The resurgence of Nintendo as a force to be reckoned with in gaming can largely be attributed to the decisions made at the top. While creative guru Shigeru Miyamoto certainly deserves a lot of credit for the turnaround, it was Nintendo CEO, Satoru Iwata, who was instrumental in the company's new direction, focusing on the mass market with the "Touch Generation" line of games and hardware.

　　Financial magazine Barron's has taken note of Nintendo's rising stock and named Iwata one of its top 30 CEOs in the world, putting the 47-year-old on par with Apple's Steve Jobs, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett. The list is not ranked.

　　To be considered for Barron's list, CEOs had to be in their post for at least three years (Iwata became Nintendo's CEO in 2002). The magazine touts the "strikingly innovative" Wii and Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day as reasons for Nintendo's 82.5 percent rise in stock over the last year and quotes Iwata as saying, "We are not fighting against other companies--we are fighting against ignorance of video games."