Nintendo announced today, sunday evening, very sad news, from Japan. Nintendo President or rather Former President, Satoru Iwata, passed away on July 11 due to a bile duct growth, this comes as shocking news considering he went surgery a year ago to remove a bile duct growth. Here is Nintendo’s statement:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth.
The statement also adds:
As a result, the following two Representative Directors remain at the company. Genyo Takeda (Representative Director; Senior Managing Director) Shigeru Miyamoto (Representative Director; Senior Managing Director)
With the Nintendo NX underway, it is unknown at this point how this could affect the future of the console or even Nintendo itself. If you want to read the full statement you can click here.
Remembering Satoru Iwata:
Satoru Iwata started his career with Super Billiards by Hal Laboratories on the MSX back in 1983, although his role is unclear because the credits only show “by Satoru Iwata” and the other two people involved, in 1987 he was one of the programmers of Air Fortress, in 1990 he produced Rollerball by Hal Laboratory for the NES, it was his first game as a producer, he was also the main programer in Nes Open Tournament Golf, he would help create one of Nintendo’s most important assets when he produced Kirby’s Adventure in 1993, a game which received widespread critical acclaim, also Eartbound (Mother 2 in Japan) in which he was Programming director, programmer and co-producer, showing how much effort he put into the game, this was after he was appointed as President of Hal Laboratory, in 2002 he was appointed President of Nintendo, his management received a lot of criticism from people inside the industry who thought that Nintendo’s new management was very “care-free”, in 2013 he is appointed as Nintendo of America’s CEO, during his period he tried to engage gamers through internet platforms with the creation of Iwata Asks and Nintendo Direct, it was also during this time that the Wii U started to struggle, not only in sales but also in licenses to third-party publishers.
Whether you agreed or not with Satoru Iwata, we can all agree that he was a very creative mind that wasn’t afraid of trying new things in an industry saturated with much of the same kind of things. He will be sorely missed.
