Satoru Iwata: biggest Japanese industry cheese of '06?
by Jonti Davies 
{ Jan 2nd 2007 at 11:00AM }
The latest issue of Japan's Weekly Famitsu contains gory details of the magazine's annual Japanese industry awards, and it's little surprise that renowned industry savior Satoru Iwata is cited as the figure who made the greatest impact on videogames in 2006. NCL's friendly President (there's a French brand of cheese called Président, you know) received 201 votes to pip Ken Kutaragi, of all people, to the title. What "Big Ken" was even doing in the listings we fail to fathom, but there you have it. And here you have Famitsu's top five Japanese industry cheeses:
- Satoru Iwata (Nintendo) -- 201 votes
- Ken Kutaragi (Sony Computer Entertainment) -- 181 votes
- Hironobu Sakaguchi (Mistwalker) -- 126 votes
- Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo) -- 41 votes
- Hideo Kojima (Konami) -- 33 votes
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Roddie @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:12AM
It's nice that Iwata won, but any credibility the poll had is destroyed by the fact Kutaragi came second.
David004 @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:16AM
Ken Kutaragi should have won! He had the biggest effects on the industry last year with all his crazy ass talk that made everyone think twise about buying the Piece of Shit 3.
Mohan @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:18AM
Well this makes sense considering Nintendo changed they way be play console games. After playing Wii Sports, I wondered how I ever liked Tekken Bowling (it was in Tekken Tag Tournament), also I wondered how I even liked Mario Tennis with a conventional controller, and not to mention other golf games.
FoneBone @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:15AM
Just votes and no explination?
2. Ken Kutaragi
- "For bringing the world 'The Forth Dimension'"
unit @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:18AM
that's a nice black wii! Can we get some Iwata?!
Sponge @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:29AM
You can still be big if you screw up big.
Samik @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:22AM
Nice to see my two favorite video games people made the list - at 4 and 5. If they had not ben born - no stealth genre, no Zelda or mario.
SONY4ever @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:24AM
the ps3 is a a good bargin you get a computer and gaming system your too poor to buy 1 is all david 004!! get a real job and quit Mcdonalds then you can afford a true gaming machine! until then keep your garage sale toy 360 and wii.
Defenestrator2.0 @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:24AM
Who the heck is Hironobu Sakaguchi?
Borman @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:31AM
@7
Head of Mistwalker, the Final Fantasy Father
Dopple Boppler @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:31AM
"7. Who the heck is Hironobu Sakaguchi?"
Some n00b.
v1cious @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:42AM
the ps3 is selling quite well in Japan. remember, there's no 360 to compete with.
Spaz @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:10PM
Just because we don't like Kutaragi doesn't mean we need to question his placement on the list.
He's still influential, crazy or not, and the guy basically changed the course of gaming for the last 11 years.
Nobody remembers Nintendo charging us 70$ a cart for a game back in '95? Anyone? Bueller? Of course not. We're too busy being Wii fan boys to appreciate what each company brings to the table through competition.
crono141 @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:51AM
wrong thread v1cious.
And by "quite well" you mean 4th overall behind both nintendo consoles.
But it is spanking the 360 there.
v1cious @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:10PM
no i'm in the right thread. my point is i can see why they would stick up for Ken Katuragi. whether you like him or not, he made Sony a lot of money, especially on the ps2. also Nintendo's hardware is last gen, so despite sales, most Japanese developers will look to Sony for their next-gen projects. even it they're not exclusive, the japanese will only buy the Sony version, simply because they despise the 360. xenophobia ftw
Jeff @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:18PM
Not to mention that Ken Kutaragi brought us what remains the top-selling home console in the world (the PS2), and three of the current top five positions on the Japanese hardware chart (where this list is from, after all).
I'd say that's some pretty good success. How many consoles have *you* managed to sell 100 million of? How many has Iwata? I'll tell you how many: none. Iwata wasn't head honcho early enough to claim the GBA, and the DS Lite's not yet hit 25 million worldwide. The Wii is just getting started. So the jury's still out, despite his early success (and seriously, congrats to him on that, and he deserves the #1 spot this year for it). Kutaragi, though, has directly overseen the production of two consoles that have both sold 100 million units. His 10 year lifespan prediction for the PS2 doesn't seem so crazy right now, does it?
Dislike Ken Kutaragi all you want. Make fun of his height. Make fun of the PS3. The fact is he's sold more than 200 million game consoles in his tenure, and his company is still at or near the top of every home console sales chart worldwide.
