That's better than the evil Jimmy Buffet of Margaritaville infamy — he's 97 — but one slot lower than Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. We further presume that's due to Kotick's executive control over both Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft and his ice-cold business tact.

Former Russian president (and current PM) Vladimir Putin tops the list. Once Vanity Fair catches wind of Activision dropping Ghostbusters in lieu of the latest Crash Bandicoot, we think Bobby's wielding of the iron fist will help him place higher next year.

PUTIN TOPS VANITY FAIR NEW ESTABLISHMENT LIST; MURDOCH NO. 2 [Drudge Report via Level Up]

I have not left the gaming industry for good. I love it.

Kaplan says she has stayed in contact with folks like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. In the PAX panel she participated in (along with What They Play's John Davison, Grand Theft Childhood co-author Cheryl Olson, and Newsweek's N'Gai Croal), Kaplan was quoted as saying, "Parents who use video games as a babysitter shouldn't have sex to begin with."

Perrin Kaplan: I'm Coming Back to Gaming [Game|Life] [Pic]

I would say the message is we were disappointed with our performance at E3. There were titles like Wario which we think will be really fun titles that we should have showcased. We were excited that Mr. Miyamoto made the commitment that Pikmin is coming. It would have been nice if we could have said that on stage. But, we think it was a good recognition for us that we care for our core fans, and not just the new people who are now discovering Nintendo.

Oh. Okay. Well, want to learn more about Cammie Dunaway? That, after the jump.

My position as head of sales and marketing is that I’m listening to the fans. I’m championing the things they care about. I’m helping to make sure we bring great games to the market place. I’m genuine, I’m new to gaming I’m not pretending to be more than I am. I’m having a blast. I feel similar to people who are just discovering games for the first time. I think for us as an industry, its good that we’re growing. That brings more money to the industry. That makes it attractive for more people to develop more games. We have to embrace the fact that new gamers can be good for everybody. Core gamers should help new gamers to discover their passion for gaming.

...When I came to work for Nintendo, we [her family] had a Wii, we had 3 or 4 DSs, a PSP, an Xbox, a PS2. We were an active gaming household, but it was only six months prior to joining Nintendo that I had ever played games at all. I started by playing Wii Sports and then by playing Big Brain Academy and Brain Age on my DS, and then I started playing a little bit of Zelda with my son, and then Pokemon. Sometimes it’s hard to jump into games like Zelda if you don’t have the experience.

...You can't be successful if you don’t enjoy every day at work. I’ve worked on Doritios, Cheetos, Yahoo, and Nintendo, these are all brands I feel really excited about. The second thing is always to try to give more than what is expected of you. Always speak up and share your ideas. Be courageous. That’s how you get the job done and make a difference.

Gabriel Franco Interviews Cammie Dunaway on Latin America, VGC, Piracy, etc [VG Chartz Thanks, Stephen!]

At least, that's the reasoning behind an item in The Times of London. The piece connects some dots — Miyamoto loves puzzles, Brain Age follows; Miyamoto interested in exercise, Wii Fit is born; Miyamoto takes music lessons, Wii Music unveiled. And the writer, attributing to sources within Nintendo, says the third time was enough and Nintendo has asked Miyamoto to hush up about his interests.

Me, I think Shiggy should lay a bunch of red herrings out there. He should start saying that he likes, I dunno, visiting water pipe bars, researching graves and farming wheat. Then someone would run out and set a survival horror/genealogical research game in Kansas with a motion control bong. And that would be really fun to play. And Nintendo can get the idea out there as a trial balloon without taking any of the risk. Why am I not a consultant?

The Nintendo Gaming World Awaits Another Mario [The Times, thanks readers Mesren_Makai and TJ]

Said Miyamoto:

"Making these 'traditional' games is what I am best at. Because games of that nature take upwards of two or three years to make, we always have to keep the teams working on those projects going. At any given time, the team could be five to ten people, or it could be 50-plus. People are always switching in and out of those teams.

"They are all working on more Mario, Zelda and Pikmin projects," he said. "And they all work in close proximity to me, so I can keep a good eye on them."

Could it be that all this time, Nintendo has been quietly working on traditional Nintendo titles? That in fact, they've been working all along on their core franchises?

