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The King of the Mushroom Kingdom
This past weekend Shigeru Miyamoto visited Nintendo World in New York City. Hundreds of people stood in line for hours to get a few moments with the man behind some of Nintendo's most well known games. The Game Chair has a look at what it felt like to be on the ground at the event, while Joystiq has a more information based writeup of the event. From Joystiq's post: "While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed. That had to have been tough for him growing up, because in Japanese culture left-handedness is loaded with negative meaning and experiences. It's considered rude to hold your chopsticks in your left hand in Japan and China, for instance. It's also a helluva lot more difficult to write classic kanji with the left hand. Top calligraphers are never left-handed, as brush strokes look wrong when pushed across a page rather than pulled across the page with the right hand. It's also considered a sure sign of creativity and artistry, according to some."
"One great story I heard was of a family who evacuated their home in Texas and decided to drive all the way to New York for the event making the best of a difficult situation."
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed.
Could that be the reason Link is left handed? At least, I presume he's left handed, he always carries his sword in his left hand and shield in his right hand.
That's only because we kill ourselves fumbling with right-handed devices... you bastards >:(
I'm tired of being oppressed. It's time to start a Revolution!
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Runs the Leftorium.
My mom is Korean. My dad is American and left-handed. When my brothers and I would hold utensils with our left hands my mom would whack the hands with a large wooden spoon. You can imagine how much that really freaking hurts.
;)
I could have been a top baseball pitching prospect too!
"More organs means more human." - Zim
Yup, ol' Shiggy has contributed a lot to the world.
PS: The moderators who will mod down this comment are probably lefties too :-)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gauche/
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
and it was hell growing up for me as well.
My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Cuba, used to beat my left hand when i would use it. "DEVIL'S HAND! DEVIL'S HAND!!" Forcing me to write with my right hand, I found it somewhat difficult at first but I became somewhat useful writing with my right hand.
When she died i spray painted "DEVIL'S TEACHER" on her gravestone with a spraycan in my left hand. I was 16. this is the first time i have ever told anyone.
According to Wikipedia's artice on ambidexterity, Miyamoto is ambidextrous. The article doesn't specifically say that he himself said he was left-handed, maybe he was just using it at the time?
Hmm, when I went to Japan on business, nobody mentioned this, and saw it nowhere in my reading. So I blithely ate left handed. For knife-and-fork types, trying to use chopsticks with your off-hand is very difficulte, even with your strong hand it's hard. But I never stuck my chopsticks into my bowl of rice.
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Waiting hours in line to get a glimpse of Miyamoto is pretty high on the almighty scales of geekiness. However, Miyamoto has done so much for Nintendo. Speaking of Miyamoto, the next Zelda game is sure to be fantastic. Miyamoto wasn't pleased with Windwaker. He made several negative comments regarding that. However, he said in a recent press release that the new Zelda game made up for Windwaker. I don't know about you guys, but I'm really excited about the new Zelda game. More excited about the Revolution.
Can a summary be modded offtopic?
I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.
Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset I had in my pocket.
When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.
I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out.
http://kamalot.blogspot.com/
Yes.. Left, fr: Gauche, latin: Sinistra..
While Right, fr: Droite (meaning straight), latin: Dextra (leading to dexterity)
There's a story in the boy scouts that the reason they shake the left hand is because it's closer to the heart.
Apparently, the untold story is that when you offer peace with your left hand, you can keep your weapon in your right if things go bad.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Are what make Miyamoto so great, IMO. You never hear about any other game designers doing this, let alone ones as great as him. Miyamoto truly is a humble man, he isn't even a millionaire. People who have watched the Icons on Miyamoto on G4TV have seen that Miyamoto is payed the same as any other game designer at Nintendo. He still considers himself part of the team.
The story I heard when I was in Scouts was based on African traditions (since Baden Powell got his military education in Africa), IIRC the Zulus. Anyway, the story goes that they hold their spear in their left hand and their shield in their right hand (or the majority will, assuming righthandedness is the majority). If you're shaking hands with someone you don't trust, you use right hands because then you still have your shield to protect yourself from him and his mates. But to show trust, you discard your shield and shake with your left hand. You're then unprotected so you're trusting them not to kill you.
:-)
Don't know whether it's true or not, but it's a nice story.
FWIW, spiral staircases also spiral up clockwise so that a defender can retreat up the stairs and still use their sword in their right hand. Hence there's a historical urban legend that various European kings had squads of left-handed swordsmen specifically for digging people out of towers!
Grab.
I wonder if it will have optional left-handed controllers?
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?