SONY4ever @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:23PM
GO WII60!!! We got 2 guys from nintendo up there, now just for some microsoft guys... ken has no idea what he's doing and is responsible for the worst system of all time... worse than the 3DO... Sony probably won't last another 5 years before they'll have to be bought out by Microsoft just to stay afloat
Nick @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:02PM
Hironobu Sakaguchi (Mistwalker) -- 126 votes
Thats a vote for Microsoft. He's done more to sell Xbox360s in Japan than anyone else.
pe @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:47PM
But has kuturagi done a whole lot other than spout bs in the last year? This isn't about what they;ve done in the last 10 years, it's about 2006. Ken hasn't done jack shit execpt for what all the other sony execs have done, hurt thair brand name and lie through their teeth.
Anthriel @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:52PM
@Jeff: Though I agree that Kutaragi is certainly among the most important and successful gaming figures, and certainly deserved the top spot on that list many many times, I really don't think it was a good year for him.
I am certainly not one of the people who foretell Sony's certain doom, but we can all agree that the Playstation 3 went from the certain winner of the console wars by about 80 million consoles, to the likely loser in 2006.
Chances are, 10 years from now, this will be in a list of the Top 25 mistakes in gaming.
So, unless they judge by both good and bad influence, I don't think Kutaragi should be that close to Iwata. To exaggerate it just slightly, one saved his company from certain doom, the other one have doomed his.
Earlier success doesn't help against mistakes, as Gunpei Yokoi (the father of the Gameboy and the Virtual Boy) would know.
sploy @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:55PM
I only wish FFXII would come to 360, then I wouldn't need to buy a ps3.
NintendoFanbot @ Jan 2nd 2007 2:33PM
"Just because we don't like Kutaragi doesn't mean we need to question his placement on the list.
He's still influential, crazy or not, and the guy basically changed the course of gaming for the last 11 years.
Nobody remembers Nintendo charging us 70$ a cart for a game back in '95? Anyone? Bueller? Of course not. We're too busy being Wii fan boys to appreciate what each company brings to the table through competition."
--------------------
I'll question his placement on the list. Sony is losing TONS on PS3. It's selling well but Sony has yet to make back what they've lost in developing it. The reputation of PS3 being a 'trojan horse' for Sony's proprietary formats.
Actually, I probably shouldn't question him, because I'm not supposed to question an architect about a defect that was intentionally made that way.
I should praise him on an innovation that he didn't copy from another competitor, who his co-executives call gimmicky. *shrugs*
Remember kids, the Playstation 3 is not a games system. It's like he thinks a large association with games will make his 'masterpiece' kiddy or gimmicky, when gamers are the majority of his buyers.
Nintendo charged $70 for cartridges because there's more hardware to them than CDs or DVDs, you can save games, some cartridges could be made to increase the system's processing power, that kind of stuff. Since then though Nintendo games have stayed $50 or below on a $250 system vs. $60 PS3 games for a $600 system. Nintendo's past vs. Sony's NOW. Which one should the customers be more worried about?
I don't know if people were expected to buy a 3DO to not be considered fanboys but it shouldn't be any different with PS3, except for the established brandname.
I still hold Gunpei Yokoi to a higher standard than Kutaragi. The man made Metroid and Kid Icarus (read: ACTUALLY MADE GAMES) instead of talking to us vaguely about "the 4th dimension".
-----------------------
"Dislike Ken Kutaragi all you want. Make fun of his height."
But where's the fun in that?
-----------------------
"Make fun of the PS3. The fact is he's sold more than 200 million game consoles in his tenure, and his company is still at or near the top of every home console sales chart worldwide."
I'm laughing at the above that somehow Kuturagi rested on those facts and decided there was justification for making a $600 console. That such prices would lead two of the industry leaders (Sony and MS) to make "lesser bundles for gamers". They're PC-izing the gaming market, that's what they're doing.
And observing that it's only "fanboys" that are wrong for making fun of such a folly.
Though I have nothing but admiration for MS now. They're pretty much spot-on now, with a well-rounded service AND console, PLENTY of support from THEMSELVES and 3rd-Parties, all they have to do is make things more affordable and win over Japan. Even the Wii I admit is not a well-rounded console (in choosing gameplay and interface as priority over graphics and power), but Nintendo had a reason for doing it and EXPLAINED IT CLEARLY over the last couple TGSes and E3s and conventions in between.
I still say that MS be honest and axe the Core Bundle.
Alex D @ Jan 4th 2007 5:43PM
The thing with Ken is that he's an ENGINEER (afaik, anyways) and it seems NO ONE was there to tell him that NO you can't expect to make a 600$ console and sell it as something else. I mean, seriously, it looks as if sony just let him loose and told him "do your shit".
He has been a good asset to SCE previously, but on the PS3, engineering dreams (POWER!!!) were given too much priority.
That's for Ken's defence.
Apart from that, I'm not geek enough to know all the names on that list, so I won't comment on who deserved what.