President/CEO of Nintendo has passed away at age 55

Post Reply New Topic

The President (CEO) of Nintendo as whole and also the President of the American branch has died at age 55.
He passed away Yesterday from Bile duct growth which he had been suffering from for the past few years.
The treatments and surgery failed to save his life.

He gave us many memorable appearances as the host of Nintendo Directs over the years!

Among his lists of achievements as a game developer and founder of HAL Laboratory (creators of Smash and Kirby) are:
Co-creator of Smash Bros 64
Coded part of Smash Bros Melee
Finished coding most of Pokemon Gold and Silver allowing them to release on time.
Coded part of the early kirby games
Coded all of Earthbound (SNES)
Engine which many 3D N64 games ran on
Coded an engine for SNES
Was the one who gave dual screens and motion controls.

He was an avid gamer and coder, who wanted the best games possible.
He was personally chosen to succeed Hiroshi Yamauchi as the President of Nintendo (they don't have a CEO label).

He was loved by many gamers, though hated by hardcore.

RIP IWATA 1959 -2015
Reports are that the President post will be in the caretaker hands of Shigeru Miyamoto (Creator of Mario, Zelda, DK and others) and Genyo Takeda (main hardware person since GCN)

I saw a tweet from Amiibo News about that....this is a sad day

I don't care what all those haters think, Iwata was a great man who had a hand in some of Nintendo best games and franchises and he will be greatly missed. *plays Smiles & Tears from EarthBound in Iwata-san's honor*

I'll never forget the amount of work he put into Pokemon Gold and Silver. 2nd Gen will always be my most favorite.

I knew this day was coming and it's so sad to see him go. I'm just glad that he created so many wonderful things that gamers can enjoy for generations to come. He lives on in his work.

I hope that Nintendo will put some sort of tribute to him in an upcoming game.

Someone I know hit me with this news just as I woke up; took me awhile to process it and look it up to see what had happened.

A tumor, is this something that was known about? Specifically, I mean, did they already know it was a terminal thing, or was it not entirely expected to do that?

Either way, horrible. 55 is much too young.

He had surgery on the bile ducts almost a year ago and lessened his workload and a few months later came back and assumed his full duties.
He literally worked until he died by his own choosing.

Some say he had cancer the whole time refusing to take treatment and was focused on getting all the pieces into place for NX unified OS and the new systems.
He also was well into the Quality of Life segment, which will soon be unveiled.
He was also busy restructuring the company to make it more nimble and effective at development.

Either way the the inner circle of management knew.

This is sad news. You just have to watch a few of the Directs that he was involved in to see how passionate Iwata was of Nintendo and games in general.

So sad. I couldn't believe it was really true.
looking back at his work now Iwata was a legit force in the gaming industry.
He will be missed, especially in the directs.

i first saw this on 4chan and i instantly denied it since they always pull this crap with people that didn't actually die.

but this is real. my god..

Rainbow Road appears over Nintendo HQ
I can imagine him on driving on it in a kart.

Ready your shells for the 21-shell salute.