Shigeru Miyamoto first in gaming industry to receive Japan’s Order of Culture award ~ Amazing News 2020

Shigeru Miyamoto first in gaming industry to receive Japan’s Order of Culture award

By nintendojam on October 23, 2026

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, an official Japanese government organization, has announced that Shigeru Miyamoto, legendary game designer and creator of Nintendo’s most iconic franchises including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, and Pikmin, will be receiving the 2026 Order of Culture award. Miyamoto is the first in the gaming industry to receive the highly prestigious award, honoring nearly 50 years of cultural contributions while working at Nintendo; designing the original Donkey Kong arcade game being his big break in 1981. Since then, gaming has undoubtedly become an important part of culture around the world.

While receiving the award, Miyamoto humbly stated that though it takes more than one person to create games, he accepts it with the intention of representing the entire team, and considers himself very lucky. A full interview with him was also conducted, which can be found on Japanese news website Denfaminico Gamer. To avoid misconstruing his words due to machine translation, we’ll refrain from posting any more tidbits from the interview until a more accurate translation is available.