How fleeting life can be.
We've known for some time that Satoru Iwata, President and CEO of Nintendo, was dealing with a serious illness. Last year he'd reported that he had a bile duct tumour, but that he'd found it early and an operation had been successful. He then returned to work, albeit in a limited capacity, and everyone assumed he was on the way to recovery.
Today, we find out that the same tumour has caused his passing at the age of 55.
The unusual thing about 'public life' is that it can make total strangers feel as if they know someone they've never met. For those of us who have grown up on Nintendo games, this is undoubtedly true for Iwata. From the moment he became the head of the company, Iwata was out on stage (and later on video) with a smile, telling us what Nintendo was doing next. You could feel his attachment to what he was doing.
As a programmer alone, he appears to be one of gaming's early greats. He programmed Mother 2/EarthBound from scratch, saving it from the development bin. He developed the battle code for Pokemon Stadium within a week, despite having no documentation to go off of. He was responsible for Kanto existing in Pokemon Gold and Silver, as after he had compressed Johto, which was at previously point filling more space than its cartridge could fit, there was enough space left for a whole second region. And, after he became the head of the company, he managed to debug Super Smash Bros. Melee on his own in three weeks to get it out on time.
As a president he was responsible to the change in direction that brought us the Wii and DS. It is commonplace now to say that the expanded market that these consoles tapped into has now disappeared again, but what has really happened is that they have shifted towards mobile devices. They still exist, and they still play games. Both of Nintendo's rivals were so worried by the advent of motion controls with the Wii that they decided to implement their own (worse) motion systems too, while the nifty and versatile DS was able to out compete the more
'classic' PSP, paving the way for the the 3DS to eat up what remained and leaving the Vita for dead. The failure of the Wii U, too, seems to have led to what the NX appears to be. Nintendo wanted to grab the tablet market, but due to the console release cycle was already too late. If NX is what it threatens to be, they can rectify that with rapid releases of hardware.
While his programming ability is underappreciated, and his presidency has been criticised, it seems all are unanimous on Iwata the person. Whatever he did, he always seemed to care. He gave us Nintendo Direct and Iwata Asks, offering regular insights into a company that had previously been locked up tight. Iwata was always front and centre in these, and gave us plenty of (laughs) and total honesty. He was reluctant to ever fire anyone, believing that this would affect those that remained in the company, making them worry about their jobs instead of concentrating on making games. Every story that people share about Iwata suggests a man who loved people, and was eager to see them enjoying themselves. This is the ultimate legacy he leaves behind, and there can be no doubt that this is the form that Nintendo itself holds dear today.
Whoever next leads Nintendo, we can only hope that Nintendo will continue to understand the value of their relentless focus on games that are fun. It doesn't make them popular with shareholders, who care only about money, or with certain sections of the games media, who care only about looking mature, but it makes them far more valuable than any other company in games.
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