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Game Boy

The brains behind Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto has created some of gaming's most iconic heroes. Now he's fast becoming one himself. , Illustration by eBoy

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Gazing across the table at living legend Shigeru Miyamoto in a closed-door meeting room at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), I get the impression that I might as well be enjoying an audience with the pope. And it's not because of the four hour-long lines of enthusiastic fans queued up to sample the legendary software designer's latest creation - the new motion-sensitive video-game console Wii (pronounced "wee," see "The Wii Revolution," page 70). Nor, for that matter, is it because of the ever-vigilant security guards standing watch over a special roped-off section behind employer Nintendo's public booth, where pedestrian-choked product kiosks and blaring loudspeakers ostentatiously trumpet the company's latest wares.

Even the site of our sit-down - a nondescript conference area located next to a bar and, somewhat incongruously for a bustling convention floor, an ice cream machine - isn't entirely responsible for the effect. Rather, it's due to the subtle lines that now mar the familiar visage of my companion, adding a hint of unexpected sadness to his ever-smiling face and mischievous eyes.

Surrounded by translators, official handlers, and a host of underlings, the visionary whose life's work has come to define so many millions of people's childhoods no longer seems so impish as he does outright exhausted. At age 54, having worked on more than 70 individual titles, the man Time magazine called "the Spielberg of video games" looks like he'd rather be anywhere (e.g., in his beloved garden) than here, surrounded by 60,000-plus admirers.