Shigeru Miyamoto Nominated in Time Magazine

Splitt3r wrote with a link to the Kotaku site on Shigeru Miyamoto's Nomination as one of this year's 100 most influential people at the Time Magazine site. "PRO: Most successful game designer, creator of Super Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, whose new platform, the Wii, is currently the top-selling game console. CON: His perfectionist tendencies often result in games being significantly delayed and, despite the Wii's gameplay innovation, its graphics are far behind the competition." Voting is currently ongoing at the site, if you're interested in swaying the vote.

I think he deserves a spot

[alvinrod]

Compared to a lot of the other people on this list, I honestly think he deserves a spot. The Nintendo Wii and the DS have really shaped up to be great gaming products that have in some ways changed how the industry has to think about games. I'm not going to say the Wii has revolutionized the gaming world. Maybe if the next generation of consoles all featured similar motion sensing technology, but not quite yet.

From personal experience though, I'd have to say the Wii has been a major breakthrough in the gaming market. I had taken mine home over Christmas and for the first time in his life, my father actually played a video game. Even more stunning, he enjoyed it. I can't ever see him being a hardcore gamer like myself, but it was really great being able to share something with him that's a big part of my life and is something that I enjoy doing with my time. I'll still enjoy things like going fishing together or watching ball games with him, but it's nice to know that if we ever wanted to, we could enjoy a few hours together playing Wii Sports.

I like at a lot of the other people on that list and there are many that have legitimate reasons to be there, but there are also a lot that don't. Maybe some of them have brought about a unique experience in your life like the Wii did in mine, but I think that's really what pushes me over the edge when considering whether or not Miyamoto belongs there. From reading comments on Slashdot over the past months I know that I'm not the only one out there who's had something like this happen.

Re:More news on Miyamoto

[ajs]

There's an interesting nod to one of his games in World of Warcraft as well. There's a quest chain, It's a Secret to Everybody [thottbot.com], which is long and involved, and has many references to The Legend of Zelda, including a green-cloaked gnome named "Linken" who is the central character in the quest chain through which you help him recover his sword.

Re:Time magazine must be running out of ideas

[asninn]

Keep in mind that this list is not (supposed to be) US-centric, though. Sure, I've never heard of Rain, either, but how important is that really? Keep in mind that 95% of the world's population do not live in the USA; there's bound to be many important people in the world that you either don't know or that aren't important to YOU.

Also keep in mind that this is not a popularity contest: people can be important even if you don't like them, and bin Laden arguably is important. Or did I miss the part where the "war on terror" was declared over and where it was determined that he's not a threat anymore?