Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo games designer and one of the most well respected figures in the videogaming industry has been included as one of the two-hundred candidates for TIME Magazine’s “100 most Influential People of the Year,” following in the footsteps of previous winners including Bill Gates, Adolf Hitler and Pope John Paul II.

Every individual nominated for the prestigious award is given their own small space in which a summary of their achievements is laid out, making the process of voting that little easier. The few paragraphs include both good and bad points about each nominee. Miyamoto’s reads:

AGE: 54
OCCUPATION: Game Designer for Nintendo game systems
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0

PRO: Most successful game designer, creator of Super Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, whose new platform, the Wii, is currently the top-selling game console.

CON: His perfectionist tendencies often result in games being significantly delayed and, despite the Wii’s gameplay innovation, its graphics are far behind the competition.

In case you didn’t know, Shigeru Miyamoto is the creator of numerous videogame franchises, including some of the most popular titles of all time. Often dubbed ‘the father of modern videogaming,’ his amazing repertoire includes the likes of Super Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Wave Race and Pikmin. He started his career at Nintendo in 1980 as an artist, and was soon asked to create one of the company’s first coin-op games. The resulting title was Donkey Kong (incidentally now available on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console), which included the hairy ape, and one ‘Jump Man’ who eventually became Super Mario.

Videogaming genius right here!

Previous to this nomination with TIME Magazine, Miyamoto has been nominated for, and scooped, a number of awards, the most recent of which was the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards in March (held as part of the annual Game Developers Conference).

While this is Miyamoto’s first appearance in the shortlist for recognition in the North American TIME Magazine, he was honoured amongst TIME Asia’s “60 Years of Asian Heroes” in November 2006 - a list which included the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama!

Earlier this year, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was named amongst the world’s top 30 CEO’s in the financial magazine, Barron. If Miyamoto is crowned the most influential person of the year in TIME this year (it’s unlikely, but we’re sure stranger things have happened), it’ll top a fantastic period for Nintendo, both inside and outside of the company, particularly with the Nintendo DS and Wii performing so spectacularly well.