Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has become the first video game developer to win Japan’s Order Of Culture Award.

The award dates back to 1937, and is conferred by the Emperor of Japan to men and women who have made significant contributions to Japan’s art, literature, science, technology, or culture.

Miyamoto’s thoughts on receiving such a prestigious award can be found below:

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.

Especially recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many people in genres other than games, such as Universal Studios Japan’s “Super Nintendo World” and the film business. I would like to share the joy of this award with all of you.

Recently, there have been a lot of anniversaries, such as the 40th anniversary of Zelda , and I myself have been introducing myself as having “been making games for 45 years.” However, when I think about it, I joined Nintendo in 1977 and immediately started working on games, so it’s actually been 50 years. It’s easier to count, so I ‘ll talk about it as “50 years” this time.

Fifty years ago, I became involved with “games,” a medium that was barely tangible at the time, and I’ve been able to work in this field ever since. I think I’m receiving this kind of treatment because I was there from the very beginning, and I feel like I’ve had a very lucky life.

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