Shigeru Miyamoto: The man behind the Nintendo Wii [Telegraph]

[Thanks Runandgun]

One question asked of Miyamoto was Wii Music's qualifications as a game. You know, a game game. Since Wii Music has no discernible scoring system, no goals and little in the way of those squishy innards that makes a game a "game," isn't it just a "musical toy"? That was the question posed by one European journo.

"Yes, that's right," Miyamoto curtly replied "And that's why it's more interesting than a video game."

That will, of course, be debatable to the Wii owning masses, especially those who bemoaned the lack of games that appeal to them. The Marios, the Zeldas, the Metroids, the... Kid Icari.

Whatever Wii Music is, it's better than what the gaming public saw at Nintendo's E3 2008 media briefing. The cacophonous display of a DJ Ravi Drums waggling and stomping like a madman, followed by a ear splitting executive performance didn't win over many of the folks we talked to at E3.

But the more mellow demo, minus the on stage fanfare made Wii Music seem much more interesting.

Like many gamers, I've yet to go personally hands on with Wii Music. The available melodic and percussive options — from guitar to steel drums to vibraphone to harpsichord to toy piano to singer to tuba to dog suit — may make rearranging the Super Mario Bros. them fun. Plus, your Mii can beat box. That's like hours of fun right there. All those options might not make it a game, but there's at least one person who doesn't see anything wrong with that.

Miyamoto said that he sees Wii Music as a viable educational tool, saying that "I really think that half of an elementary music school could be dedicated to this." His intention, it seems, isn't to court those already on board with Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but, literally, everyone else.

The famed Nintendo developer said "I'm hoping that through Wii Music, we'll get more drummers, more musicians and more people interested in music."

Update: The original quote, that Miyamoto said Wii music was "better than a video game" was incorrect. His correct quote was the Wii Music is "more interesting than a video game."

Nintendo confirms E3 speakers [CVG] [Pic]

Miyamoto: I think that the understanding of the Wii remote technology has certainly proliferated to developers, and their understanding of how it works is now very strong. But, I think that in terms of developing games for the Wii remote, it's really more about the focus of the team and how thoroughly they consider the user interface and the end experience for the consumer in terms of how intuitive that is and how easy it is to use. And, at this point, I think it's just difficult for me to say how many teams that are really focused on that experience ae out there and are working on games.

In other words, shovelware, by its nature, doesn't fully employ the capabilities of Nintendo's unique controller. Or any, controller, really.

Was that too harsh? I need to go back and watch "I Love the World" again. In all fairness, Miyamoto covers a ton of ground in this talk, including how his approach to designing Donkey Kong carries forward to game design today. Check it out.

90 Minutes with Miyamoto, Nintendo's Master of Amusement [Wired]

When asked about maintaining quality control at Nintendo, Miyamoto says the key is in avoiding Sega-style design. He tells Wired, "I'm always instructing my game designers on the history of the characters and worlds we've created. Often we're in development and I'll say, 'Oh, this looks like a Sega game. We need to make it look more like Mario.'" Ouch.

In Miyamoto's defense, he may have been talking about Sega's last decade or so of existence. And that's totally fair.

15th Anniversary: Revenge of the Wii [Wired via NeoGAF]

I would say that over the last five years or so, the types of games I create has changed somewhat. Whereas before I could kind of use my own imagination to create these worlds or create these games, I would say that over the last five years I’ve had more of a tendency to take interests or topics in my life and try to draw the entertainment out of that.

Every artist goes through phases — even Shigeru Miyamoto.
Resistance is Futile [NY Times]

I spent the first half of this week hanging out with the likes of Michael Pachter, Peter Moore, Mike Gallagher and Nintendo of America's recently appointed vice president of marketing, Cammie Dunaway at Ziff Davis' Electronic Gaming Summit.

It was the first time I met Dunaway and we ended up chatting quite a bit during a dinner on the last night, hosted at a nearby vineyard, held in a castle of all places.

Dunaway, it turns out, had just flown in from New York where she helped kick off the launch of the Wii Fit in Central Park.

"I'm sure Wii Fit is going to sell very well," I told her, "but I suspect it's going to be like every other piece of exercise equipment people buy for themselves: In a few weeks or a month it's going to have laundry piled on it or be back in its box."

Not so, Dunaway insisted.

"Wii Fit incorporated the magic of video games," she said. "You get ranked, you unlock new levels, you can compete against each other, there's a lot of video game hooks that will help people stay motivated."

