Nintendo of Japan issued a statement on Sunday confirming the death of longtime company President Satoru Iwata on Saturday.
The brief statement, which was also posted at Nintendo's Japanese Twitter account, simply stated that the 55-year-old passed away "due to a bile duct growth." Neither the company nor Iwata had spoken about his health issues since the president was forced to skip the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2014; as Kotaku reported last year, Iwata himself eventually responded to fans' concerns about his apparent worsening appearance, telling them he was "progressing well."
Iwata had been a member of the Nintendo development community since joining the company's subsidiary game studio HAL Laboratory in the early '80s, where he worked on such famous franchises as Kirby, Earthbound, and Balloon Fight. In 2002, he succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi, the company's president during its rise as a video game company. Iwata successfully guided the company into its incredible Wii era. In more recent years, he responded to concerns over disappointing Wii U sales by taking a salary cut.
Ars' Kyle Orland, when he wrote for Gamasutra, covered a key Iwata speech in 2011 about the president's development and leadership philosophy and about overcoming jealousy of his developer peer Shigeru Miyamoto. "Mr. Miyamoto taught me a painful lesson: Content really is king," Iwata told that year's Game Developer Conference crowd. "His games outsold mine by a huge margin. I found out then that engineering is not quite as important as imagination. To be honest, I was ashamed."
In recent years, Iwata was emphatic about interacting directly and personally with the public. He made English-language announcements in the company's many Nintendo Direct videos and conducted lengthy developer interviews in the "Iwata Asks" series.
Nintendo's statement listed Genyo Takeda and Miyamoto as representative directors and senior managing directors, but it didn't indicate whether either of the men, or both, would serve as interim presidents in the meantime. No statement has yet been posted about Iwata's death by Nintendo's American arm on its dedicated press site or its official Twitter account.
Update: Legendary Nintendo game designer and Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto issued a short statement on the death of Iwata this morning. "I am truly surprised and saddened by this unexpected news," Miyamoto said. "The entire development team at Nintendo will remain committed to our development policy which Mr. Iwata and we have been constructing together and to yield the development results which Mr. Iwata would appreciate."
Nintendo of Europe president Satoru Shibata also issued a statement: "Nintendo of Europe is today mourning the passing of Mr Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Global President. It is difficult to put into words the sadness we feel at this time. Mr. Iwata was a strong leader, a unique figure in the gaming industry and an important part of Nintendo's history. He was a visionary in every sense of the word and we will miss him dearly. Just as Mr. Iwata challenged us to always push forward, we will ensure his legacy lives on through our ongoing work to always surprise and delight our fans. At this time our thoughts are with his family."
Nintendo of America tweeted an announcement that, "In remembrance of Mr. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo will not be posting on our social media channels today."
And Earthbound developer Shigesato Itoi also wrote a blog post remembrance of his long time collaboration with Iwata, which has been translated into English here:
I still can’t grasp what’s happened. It feels like I could still get a light-hearted e-mail asking me out to lunch at any moment—after you’ve made sure lunch wouldn’t disrupt my schedule, of course.
You can invite me out whenever you want. I’ll invite you, too.
So for now, let’s plan on meeting again. You can call me up whenever you like, and I’ll give you a call, too. I still have a lot to talk to you about, and if I come up with any particularly good ideas, I’ll let you know.
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