Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Has Died
I remember seeing all those death announcements of celebrities in the last few years, especially the (real) ones that make it to Facebook, and cannot understand the majority of people that claim to be sad. It’s the negative side of me that thinks they are doing that just for attention and want to add the “me too” mentality to the loss of a person we’ve seen on TV or the silver screen. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant because assuming at least some of these people are sincere, I now know how they feel. Satoru Iwata is an important man in the realm of video games and it is with the deepest regard that I discuss his death briefly.
It’s mind blowing to me given his young age, 55. That’s almost twice mine but I do not intend to only live to 55, so on a selfish level it humbles me to think about the frailty of life. More importantly, Iwata represents what we should all want of our company presidents. Working his way up from a programmer and producer at HAL Laboratory (Adventures of Lolo, Kirby) right out of University and eventually rising the ranks to be President of Nintendo is just about the dream of any gamer and developer out there, so he should be commended. We will be doing a show to honor him much like we did with Hiroshi Yamauchi in the upcoming days (and Jeremy Parish has already announced a HAL episode of Retronauts to honor him as well), but it’s just too sad and sudden to jump into it now. I’m not crying or anything, not that he doesn’t deserve it, but because I’m still trying to process it all. I can assure you that if Iwata-san were able to communicate with us he would want us smiling and happy of his release as opposed to saddened, but I just feel a large sense of loss. He was a great man who did great things and regardless of how you feel about Nintendo’s current state there should be no doubt that the company was significantly better thanks in part to his efforts. I don’t want to ramble on or add more sentiment to this Sunday evening so I leave with a fantastic quote from Iwata that Bungie recently tweeted:
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.” – Satoru Iwata
Rest in peace.
Gaming History 101 
That first paragraph is very important. You think people pretending to be sad to get thumbs up is bad? That’s nothing compared to adding “RIP _______” in the comments when ________ had died DECADES ago.
Andrew
July 13, 2015 at 10:31 am
I feel sad to hear this news and I feel a huge sense of loss as he died on a young age. Commendations and applause for the great man who developed such great games and I am sure you will always be remembered.
Pinball Sales Australia
July 19, 2015 at 12:24 pm