The next day, while reiterating our conversation to the summit during her speech, she added that there are also a lot of other exciting things that can be done with the balance board, specifically new games using it as a controller. Games like Namco-Bandai's skiing title or EA's Skate It or Ubi's upcoming Rayman title.

I buy the second argument, I'm not so sure about the first. But it's still a good model: You get people to buy the Balance Board by making people think working out will be fun, even though deep down everyone knows it really isn't, then you start releasing other games using the peripheral, removing the fit from the balance board and emphasizing the fun. It's almost a bait-and-switch, but without the negative connotations.

What I found more fascinating than Dunaway's insistence that Wii Fit, and not just the balance board, would be a game with lasting value, was her explanation of how Shigeru Miyamoto came up with the idea.

The story goes that Miyamoto placed a piece of graph paper on a wall in his house to track his weight and that every day he would plot it. Over time his family started questioning his weight gains and losses. Why did he lose weight on this day? Why did he gain weight on that day? That's when inspiration struck and Miyamoto went into the office and told his developers "Let's create a video game based on weighing yourself."

Can you imagine if anyone other than Miyamoto suggested that?

Iwata Asks: Link's Crossbow Training [Nintendo]

We have all laughed and joked about being told that we're fat and need to lose weight but I was gobsmacked when it [Wii Fit] told her that she is overweight. She is a healthy 10 year old girl with an active lifestyle, she swims and dances every week. She is 92lbs and 4ft9" tall and there is not an inch of fat on her. She is solidly built but not fat. She was devasted to be called fat and we had to work hard to convince her that she isn't. I know it is just a game but seriously we already have to worry about young girls starving themselves to look like the magazine models and now we have a game that tells them their fat. This to me is very worrying and I hope that is doesn't cause emotional problems for any youngsters out there :(

To Nintendo, licensing Mii is identical to licensing Mario. If you read Iwata Asks interview series in website, you can understand how Mii was created in detail, so I hope you can read them if you have time. Mii is actually the result of more than 10 years of efforts.

Mr. Miyamoto, the inventor of Mii, himself has been saying that, 'In a sense, licensing Mii is same as licensing Mario — Nintendo should grant the license when we can conclude that the proposed project is worthwhile. Should we allow any and all the licensees to use Mii license for whichever projects, Mii's brand image will be hurt. Because we are not granting Mario license to any and all, we should not do so with Mii either.'

This is the current policy of Nintendo. So, at the software development stage, we are consulting with the developers as to how they would like to make use of Mii, and our Licensing Department handles on a case-by-case basis.

55 year-old Miyamoto, who's never been on a Time cover, comes out on top in his very first outing on the list with 1,949,634 votes, an achievement that foretells a future populated with towering statues in his likeness. Here's Time's stats on him:

PRO: As if creating Mario, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda weren't enough, the "father of modern video gaming" is still designing franchises for Nintendo and its best-selling Wii console. His latest, Super Mario Galaxy, redefines VG physics once again with its springy re-imagining of that old chestnut, gravity.

CON: Can he reverse gravity for all the obese, video game-playing kids out there? Miyamoto himself has said that the purpose of his Wii Fit game, with its balance board and full-body focus, isn't to make you fit, but "aware of your body." Aware enough to go outside before atherosclerosis sets in?

Your TIME 100 [TIME]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Getting something like this really makes the last thirty years worth it. It's somewhat unreal, somewhat of a dream. Five years ago, I never thought I'd be making something like Wii Fit. I thought I'd be making more Mario and Zelda.

...Nintendo design boss Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to include a mode that would allow players to weigh their pets. He wasn't able to include it in the Japanese version, but in the North American version, available May 19th, players will receive a message informing them that if they weigh themselves while holding their pets, then weigh themselves again separately and subtract the two, the difference will tell them how much their pet weighs.

Really, what Wii Fit represents and what Nintendo is trying to do with Wii Fit is expand the gaming population. And the reason that is important for them is because as more and more people of different ages start playing — even if it's just games like Wii Fit —- their understanding of what video games are and the fact that they're even playing games is going to better their understanding of what gamers are... So in a sense what we're doing by increasing the gaming population is strengthening their right to continue to game. I hope they'll keep that in mind.

I am happy to say that with so many out there, we have had relatively few incidents.

