Shigeru Miyamoto, the Nintendo designer behind Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, will receive the Order of Culture, the highest honor the Japanese state awards for contributions to the arts and sciences. Japan's government named the eight 2026 recipients on October 23, and it is the first time the order has gone to anyone for work in video games. Emperor Naruhito will present it on November 3, Culture Day, a national holiday, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
The order dates back to 1937. Past recipients include the painter Yokoyama Taikan, the physicist Hideki Yukawa, who became Japan's first Nobel laureate, and the baseball greats Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima. According to Inside Games, the government is recognizing the 73-year-old for his contribution to media arts.
The step Miyamoto took in 2019
Recipients of the Order of Culture are usually chosen from the Persons of Cultural Merit, a separate state honor for a lifetime of work that the government announces each fall alongside the order. In 2019 Miyamoto became the first person from games to make that list, and seven years later he has received the higher honor.
Miyamoto explained what the honor means to him at a press conference at Nintendo's Kyoto headquarters on October 22, the day before the official announcement. As reported by Denfami Nico Gamer, he said that if games now count as culture, it is because they have become ordinary.
Who else is being honored
The other seven 2026 recipients come from science, architecture and music. Chemist Kenso Soai won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, NHK reports. Toyo Ito is an architect, and Motoko Ishii is a lighting designer known for illuminating buildings and cityscapes. Shunichi Tokura writes popular music. The list is rounded out by French literature scholar Tetsuya Shiokawa, biologist Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa and immunologist Shigekazu Nagata.
What Miyamoto said
At the October 22 press conference in Kyoto, Miyamoto said he accepts the award on behalf of everyone he has made games with, since no game is the work of one person. He also recalled being told for years that designers run out of ideas unless they live in a cutting-edge city, and he stayed in Kyoto anyway.
In comments published by Famitsu, he turned to artificial intelligence. Miyamoto draws a line between creating something and carrying out tasks, and he believes that the more routine work AI takes on, the more people will stop to ask what creating really means. AI may one day do everything, he added, but for now there is still plenty left for people to do.
From Donkey Kong to Pikmin
Miyamoto joined Nintendo in 1977 after studying industrial design in Kanazawa. He designed Donkey Kong (1981), the game that introduced the character later named Mario, then created Super Mario Bros. (1985) and The Legend of Zelda (1986), two series Nintendo is still making forty years on. Pikmin followed in 2001, and our guide to playing the Pikmin games in order explains where to start.
The November 3 ceremony lands two days before the Ocarina of Time remake arrives on Switch 2 on November 5. Miyamoto produced the 1998 original, and Nintendo is releasing the new version as part of Zelda's 40th anniversary.
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