Nevertheless, awards are always welcome, with an AFP report quoting Microsoft and Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski as saying that “This is absolutely unbelievable. I love all of you. And thanks, Mom, for putting up with the whole game developer thing.”

Of course everyone was also wondering just how well Nintendo’s Wii Sports would fare, and as luck and a lot of very hard work would have it, Wii Sports took the title for ‘Game Design and Innovation’, with the Nintendo’s legendary games designer Shigeru Miyamoto at the conference, not only to give a keynote speech, but to accept his most deserved award.

Miyamoto said to a standing ovation from 3500 games developers and fans that “Getting awards like this makes me feel old and like you expect me to retire soon. I personally feel young and expect to do this for a long time to come. I've been surrounded by some very young people and have, over time, sucked up their life force to keep me going.”

Also honored was Tetris inventor, Alexey Pajitnov, who is considered to have invented the ‘casual gaming’ category all those years ago.

The winner of the ‘Best Independent Game’ and a US $20,000 ‘Seumas McNally Grand Prize’ was two-person game company Bit Blot for their underwater adventure game ‘Aquaria’.

For more information on the awards and other winners, please visit both the AFP article, and the Game Choice Awards website.
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