Online Extra: Meet Mario's Papa

As the brains behind the video games at Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto has shown a knack for inventing games that kids would get hooked on. In 1985, his Super Mario Bros. -- the world's hottest-selling game ever -- was the first with a scrolling screen, which expanded the playing space vertically, not just horizontally. The next year, he came up with the labyrinthine fantasy world called The Legend of Zelda, which could take skilled gamers hours, and sometimes weeks, to complete. And in the 1990s, his Super Mario 64 was the first console title with 3D graphics. It even forced him to tweak the standard joystick to handle more complex commands.

Miyamoto, 52, recently spoke with BusinessWeek Tokyo Correspondent Kenji Hall about video games, how they have changed, and what to expect in the future. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow: