Yokoi by a landslide. His philosophy is what created the GameBoy, NES, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS. He is why the company is successful to this day. He stands alone as far as I am concerned when speaking about influence on video games, digital culture, and mainstream influence.

Taking nothing away from Miyamoto, he is forever important, but he cannot get anywhere near Yokoi. He did not create the philosophy that Nintendo stands by today. And has anyone mentioned Yokoi created this standing philosophy back in the 70's? That guy basically built a solid business model for any company in the world, not just Nintendo.

Great thread.

Miyamoto is a genius, creates the best games for the best consoles. However, Yokoi was THE MASTER. Few people recognize his ability to create things. We owe him to have a handheld market today, a great game designer (if wasn't by Yokoi, Miyamoto would be nothing today) and constant renovation of video games.

Yokoi is the best. Seven years after his death, his dream would come true: Nintendo DS.

Funny. That sounds a lot like Miyamoto nowadays. Still people credit him with the creation of every new Mario, Zelda and whathaveyou. Something tells me the man who mentored not just Miyamoto, but in effect the entire industry deserves credit for a lot more than simply 'creating the gameboy'.

They both are/were very important to Nintendo, and to the game industry as a whole. It really depends how you look at it.

More important to the rise of Nintendo? Undoubtedly Gunpei Yokoi.

But, more important to the continued quality of Nintendo? The reason it still has so many fans after all of these years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_games_created_by_Shigeru_Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto.

miyamoto. If it hadn't been for mario there wouldn't have been a game boy

Undoubtedly?  I think people don't realize how involved Miyamoto was in Nintendo's rise to success.  He was responsible for several of the arcade hits that put Nintendo in the financial position to enter the console market (most notably Donkey Kong).  Then, he created the games that made the NES worth buying.  What caused the video game crash in North America was not hardware.  There were plenty of quality systems to choose from (perhaps too many).  The real issue was software.  Everyone was looking to cash in on the video game craze, and created tons of games that make the Wii's shovelware look like pieces of art.  The terrible games completely dominated the few solid games in the year leading up to the crash, and long story short (I have a dozen pages on this if you want to read more) the video game industry lost the confidence of both consumers and retailers.

Thus, what was really the critical part of reviving the video game market was not some super awesome piece of hardware, but rather, great software.  And who was responsible for that?  Miyamoto, of course.

I'm not in any way trying to belittle Yokoi's accomplishment, as I see him equally important to Nintendo's rise.  However, to claim he was far and away the largest contributor to the company's early success is ridiculous.

When you consider their similar contributions early on along with Miyamoto's continued support of the company, Miyamoto clearly establishes himself as more important.

@Helios: While Yokoi certainly supervised Miyamoto for quite some time, I don't quite know if mentor is the right word.  That suggests that Miyamoto is simply a product of Yokoi's teachings, and that just isn't the case.  Miyamoto was the creator of his games, and to a large degree held similar views to those of Yokoi.  While I'm certain that Miyamoto did gain something from working with Yokoi, I think you overstate its effect.

That list is misleading. Miyamoto had little to no involvement in many of those games.

For example; Super Mario Kart was designed by Hideki Konno and Tadashi Sugiyama with Miyamoto simply agreeing to let them use Mario characters.

Not saying he isn't great. It's just that some people give him too much more credit than he deserves.

How can you give him to much credit? I mean they are both important, and to be honest eventhough this thread is interesting, when you make threads like these people have a tendency to belittle,  just to prove a point.

Miyamoto is the most important figure in video games....

Miyamoto

I think Gunpei was extremely important in the creation of modern Nintendo. However without Shigeru there wouldn't be a modern Nintendo. Miyamoto was the mastermind behind almost every franchise that drove Nintendo in the past and drives Nintendo today. Its tough but I think without Gunpei Nintendo would still exist, but without Miyamoto Nintendo would have probubly gone the way of Sega over two decades ago. I mean lets face it without Donkey Kong and Mario Nintendo wouldn't have even succeeded in the arcade industry which was the driving force behind the NES and Nintendo as we know it today!