Top Nintendo Designer Shigeru Miyamoto Talks 'Wii Fit' And Appealing To Unhealthy Americans [MTV]

While Wii Fit has become somewhat of a family sensation in Japan, Miyamoto says he's not sure how an American audience will receive the game. When we asked Miyamoto what he expected from American consumers, he noted that on average, American families are apart more often than those in Japan. A lot of families have parents who have separated or divorced, so it's tougher to predict the role family will play in the American response to Wii Fit—and we couldn't agree more.

Pre-ordered Wii Fit Shirt [Gay Gamer]

I think we'd gotten to a point where videogames were something that everyone could no longer enjoy. As a designer, I'm always focusing on what is fun — ideas that people can enjoy. For me, I'm trying to entertain as many people as I can, creating games that the widest number of people can enjoy. Of course, that being said, we do have the existing teams at Nintendo working on the kinds of products we've always made over the years. The Zelda team is forming again to work on new games! But to me, it's about finding these new interactive experiences and bringing them to people.

Well, yes, in my mind, I would say it is a video game.

The console war is OVER! [Games Radar] Thanks Tyler!

Ha ha ha! Just imagine if I'd say, set aside that Nintendo DS until the Lite had appeared or simply shelled out $150 for a back up. Regardless of the profit I could make, it wouldn't be worth the hilarious story of me flushing money down the drain.

For an even better tale of throwing away money, remind me sometime to spin you the yarn of placing my Game Boy Advance in the garbage as a joke, then forgetting to remove it before the janitorial service disposed of it. It's a sidesplitter!

Shigeru Miyamoto Signed Super Famicom + Games [eBay via The BBPS]

Miyamoto-san gets pretty scary when he's angry, doesn't he?

Miyamoto-san is really merciless when it comes to planning! (laughs)

Shigeru Miyamoto's notes on what was then known as "the Health Pack" didn't provide much in the way of direction to those on the hardware and software development side at Nintendo. He simply passed on to the team how much he enjoyed weighing himself everyday and monitoring his weight. "This is bound to lead to something interesting," Miyamoto said to what would become the Wii Fit team.

It wasn't until those on the game development side created the first test software, an early version of Wii Fit's balance test, that worked with a dual-scale prototype board using Nintendo 64 controller parts to gauge weight that things started to take shape.

"I think you might be onto something fun with this movement based play control," Miyamoto told the team.

Incidentally, that dual scale prototype was born of a spark of inspiration that Sawano had while watching sumo wrestlers grapple. The deputy general manager at Nintendo EAD wasn't concerned about their unhealthy porkiness, though. He was merely inspired by some sumos being so portly that they required two traditional scales to measure their weight accurately.

Speaking of chubby folks, there's some good news for husky types. The Wii Fit Balance Board can actually withstand a 660 pound human being before buckling. It just doesn't measure beyond 330 pounds. So put down that pork chop or you'll be watching Wii Fit from the couch.

Miyamoto: The make-up of the Wii Fit team was really varied. The design and sound staff, for example, were brought in directly from Twilight Princess. I was a little afraid at first that a group of people who'd worked on something like that wouldn't take a completely atypical project like this as seriously, but in the end I had nothing to worry about because they all worked very hard on Wii Fit.

Iwata: No one would say, "I didn't join Nintendo just so I could work on something like this."

Miyamoto: Instead of just handing the game over to a team of novice designers because of the game's relatively simple look, I decided that the nature of the game itself required the kind of people who've worked on games such as Twilight Princess. That's why the team members were all really experienced people, and I'm really grateful that they all worked together to create this great game.

I don't think Wii Fit's purpose is to make you fit; what it's actually aiming to do is make you aware of your body.

That's why we wanted people to talk with their families about Wii Fit, and become aware of these things together as a group. If you're standing still, and it tells you 'Your body is swaying', you can see on the training results screen that your body has been shaking. But I think you'd never realize that your body is shaking in day-to-day life. I think becoming aware of things like this about yourself is quite interesting.

Iwata Asks: Wii Fit [Nintendo via CVG]

What we know about pachinko: It's a form of gambling that's just barely legal in Japan. Instead of winning cash, players win metal balls. (If players won cash, pachinko would actually be gambling.) The players then "sell" these metal balls to a separate shop typically next to the pachinko parlor. Thus, players can actually "win" money in a round about, yet legal way. Do realize that while those noisy pachinko parlors aren't exactly the most reputable places, a cross section of society does spin those metal balls.

