Since 2007, in addition to creating the now famous list of personalities that have impacted our world and choosing a Person of the Year (last year it was Vladimir Putin, the Russian president), Time magazine has also conducted an online poll where readers are invited to vote for the most influential person in the world in that year. This year, the readers have chosen Shigeru Miyamoto as that particular person.

The veteran game designer, which has been with Nintendo since 1977, has gotten about 2 million votes in the online poll. His fame is based on a string of excellent games that he has designed himself or which he oversaw. In 1985, he created Super Mario Bros., the game that pushed Mario to the front of gamer culture, a character that now symbolizes what Nintendo is all about.

A few years later, Miyamoto created The Legend of Zelda, a game series that, even today, still generates a tremendous amount of interest and huge sales. His most recent accomplishments are Super Mario Galaxy, which opened to very good reviews, and Wii Fit, a game that aims to revolutionize the relation between exercise and videogames. Wii Fit is already a sales hit in Japan and is expected to be one of the best selling titles of 2008.

The fact that Miyamoto topped the poll with such a large number of votes, 300,000 more than his closest competitor, proves the influence that videogames are having, an influence which is beginning to be seen in mainstream media. Talk show host Stephen Colbert came in third place. Fellow game designers Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, the guys at Harmonix that created both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, also featured in the poll, at number 70, further evidence of the power that a videogame has to attract fans and generate response.