It’s official. According to this week’s Weekly Famitsu’s Japanese industry awards, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is the most influential executive working in the videogame industry today. The full rundown of the Top 5 is:

• 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

Well, it’s kind of official. If you are a Japanese hardcore gamer, then anything you read in your Weekly Famitsu is pretty much taken as gospel.

You can read SPOnG's recent interview with Mistwalker’s Hironobu Sakaguchi right here.

It’s hard to argue that 2006 wasn’t a golden year for Nintendo though, with the DS predicted to have sold 20 million units by this coming March and the world’s mainstream and specialist gaming media’s current obsession with all things Wii.