Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo has died last Saturday. Iwata was fighting a malicous tumore in his bile duct. Already back in 2014 Iwata had to leave the E3 event in Los Angeles and he also had to cancel an investor's meeting due to necessary surgery.

Satoru started working for Nintendo as a programmer back in 2000. It took him only two years to make it to the very top of the company and in 2002 he became Nintendo's president. Under his lead the 3DS, the Wii as well as the Wii U were brought to developed and brought to market. Apart from that he was also involved in developing games like Super Mario Sunshine, Starfox Adventures, Metorid Prime, Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Also thanks to the "Iwata Asks" show there was a huge fan base, since he answered loads of questions directly.

A closer look at the latest developments shows, that Iwata was always in charge of a restructuring process, which has the result that Nintendo is programming games for mobile platform as well. This autumn the first titles should become available. Iwata also had to face difficult times with Nintendo, since the company was not always profitable. Since one year for example Iwata reduced his salary by 50 percent and his austerity budget made Nintendo write black numbers again.

We regret the demise of Iwata very much. He was a great leader and one of the gaming industries leading experts.




Source: Nintendo