A survey of 1000 games industry pofessionals conducted by the London Games Conference has concluded that the iPhone is the most influential platform of all time.
The iPhone, sitting at 17% of the vote, had a ten point lead over the next closest platform, the Wii. Microsoft's influential Xbox Live and the original PlayStation clocked in at 3% each, while Valve's digital distribution platform, Steam, rounded out the top five with just 2%.
Furthermore, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was chosen by the survey as the most influential personality in the history of the industry, with a whopping 26% of the vote. That was ahead of such gaming giants as Valve CEO Gabe Newell (16%), Mario and Zelda crator Shigeru Miyamoto (7%), Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg (2%), and the man who invented the Internet, Tim Berners Lee (3%).
For the average gamer, those results might seem a bit shocking, but there's no question that the runaway success of the iPhone as a mobile platform has expanded the gaming audience and undermined the traditional handheld market. The full impact of that shift has yet to be seen, and probably won't for some time now.
