Ken Kutaragi
The "Father of the PlayStation" is, without a doubt, among the most revered in the industry. His valiant efforts to convince Sony that gaming isn't a fad paid off in spades, and the PlayStation brand which development he spearheaded dominated the scene for more than a decade.

Kutaragi was known as an excellent problem solver and an engineer who planned ahead, so he was entrusted with important research projects by Sony. Soon enough, he became chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment International (SCEI) after leading the corporation's gaming division for years. Some gamers may not know about his contributions, but many others would never have picked up a game console in the first place without the platforms he provided.

Hironobu Sakaguchi
Known as the father of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi has 80 million units of video games sold under his belt. Before he founded Mistwalker, Sakaguchi created the franchise that turned Square from a small from a company near bankruptcy to one of the leading forces in the game industry.

For years to come, Sakaguchi led Final Fantasy to stardom and played a major role as Squaresoft's Executive Vice President. He was also involved with other big hits such as Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi, Kingdom Hearts, and many others before resigning to start his own company. Now under Microsoft's backing, Sakaguchi's Mistwalker released the critically acclaimed Blue Dragon and is expected to dish out more big titles to improve the Xbox 360's library of RPGs.