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The 25 Games Industry Influentials of 2006
Next Generation has up a list of the people it considers the game industry's top 25 people of 2006. Headlining the list are the veterans of this round of the console wars, with the rest of the folks notables from individual game companies. Plus two guys who make a comic. From the article: "6. Todd Howard, Bethesda - On Xbox 360, Oblivion has sold over 800,000 copies in the U.S., generating $50 million in revenues. Todd Howard, the game's executive producer, has spent four years on an RPG that captured many gamers who did not see themselves as the types to lope around grassy fields, collecting mushrooms and perhaps doing the odd bit of combat. The game's goal was to allow players to 'live another life' and it certainly succeeded. This is what makes Oblivion one of the most important games of the decade, as well as one of the best games."
Oh, console influential. I get it.
Not industry influential. How can I tell? Well, if you ship a half million consoles, your company (SCEA) gets 2 spots in the top 25. If your company has an MMORPG on the PC with 7 MILLION paying subscribers, you get squat. Zero, zilch, not even an "honorable mention". So, you effect a a half million, 2 spots, you effect 14 times as many, you get 0 spots. Even the XBox 360, which Microsoft wants to ship, what, a couple million of? gets very high billing.
The console industry is not the games industry. It is a part of the industry, but not the entire industry. I'd argue it may not even be the most popular or influential part of the industry.
He's the man primarily responsible for bringing Microsoft successfully into the console industry.
6 0&name2=XB&type=2
6 0&name2=PS2&type=2
I suppose the question is whether Microsoft can actually be considered to be successfully in the console industry. The XBox 360 (for the most part) has performed worse than the original XBox and is only now catching up to where they were last generation:
http://www.vgcharts.org/usaconscomps.php?name1=X3
And the XBox 360 is not selling near the pace of the PS2
http://www.vgcharts.org/usaconscomps.php?name1=X3
The point is that Peter Moore has not made the XBox successful by any real measure, whereas Nintendo (over the past 18 months) has completely turned around and is amazingly successful by practically every measure. The article seemed to be poorly though out, written, with arbitrary placement for most of the people on the list.
To be fair, Will Wright hasn't released anything this year, and those are THIS YEAR's most influential game personalities, and he hasn't released anything this year, tough we heard a lot about Spore. But Spore is only hype and vapor right now, it hasn't shipped. He will definitely make the list next year tough. if the game is any good.
That being said, I'm not going to read the article because I simply don't care.
I'm trying to think what criteria Next Gen might have used to judge Iwata that might make him second on this list.
English accent?
Penis size?
I really am at a loss. This should have been a lock for him.