• In memoriam: Satoru Iwata

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    TheDarkKnight
    Published on July 14, 2015 03:54 PM  Sort - Number of Views: 1831  
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    Special Issue (Written by IlluminatiRex)



    In Memorium: Satoru Iwata

    Satoru Iwata Satoru Iwata wasn't your usual CEO and President of a company. He seemed to genuinely care about not just the company; but about it's employees, products, and fans. In 2005 he stated "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". On July 11th, 2015 he sadly passed away. Hearing the news of his death made me feel overcome with grief for a man I had never met, yet it felt like I knew so well. The gaming community at large, not just Nintendo, lost a great man.

    Satoru Iwata took the position of President in 2002, when Hiroshi Yamauchi, retired. Yamauchi-san had been running the company since 1949 (Yamauchi-san continued as the chairman of Nintendo's Board of Directors, until 2005 when he stepped down and Iwata-san took his place there as well). Iwata-san was in fact the first person to run Nintendo that was not a part of the Yamauchi family.

    I grew up playing a lot of Nintendo games, especially the handheld ones. In fact, my blue Gameboy Advance SP was the first console I ever owned. I loved stuff like Pokemon and the Kirby games, of which Iwata-san played a vital role in their earlier iterations. I remember one of my favorite features of Pokemon Gold and Silver was that there were two regions available for the to explore and battle in. This was reportedly only possible because of Iwata-san; The code for those games originally was too big to fit on a Gameboy Color cartridge, and he was able to shrink it down with enough room to spare for the second region. Earthbound was similar in that the code was too complicated and nearly unusable, of which Iwata-san helped fix and create a cult-classic. He was key in helping make the original Smash Bros. game for the Nintendo 64, and even helped power squash bugs in Super Smash Bros. Melee before that was released. Not to mention, he ported the battle system from Pokemon Red and Blue over to the N64 for Pokemon Coliseum, all without reference documents and he did that in a single week.

    Yesterday I had seen a piece posted about Iwata-san and his work on the Original Smash Bros. game. He was talking about what success really was for him. It wasn't that the Smash Bros. brand has sold so many games over the years, to him, the real moment of success was when play testers first picked up the N64 Controller and started playing and testing the original game - and that they were having fun with it. Success to him was seeing people enjoy the games that you make, and knowing that it would bring joy to countless people. That's the sort of man Iwata-san was; not about profits or money (In fact, he slashed his own pay when Nintendo started hitting a rough patch after the WiiU and 3DS did not do as well as expected) he was about the joy that gaming could bring.

    As a CEO he led the Company through some of its best, and some of its worst years; they were all challenges he was willing to take on, and he did so with a smile. This is evidenced by him hosting the "Nintendo Direct" videos which gave viewers news about what Nintendo was working on. He was the first individual to run the company that was not from the Yamauchi family, who had founded Nintendo in 1889 to produce Hanafuda cards. The gaming world lost a great man, and he shall be sorely missed; 55 is far too young.

    Satoru Iwata: 1959-2015
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