighting, so instead of fighting, do something unique," anticipating modern "blue ocean" strategy decades ahead of its time, alongside outside creative inspirations like EarthBound creator Shigesato Itoi and manga pioneers Osamu Tezuka and Fujio Akatsuka.
Noting how those manga masters actively reinvented their medium in their later years, Miyamoto believes his own founding generation of game developers must keep pushing boundaries so younger creators feel emboldened to take risks.
Even while immersed in film production, the 73-year-old legend hinted that he is not done with hands-on creation: while working on several projects, he wants to see how far he can still go on his own and says he might try making a game again, specifically aiming to build something Nintendo does not usually do just to surprise the company's own employees.
My Perspective: A Master Craftsman Who Refuses to Become a Museum Piece
Listening to Shigeru Miyamoto reflect on this historic imperial honor, what strikes me most is not just the cultural validation for video games, but his refreshing honesty about the weight of Nintendo's own growth.
Openly admitting that it is getting harder to keep a 10,000-person powerhouse genuinely original shows how fiercely he still guards the small-workshop curiosity that birthed Donkey Kong and Super Mario.
Knowing that at 73, after half a century at Nintendo, his biggest itch is still to prototype an unorthodox game on his own just to catch his younger colleagues off guard makes me even more excited to see what he builds next as he prepares for the November 3 ceremony at the Imperial Palace.
Based on the outskirts of New York City, Chaya 'Chayane' spent five years studying software engineering in Montreal before returning to her home state. A Full-Stack developer and Deep Learning AI architecture researcher, she explores neural networks and algorithmic optimization while engineering data pipelines for Retrocharting and Gamescharting alongside Grimtag. A gamer for over 20 years and an avid collector of Nintendo history and The Legend of Zelda, she explored World of Warcraft's Azeroth before bringing her deep technical background to video game analysis.
