Today, Shigeru Miyamoto's creations are synonymous with Nintendo itself, but there was once a time when even Miyamoto was just a college kid interviewing for a job like anyone else. He brought a portfolio of his work to Nintendo for that interview, and it appears the company attempted to patent one of the items he showed off long before officially hiring him.
Miyamoto graduated from the University of Industrial Design with the idea of designing household appliances or toys and play equipment for kindergarten children. This was in the '70s, when Nintendo was still known primarily as a traditional toy and game company, long before it moved into video games.
“Nintendo wasn't looking for designers at that time,” Miyamoto explained in a 2000 interview for the Japanese book Game Maestro, recently translated by Shmuplations. “An acquaintance of my father spoke to President Hiroshi Yamauchi and I was invited for an interview. At that time, Nintendo not only made arcade machines, but also baby strollers and batting machines, and I thought it was an interesting company. I had the impression that they were making a lot of money playing cards and hanafuda, so it seemed like they would be willing to let me do what I wanted to do.
Miyamoto said he brought his “student works” as a kind of portfolio to the interview. “One was a coat rack for kindergarteners. It was a coat rack with animal faces and a handle, so even short children could use it easily. There was also a see-saw with a swing.”
When Miyamoto met Yamauchi, “he was very thoughtful and said, 'I want you to know that we will not hire you because of the reference, but because we want you to work for us.'” But get this: after I joined, I found out that they had applied for a design patent for the hanger I had designed (laughs). I mean, I was able to get the rights to the patent without having to pay the fee myself, so. Everything was good (laughs). I remember thinking, 'This is a clever company!' “But they let me do what I wanted and I saw them as a generous benefactor or sponsor.”
It's hard to imagine anyone would have such a nice view of a potential employer trying to patent their invention today, but I guess 1970s Japan was really a different place and time. Yamauchi was legendarily ruthless: Tetris Company co-founder Henk Rogers once said that Nintendo employees “were afraid of him. If you ever worked with him and you didn't agree with him in a meeting, you were fired. Period. Fired to the president of Nintendo.” Europe, like bang!” If Miyamoto had made a fuss over the patent issue, I suspect that today we could be living in a world without Mario and Donkey Kong.
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