Satoru Iwata Passes Away At 55
This news was quite shocking to hear. He appeared to be in good health at last year's E3.
Wow, that's a stunner, bile duct growth death? That's an odd one. That link is stalling so I googled it. I wonder who would take over in his place? Hopefully they have better ideas how to right the leaky ship going forward. His talent was great back in his days as a game designer having made Kirby's games, Balloon Fight, programming Earthbound, producing the start of the Smash Bros franchise, and many many more he was the lead producer on as well. He was at his best making some amazing games or at least being their guiding hand.
Really sad, I had no idea he was even in poor health. Too young to go, RIP Mr. Iwata. Thank you for the role you played in bringing happiness to gamers around the world.
Oh wow 55. I thought he was older than that.
With this I'm a bit concerned with who takes over. Miyamoto is creative but lacks in business sense. The other dude on the list is unknown to me
I can't really say Nintendo has been great under him during these last few years, but he did help Nintendo patch things up with third party developers like Squaresoft when he innitially become President back in 2002. Who knows if Nintendo would have survived as long as they did if not for Iwata taking over. 55 though. Pretty young(well, not really that old.)
Last edited by kupomogli; 07-12-2015 at 10:38 PM.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
Sad indeed...RIP
Satoru Iwata, when he first joined HAL Laboratory full-time, in the 1980’s.
Iwata was first hired at Nintendo during the 1980s, in which he worked on various games like EarthBound and even Kirby’s Adventure. He eventually became director in the year 2000, and finally became the fourth president of Nintendo, in 2002.
R.I.P.
Last edited by BHvrd; 07-13-2015 at 12:16 AM.
Sad news. :/
It's more common than you think. Snuck up on my cousin and turned into bile duct cancer before anything could be done.Originally Posted by Tanooki
RIP,shocking to say as least i didn't even know he was that sick and all.
A complete list of his programming accomplishments, aside from just a raw list of games he's worked on, seems to be hard to come by. Most of his more heroic acts were recounted in interviews over the years from various people. I imagine more will come to light in the next few days, but here is a bullet list of some of the more interesting ones we know:
-Was one of the founders (and sole programmer) for HAL Laboratories, creators of Kirby, which he built from a tiny Akihabara apartment into one of the most respected game developers in the business.
-Saved HAL Labs from the brink of collapse by sealing a crucial deal with Nintendo. Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi agreed to the deal only on the condition that Iwata become the new president of HAL Labs. Yamauchi would eventually break family tradition and appoint him as his successor as President and CEO of Nintendo.
-Completely reworked EarthBound from scratch in 6 months after the project had languished in development for 4 years.
-Wrote the battle logic for Pokemon Stadium for Nintendo 64 in a week without any reference documents from the Game Boy games.
-Brought in to optimize Pokemon Gold/Silver so the designers could fit in the entire map; the end result was so efficient they had room left over to add in the original map from Pokemon Red/Blue.
-Acted as head of debugging for Super Smash Bros. Melee at the 11th hour to meet its ship date. Completed his job in 3 weeks. This was after he left HAL Labs to become a high-ranking executive at Nintendo.
-Supposedly personally played every milestone build of every game in development at Nintendo during his tenure.
The man understood video games, and the video game business. I fear for Nintendo's future without him.
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I didn't know the last one about the milestones. Good for him if that's true. The only one I think that could carry it on as well would be Miyamoto or even Takedo the other guy at the equal level as Miyamoto under Iwata. Miyamoto is far more accomplished, but a look at Takedo's resume shows he had had a good hand in some great franchises and earlier arcade games for Nintendo but he seems to maybe be the quiet one of the group.
Got this video of Iwata on Game Center CX, playful banter followed by Balloon Fight which he created towards the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63mG4k-VIyY
Not sure what year this was from, but it's definitely in the Wii era as that's what the old game is played off of.
I don't. Like him or not Iwata is as much to blame for Nintendo's recent failures as he was for it's successes during the Wii's and DS's life time. This is a pretty interesting time for Nintendo because once the grieving is over they are going to have to pick a successor and that person needs to have a firm understanding of what works and what doesn't in this business today and not just what works in Japan . Maybe they'll throw us a curve and promote Reggie to his position. Doubtful but he should at least be in the running.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
I don't think Reggie would be anymore qualified. Iwata got that NOA CEO job a little over 2 years ago. During the Wii period NOA was calling the shots as far as the ad campaigns went and also what they'd greenlight for sales here. They had a good hand at keeping out certain games fans loudly complained about both on the Wii and the Gamecube that Nintendo had a hand in such as Disaster, Fatal Frame, and Doshin which all had english translations for the UK and we got stiffed. There were others, but those come to mind. THrow in that fun campaign of being all inclusive while talking about gamers aren't who they're interested in as much anymore to create a wider audience was centered here as much as overseas and it bit them in the ass long term. Reggie is just as complicit in the growing failures of the company which have put it behind with the online stuff, behind with the tech, and behind in keeping third parties around. They need to wipe the floor and get someone who can create a modern company that stays with the times while not compromising the integrity of their franchises and the directions they historically went towards.
Nintendo's failures are more profitable/successful then most company's 'successes'. You guys sound like the Nintendo shareholders, who would have us playing all our Mario games on Smart phones. The sort of shortsightedness which Iwata was successfully keeping at bay before his untimely passing.
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I have no clue who would take Iwata's place. Miyamoto himself admitted that maybe he was too hands-on in the business part of Nintendo, and I have no clue about the other guy. There was a point in Iwata's thinking where it stopped being "thinking ahead" and started to just look like stubbornness. If he were an American CEO, he would have been let go years ago. Those shareholders did have a point: both the launches of the 3DS and Wii U were successive failures, and only one of them ever managed to really rebound.
As others have said Nintendo needs to choose someone who knows business in both Japan and the West. Depending on what their plans are, it could be a new dawn for Nintendo.
I don't follow, but then again that probably wasn't directed at me. I'd rather see them rot than start to focus greatly on mobile games on android and ios. If they can make a tidy sum doing some Pokemon Shuffle games like that one on 3DS that's going to tablets shortly, that's fine. The moment they start primarily focusing there I'm done with their handheld business too. Iwata had his problems, he wasn't the white knight you're making him out to be going so against going towards that direction. He didn't keep them at bay, again Pokemon Shuffle, and another app with that, and a slow trickle coming year by year driven by him and his board to come. Like it or not, he had a big hand in it, and it'll make them or break them as far as a dedicated platform gaming company goes if they can't fix their crappy business model on their own hardware. Tupin is right, if Miyamoto isn't it (or the other guy Tezuko), they need to find someone who gets both the east vs west markets so they can make something that'll do well going forward. Living in a Japanese centric bubble will kill them eventually more likely than not. Sure things are going towards mobile, but still the living room is a communal place for many for entertainment and gaming consoles is one outlet, just like netflix and blu-rays are another on the big screen and not a 5" phone or a 10" tablet.
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