49. Atsushi Inaba

Though plenty of Japanese developers will grace our list (and rightly so), few of them have had a string of successes like Atsushi Inaba, who has had his hand in some of Capcom's most impressive franchises -- first as a part of Capcom proper, then spun off as head of Clover Studios and then, when Capcom unceremoniously pulled the plug on that venture, went on to form what would eventually become Platinum Games.

His work overseeing production on projects like both Viewtiful Joe games and the Ace Attorney series, and contributing to everything from Resident Evil: Code Veronica X to Devil May Cry while still at Capcom was the byproduct of more than eight years of experience at the company, and from stints with SNK and Irem before that. He's been one of the driving productive forces throughout one of Capcom's most successful and creative periods in the company's history, helping to birth a number of critically and commercially successful new IPs, then steering the direction of former Clover co-workers at Platinum Games as they brokered a publishing deal with SEGA.

Games like Okami and God Hand during Clover's days were all overseen by Inaba, and when he and a handful of former Clover employees jumped ship to start their own development studio, he helped to oversee the entire production run, culminating in his most current work in the upcoming MadWorld. Though he's certainly gotten his hands dirty development-wise, it's his managerial and production roles that have been tapped most recently and to fantastic effect.