Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Satoru Iwata, Head of Nintendo, Has Died At 55

Posted by timothy on from the full-life dept.

An anonymous reader with the news, announced with a statement released by Nintendo on their homepage, that Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata died of a bile duct growth on the 11th of July, 2015. The news is noted by Kotaku and by Engadget. Wikipedia notes that Iwata was the first of the company's presidents to be unrelated to the Yamauchi family through blood or marriage.

5 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. He understood games by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If someone asked me to name a tech CEO that really new their business, Iwata would have been the first name on my tongue. He played games, he made games, and he knew what made games fun. This is a tragic loss for Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole.

    1. Re:He understood games by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      He was also a model CEO in that he cut his pay last year when the company was not doing well instead of bailing out with a giant golden parachute. He believed in Nintendo and was willing to stick with them through the good and the bad.

    2. Re:He understood games by Bahamut_Omega · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Satoru Iwata was the kind of guy I could respect. His humility and honesty was actually something to be admired.

      A CEO who actually had the balls to cut his own pay to help the company out. Could also say that he knew his stuff from having worked on the various titles over the years.

      I believe we need more like the late Iwata, and less like the "entitled" chief executives one sees in other areas of the world.

  2. Re:He had it treated in June 2014 by DeKO · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cancer is hardly something you "cure". You fight it off, with a painful treatment, in the hopes your body outlives the cancer. Then you keep an eye on it, until it pops back up; rinse and repeat.

    It's entirely possible that at the time he already had a terminal case, and the surgery (and the clear weight loss, possibly due to chemo therapy) only gave him a few more months. And we never heard about it because either he didn't want Nintendo's stocks to be affected by an uncertain future, or maybe he just considered it as his own burden to carry (Japanese culture and all.)

    No doubt Miyamoto will be under pressure to take the position, shoes, since they both shared the same views about the company's direction. Iwata backtracked a lot with the NX hardware and the DeNA partnership, that was probably a sign he knew he didn't have much time left, and just wanted to try something radical before passing away. I wonder if the next CEO will keep this direction.

  3. Re:thanks for the details by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Japanese quirk. They don't say cancer; the word is taboo.