Keiji Inafune, and many other industry vets discussed how Mario has influenced them as creators. Inafune probably made the boldest claims, saying Mario is the“development bible.”

“If any creator has not played Mario, then they’re probably not a good creator. That’s something I can say with 100 percent confidence. Mario is, for game creators, the development bible. There are so many hints about good design, about cute characters, about innovation in using an existing gameplay system.

It’s something you have to constantly look at and examine and take hints from as a game creator. It’s the anchor that grounds almost all games. I have total respect for Miyamoto, to the point where… It’s very strange that there are national cultural treasures – they’re traditionally sportsmen. I think it’s very strange that somebody as famous as Miyamoto hasn’t been designated one of those people.

He’s talked about in all different countries. Lots of people know him. He’s pushed forward Japanese culture and interest in Japan all over the world. He’s somebody that deserves everyone’s ultimate respect, and a lot of that is due to being able to create Mario. And Super Mario Bros. 3, of course, within that, was a fantastic game.”

source:http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/08/our-favorite-mario-memories

Sounds like he's got a mancrush for MiyamOtO.

That's a pretty bad generalization.

Maybe he should go work for/with him? I bet they could cook up something pretty fantastic. Just have Nintendo buy Megaman from Capcom, since they are just sitting on the license, and see what they can come up with. Or have Nintendo publish Mighty Number Nine and help tweak it. Or maybe they can work on something new. It's not too late for a career resurgence for either of them. Hell just look at Danny Trejo, he is sixty nine years old!

Mario is overrated in my opinion.

The guy made Megaman, so there's maybe something there. At least it gives us some hints as to what goes through Keiji's mind as he's making a game like MM or MN9.

I should say not. Whatever genre you work in, you probably owe something to Nintendo, pretty much unless you're in text RPGs. The historical impact of their works are foundational to game design as a whole, and if you think you can ignore the foundations, then you need a lesson in humility.

It's like anyone who aspires to be a great movie director, "Birth of a Nation" (white supremacist morals aside) is required viewing. If you haven't seen it, you can't understand where the medium's been and can make no credible claim towards contributing to the medium in a progressive way. So it is with video games and Mario, or Zelda. So much of what present games take for granted comes from these resources, and you cannot be groundbreaking without appreciating those who broke the ground that you stand upon, or more importantly, understanding why they were so successful.

For the present day you can make that argument (you'd likely lose it, but you could make it). For gaming history? No. That opinion does not have a leg to stand on.

Well I would say game design, not character creation. These days you can rip off movies or world events for character creations, just look at every FPS ever (Outside of Portal).

Yes, it pretty much invented the classic platform game. In the 80's. So i agree with you. Today's mario games are overrated. Are they still good games? In my opinion, no. It's the exact same game that it was 25 years ago. 

Speaking purely on 2D mario games. The 3D ones are superb although they don't innovate as much as the previous iteration.