Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata dies at 55: A huge loss to Nintendo, gaming community

Late last week, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata died at the age of 55 due to a growth in his bile duct. Iwata’s death comes just when the company had announced its plan to double the annual operating profit with its entry into the mobile game segment. Iwata, who was earlier reluctant about foraying into mobile segment, changed his mind due to dwindling sales and weak console segment. The loss of Iwata is something that is going to bother for long time as he was not only important to Nintendo but also the gaming community. [caption id=“attachment_223274” align=“aligncenter” width=“639”]  Nintento Wii U[/caption] Iwata who started as a programmer at HAL Laboratory had worked on titles like Pokemon, Super Smash Bros. and Kirby, even before he joined Nintendo. “Iwata was an enormous force not just at Nintendo, but in gaming. He led Nintendo through the eras of the GameCube, Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U, and he worked on “Earthbound,” “Pokemon,” “Kirby,” “The Legend of Zelda,” “Smash Bros.,” and countless other titles. These are consoles and games that filled my childhood with joy, and which I spent literally thousands of hours playing,” writes Vox’s German Lopez. Iwata was appointed the director at Kyoto-based Nintendo in 2000, and later as the President in 2002. He was also the acting CEO of the US unit since 2013. Iwata took over Nintendo from Hiroshi Yamauchi, who built the video-game powerhouse from playing-cards company, in 2002. While Yamauchi rarely came in public and is believed to never have played a game, Iwata was poles apart with passion for games and always taking to the stage for presentations. Under Iwata, Nintendo was willing to take risks. He introduced the Nintendo DS, which turned out to be a hit, but not instantly. It was Wii hardware that later was a huge hit. It was the hottest selling hardware in 2006. [caption id=“attachment_216591” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Nintendo 3DS[/caption] The company had a President who knew the products well and wanted to ensure that people enjoyed using them too. He won hearts at the Game Developers Conference in 2005 by saying, “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.” It was in 2009 that the company witnessed sales decline, owing to the expanding mobile market. After showing reluctance for the longest time, Iwata was finally ready to take on the mobile market. “He struck a partnership with DeNA Co., a Japanese game provider, involving an exchange of ownership stakes. More recently, Nintendo said it struck a deal with Universal Parks & Resorts, operator of Universal Studios theme parks, to create “immersive experiences” featuring characters from Nintendo games,” points out WSJ. While the Nintendo DS and Wii were huge hits, the latest 3DS and Wii U weren’t able to achieve the numbers as expected. “I think, to be honest, we were in a difficult situation. Because for the home console our biggest market opportunity was in the overseas markets in the U.S. and Europe, but because of the valuation of the yen and the exchange rates into dollars and euro, it made it a difficult proposition for us to capitalize on that, because of the cost that we were forced to sell the system at,” Iwata had said in an interview with Time. Iwata was known to try and try until a failure turns into fruition. With the company’s move into mobile segment, it would have been interesting to see how Iwata brings in the new change.