I don't know if Microsoft deserves #1, but they've certainly pushed innovation this year. Windows Phone 7 looks like a great step forward in usability for smartphones, and Kinect is bringing controllerless motion gaming to consoles in a big and reliable way. Regardless of precedence, Microsoft deserve credit for bringing things like this forward.

I don't agree with these awards anyway on the basis they never release the supposed metrics they used to decide on a winner, which basically confirms what we all know is that it's subjective bs.  Just one small point though about Kinect, the software that drives it and does all the skeletal mapping and detection is all Microsoft's work.  They might have bought the hardware in and evolved someone elses concept but their software development has managed to bring a device to market long befopre anyone else would dare try it. 

When you see awards for cars you don't see them credit the company that built the engine if it comes from another manufacturer.  That's just life for those people unable to go it alone and make a product work, you sell to the big boys who get the credit and you hope you've negotiated a big enough slice of the pie.

Sega, Nintendo & Microsoft............. TRUE innovators.

Bottom line_____________________

Everything that sony allegedly innovated had been done long before they came on the scene........

Oh, ok, you win, i'll give sony credit for one innovation....... the walkman back in the 80's..... Congratulations.

You quote 2 meaningles sites to come to this conclusion?  The MOST reactive company yes but innovative? HELL NO. The most innovative companies are the little ones that design this stuff to begin with. It doesnt take a genius who's got the money to buy a company out and sell it once it's made. Hial the little guys for once will ya????

Are you going to give credit to all the partners who helped develop Bluray and indeed Toshiba who in part helped before they parted ways with the Bluray alliance.  Do you give credit to Microsoft for their VC1 codec which in the early days of the format war stopped Bluray looking like an also ran in terms of quality compared to HD-DVD.  Do you credit IBM with making the Cell processor and in turn Nvidia for their contribution also while Sony just sat back and bought the hardware in?

Stop talking idealistic crap just because you're too biased to give credit where it's due.

Microsoft had motion controllers before Nintendo but I dont see nobody bashin the Wii...

Could've sworn Microsoft's Motion Sidewinder was done before any of these companies now

they were not the first and they just bought the israelien technology, that is it.

I still think kinect is "innovative"

but MS, overall, is THE MOST NON INNOVATIVE COMPANY EVER
they just created (stolen) Window and made tonne of money on it

So now BIll Gates stole windows, from whom?

OT, I don't think that it deserves this award as it's most likely subjective as been pointed out before, therefore means jack overall, but comparing EyeToy to Kinect is just silly, it's like comparing a PS1 to PS3, the concept may be along the same lines but the latter is far better than the first.

What MS brought to consoles so far:

Online capabilities(Original Xbox Live)

Internal Hard Drive(Idea akin to the PC hard drives, but they were the first to introduce it to consoles), unless there was a console before that did that and I am mistaken.

What about wireless controllers? Who's idea was that? <- that is not a flamebait question, I am genuinely not sure.

LOL

Ah so you'd call the PS1 and the NES system innovative then. Maybe I read the thread wrong but didn't they say Microsofts Kinect is innovative. Well I must have gotten the word wrong because I thought innovative meant that something was groundbreaking and new, not just old technology improved upon. Well I guess Microsoft are pretty innovative then. But isn't it a company in Israel thats not owned by Microsoft that made the technology??/ I'm confused