In an interview with Nintendo honcho Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto divulges:

I used to play pachinko many years ago, but that stopped when I started swimming. Simply swimming without thinking about anything except how demanding it was had a similar effect to the stress relief I got from pachinko, which enabled me to escape the cycle of worries I had. Another thing I managed after quitting pachinko, was to stop smoking which also lead to better fitness. To be completely honest though, I don't really like being thought of as such a serious person. I mean, I didn't drink in the first place, and on top of that, I managed to quit smoking and get actively involved in doing sports, so I must seem like some kind of a role model!

Iwata Asks [Wii.com] [Pic]

In our partnership with Steven Spielberg, he is the Steven Spielberg of directors...it's hard to get a better, more creative personality than that. But he's also of course a hardcore gamer. This is a director who is not simply coming to gaming as another product category — this is a strong creator who's coming to gaming because he loves games.

Back when I was at DreamWorks Interactive I was just continually impressed at first of all where he found the time to play through games — there were games that he played beginning to end several times. He loves games, he's gone deep inside games, and he's got a lot of ideas about games, so in that sense it makes for a great collaboration.

And then of course I think that when you have those collaborations there are so many fresh ideas and perspectives that come in, because although he's a strong gamer, he obviously has a very strong point of view from film. There's just a whole other set of associations and images he can bring in....

I think he has the potential to be the creative force behind some blockbuster games, but of course his role is different — when he shoots a film, he has cinematographers, but he's constantly going and looking through the camera and setting up his own shots.

I don't think he'll ever be quite as hands on in games design, because he grew up in film.

Eds Note: In this post, Entis previously used "the Steven Spielberg the Steven Spielberg of directors" schtick. Dude needs a new line, because it sure seems like Glenn Entis is the Glenn Entis of Spielberg PR!

Electronic Arts Interview [Games Industry]

Mr Miyamoto is known for taking lots of time to create the best player experience. His demands are numerous and exacting, but I actually really like that. He's effortless in explaining what he wants... We get along well together, and time files by when we're working. Before we know it, sometimes, it's 2am.

Jaffe, today, urges calm to the throngs of upset Nintendo and Miyamoto fans who feel slightly sore down there. "It's a joke. It was funny," he says in his new video blog, just before whipping out his personal Wii remote, "I thought it was somewhat funny." Oh, David, it was. Can't we all just relax and enjoy Mr. Jaffe's ability to question the logic of banana-peel firing go karts?

OMFG!!! [David Jaffe's Blog]

Whether or not we'll see more Balance Board titles depends on the success of Wii Fit outside of Japan. If the game succeeds, expect peripheral-compatible titles to follow. To the casual observer, there's a huge opportunity to make a Wii Balance title for those who'd like to pick up an extra board. Given that such a model succeeded in the past, don't be surprised at the reprise.

Nintendo Considering Wii Balance Board Games [IGN via Maxconsole][photo: Nathan Smart]

Mario has a creator, Miyamoto, and you have to consider Mr. Miyamoto's thoughts when you're making a Mario game. But we share thoughts back and forth first for quite a long time. And once I start to outline some really broad strokes about where we're going with the game, then I can get a little more feedback from Miyamoto. Then, getting a version together, I have to go to Miyamoto as soon as possible as we can get more feedback.

Over time, as all of these broad ideas get a little more narrowly defined, the feedback becomes a little more subtle, until finally it gets to the point where Miyamoto will give us feedback, and the only person who has any idea what it means is me. And everyone else who is CC'ed on these emails from Miyamoto have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. So I'll translate for everyone else, "I think he's trying to say this." Having that sort of information gap is sort of like a puzzle or a riddle. It's like playing Brain Age.

Want to see what you're currently not enjoying via your Nintendo Wii? This promo clip shows the new, Japanese-only (for now) channel that lets Wii owners watch TV commercials, see Shigeru Miyamoto hawk Wii Fit and allows for the downloading of Nintendo DS demos. It's, of course, all in Japanese, but you may want to watch to get your Wii-mote strokes down before it launches.

While 19th out of 50 out of billions isn't bad, his 81.75 rating may draw some harsh criticism from a strong fanbase. I mean, c'mon. Look at that smile, those teeth. Look at that camel hair sport coat. Our man Shigeru is at least a 92.493. He was robbed.

Top 49 men [via gonintendo]

He is the inventor of Nintendo and has been one of the key architects in the electronic gaming industry.