Having grown weary with owning the world, Miyamoto withdrew so that he could spend a few years creating another one. Mario 64 codified the public identity of the "video game" just as much as Super Mario Bros did in 1985, and just as Super Mario Bros 3 emasculated all pretenders, Super Mario 64 made Crash Bandicoot look like a visionless hack and made Bubsy look like an absolute fucking moron.
This time though, the frontiers were so unknown, so vast and unexplored, that not even Miyamoto and his hardened gang of murderers could pull it off flawlessly. Super Mario 64 has an infamously whiny, uncooperative camera by any modern standard, but I'm pretty sure that's entirely forgivable considering it invented the fucking thing. Even Jumping Flash just dodged the question by going first-person.
For a second time, Mario had not just tightened his grip on video games, he had remade them in his own image. 3D platformers made from the same mold would define the next two generations. Then and only then would video games begin to slip through the plumber's glovey hands.
This time though, the frontiers were so unknown, so vast and unexplored, that not even Miyamoto and his hardened gang of murderers could pull it off flawlessly. Super Mario 64 has an infamously whiny, uncooperative camera by any modern standard, but I'm pretty sure that's entirely forgivable considering it invented the fucking thing. Even Jumping Flash just dodged the question by going first-person.
For a second time, Mario had not just tightened his grip on video games, he had remade them in his own image. 3D platformers made from the same mold would define the next two generations. Then and only then would video games begin to slip through the plumber's glovey hands.