Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has passed away

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has died of cancer at age 55. The company itself makes that known. The CEO led the company since 2002 and was responsible for the release of the DS and the Wii, among other things.

Iwata passed away on Saturday. He had a tumor in his bile duct, Nintendo reports. In 2014, the CEO was not present at the E3 game fair because of an operation on his bile ducts. Iwata has served as president and general manager of Nintendo since 2002, and since 2013, he has also served as the president of Nintendo America.

He was the fourth director in Nintendo history and the first not to come from the Yamauchi family. Iwata had a background as a video game programmer and was involved in virtually every major Nintendo title during the 1980s. He was working at the time at Hal Laboratory, a developer with close ties to Nintendo. He became president of that company in 1993, shortly after the first Kirby game, Kirby’s Dream Land, came out.

In 2000 he made the switch to Nintendo. Under his leadership, the Japanese game company released many major hardware and software successes such as the Wii, DS, Super Smash Bros. and the Pokémon series. Iwata was also forced to initiate strategic shifts for Nintento due to the changing game landscape and the disappointing sales of the Wii U. For example, Nintendo released the Amiibo series of figures, the company will make mobile games for smartphones and tablets and there is a new NX console in the works.

Iwata was recognized for his humor, accessibility and leadership skills. He himself said several times that his background as a programmer helped to manage the development departments.