The Day I Saw Miyamoto's Darker Side

If you think of Shigeru Miyamoto, you probably picture him with his familiar, infectious smile. However, behind the scenes, he can apparently be all business. At one E3, I saw a much different side to his personality.

It was E3 2002, and Nintendo held their annual press conference at the Millenium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a grand architectural gem. Its largest conference room was packed with reporters, industry analysts, developers, and fans, all there to see what Nintendo had in store.

In general, the mood during the press conference was upbeat. In particular, the company was pleased with the breakout success of the Game Boy Advance, which had moved over 6 million units since its 2001 launch and was projected to sell many more in the year ahead. The GameCube also appeared strong due to a successful recent European launch. Several promising GameCube games were debuted or shown during the conference, including Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness, Star Fox Adventures, and Retro's Metroid Prime, which caused a great deal of excitement in the crowd. Also shown was an odd little town simulator that was gaining an audience in Japan named Animal Crossing.

All in all, it was a fine press conference. As was tradition, the conference ended with the annual "surprise" appearance by Shigeru Miyamoto. Mr. Miyamoto was there to show off two extremely important first-party titles: Mario Sunshine and the already-controversial cel-shaded ("Cel-da") The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

The Mario Sunshine demo went off without a hitch, and looked impressive. Unfortunately, the live gameplay of Wind Waker didn't go as smoothly.

After a brief sizzle reel from the game, Mr. Miyamoto started playing a very typical Zelda level; "toon" Link fighting through a cave-like dungeon while he narrated the action through long-time Nintendo translator Bill Trinen. It was routine stuff, until a large sword that was supposed to be dropped by an enemy in the game failed to materialize. First thinking he missed it, Miyamoto darted around the room, finally realizing that the sword was not there. Unfortunately, at this point in the game, he needed the larger sword to smash a gate that led to the next area. Clearly embarrassed, Miyamoto was forced to walk over to open the door and look up into the cavern, commenting on how beautiful the game looked. After that he awkwardly wrapped up the demo, apologizing that he couldn't progress any further. It was definitely not a great moment, or in keeping with Nintendo's usual practice of showing games in an extremely polished state. You can watch for yourself below.

It was a bug, and somebody didn't catch it.

After the conference, I lingered at the hotel to participate in a breakout Q&A session with a Nintendo of America representative that lasted about 20 minutes. By that time, the crowd had cleared out of the Biltmore, and the hallways were mostly empty again. That's when I saw him.

Walking towards me was Shigeru Miyamoto, but this was not the gregarious, affable Miyamoto that I'd come to know through his public appearances. His trademark smile was gone and he was stalking towards me, surrounded by a trio of what I assumed were members of his development team. Miyamoto was furious. At this point I was pretty intrigued, so I slowed my walk and tried to listen as they passed. I'll never forget the sight of Miyamoto angrily dispensing terse commands in Japanese to the three harried Nintendo employees he was with, jabbing the air with his finger. I don't speak Japanese, but his body language and expression said it all – someone had messed up, and embarrassed Miyamoto at the biggest event in video games. Worse, it made Nintendo's most crucial upcoming GameCube title look bad – a game that was already being met with skepticism from the franchise's fanbase. Someone at Nintendo was going to have a bad week.

It was a pretty strange experience to see Miyamoto acting so contrary to his public image, almost like seeing Santa Claus cursing out an elf who screwed up making a toy train. Google image search "Shigeru Miyamoto" and you'll be hard pressed to even find a picture of him without a smile, much less yelling at someone.

I don't know why I was so surprised. Miyamoto is a serious artist, he's made some of the best games in history for decades and commanded a huge development staff. That's a job that requires guile, smarts, hard work, and toughness. You don't make games as good as Nintendo's without exacting standards and discipline. My astonishment is a testament to how effectively Nintendo's carefully curated image-making of Miyamoto has been. Plus, it's not like he didn't have the right to be upset; at that time, E3 was a company's one big chance to deliver its vision for the year to consumers and the press. Live-on-stage blunders like that are inexcusable. I'd expect most developers in his position would be angry. Still, it was definitely an indication to me that there's more to the man than friendly, slightly goofy image that most of us have of him.

I've had the opportunity to interview Mr. Miyamoto a few times. He's always been thoughtful, gracious, and exceedingly charming. Everyone I've spoken to off the record says that he's a joy to work with and a great leader. I just hope I never make him mad.