Nintendo President Satoru Iwata passes away at 55
On Saturday July 11th, 2015 Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s president, died due to complications with a bile duct tumor. While his health was a continuing issue for him, he still made video appearances at big media evens like E3 for the past two years, and he had still been leading the company despite his health.
Iwata has been president of the Nintendo Co. since 2002, where he led the company through the end of the Nintendo 64 all the way through to the Wii U of today. He helped the company with big sellers like the Wii, DS, and 3DS systems. He also helped the company get through less than stellar sellers like the GameCube and the Wii U. He even went as far as to cut his salary in half when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy in the early 2000s.
Iwata was the 4th president of the Nintendo Co. and the first president who was not related to the Yamauchi family. There has been no word as to who will replace Iwata as president.
Iwata has worked on many major titles as a game developer and producer in some of Nintendo’s biggest franchises like Mario, Legend of Zelda, Super Smash Bros., Pokemon, and Animal Crossing. He was a creative force for what technology is and what it will become. He recently announced that Nintendo would start making mobile games which is a huge step for the company, always the innovator especially with the Wii and its motion technology coming out before things like the Xbox 360, Xbox One, or Playstation Move. He especially hit it big with the DS and 3DS systems on the handheld market which destroyed the PS Vita in sales and are still big sellers for Nintendo.
Always striving to revolutionize Nintendo and the video game market, Iwata was considered an icon, one of the great video game minds of the day. Iwata was wasn’t just a president for Nintendo fans it felt like he was our friend, and our friend will be greatly missed.
“On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.” – Satoru Iwata
