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Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Passed Away


kingddd
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a great man has fade away.

but the enthusiasm and the passion he passed upon to everyone be it gamers or others will never be.

rest in peace iwata.

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Dang, and I'm just coming back from vacation now.

Friendly reminder that he's the reason Earthbound/Mother 2 managed to get released in the first place, reprogramming the entire game in less than 6 months.

And one of the last things he said to Nintendo fans was that he apologized for this year's lackluster E3 presentation and was willing to meet expectations next year.

"Please Understand"

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Yeah, he did so many great things that I'm just learning about for the first time today. I had no idea he was so influential in the release of Earthbound! What, he made Kanto a possible thing too? Developed calculator games in his spare time? Helped bug fix Melee in the final stretch hours? Like, I've known who Iwata is (through Iwata Asks and Nintendo Direct, mostly) and some of the great things that he's done, but I feel like I'm learning more about his impact on the industry postmortem than I ever understood while he was still alive...that's kind of depressing, actually.

it's people like this man that make me wish for an afterlife!

It's really selfish of me to say this, but I might wish for reincarnation instead.

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Iwata's genius touched so many of the games i loved growing up. As a freelance programmer working for HAL, he coded Balloon Fight (by himself!) and NES Open Tournament Golf. He saved HAL from bankruptcy. He helped Sakurai pitch Kirby and overhauled the text box code in Earthbound so it could handle the kind of cinematic text the rest of the staff had struggled with, with code so clean ROM hackers have been able to assemble other emulators and program languages inside! He also rewrote significant amounts of code that was lost during a power outage. He assisted Gamefreak on multiple occasions, first he was responsible for porting over the battle engine code to the N64 for Pokemon Stadium. Later he would compress an incomplete Gold & Silver so the staff could finish the Johto segment of the game AND fit in Kanto. When Sakurai was working on his fighting game series, Iwata was the one who encouraged him when no one else thought the game could succeed, thus the birth of Smash Bros as we know it. The final game Satoru Iwata actually programmed on was Super Smash Bros Melee. It looked like the game was going to be significantly delayed, but Iwata stepped in to do code review and debug for the team. Thanks to his tireless efforts, the game was complete three weeks later and met its release date goals. Though he stepped back from the programming trenches after, Iwata oversaw the development of some of the GCN's finest games to ensure Nintendo continued to put out quality product.

When the notoriously strict Yamauchi (also gone from our world along with the amazing Gunpei Yokoi, two of the other great minds Nintendo has ever had) handed over the reigns to Iwata, he knew the company would be in safe hands. And Iwata spearheaded the company through ups and downs with dignity and humility, all following a great man's vision while striving to be our friend. Iwata was the first man outside the founder's family to be named President and he dared to be different from the rest of the industry, dared to make sure Nintendo remained relevant and memorable through 12 solid years of one goal: To make sure we, the customer, had fun with their games. No other president has given so much of his time to the public while keeping to his values. Nintendo Direct and Iwata Asks were exceptional productions that brought insight directly to fans, even fans outside of Nintendo's home country. No other brand has been kept to such high standards. And when things did not go so well, Iwata apologized earnestly. He took pay cuts to keep people beneath him employed. He reevaluated the value of the company's products to get them into more homes. He opened many doors at Nintendo for other devs when Yamauchi had strangled them out. And maybe Nintendo will never be a powerhouse system with tons of western 3rd party support, but the quality of the 1st and 2nd party games is astounding and makes me proud to be a Nintendo fan. Iwata's leadership is a huge part of why I respect the company so much.

Some people speculate Miyamoto will be Iwata's successor, but I doubt it. Miyamoto has expressed his want to retire and is very much in the twilight of his career. Whoever fills Iwata's shoes has a huge legacy to live up to and I can only hope Nintendo continues to have the leadership of someone driven to satisfy people, not the bottom line.

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All I can say is rest in peace. It's unfortunate that something like this has to happen, especially to a man who is so passionate about his work. I still remember when I saw Iwata and Reggie duke it out in E3 2014 and that was my most memorable moment of him. We will never see his like again.

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I was on my lunch break doing my normal evening shift when the news broke. At first, I was sad, but held it together really well for the rest of the shift.

Then when I got home and saw all the tributes, and saw that "Smiles and Tears" was being played by /v/ in memory, I bawled my eyes out.

You will be missed, Mr. Iwata.

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Rest in peace Mr. Iwata. I wish strength and the best of luck for his relatives, his friends and his co-workers.

He is not the first celebrity we lost this year but this is just so damn sudden. Like, with Terry Pratchett, it was known for many years that he would leave us far too early. Here, unless I missed something, the possibility of death was never mentioned. I guess if a man like Iwata doesn't represent his company in an event like E3, there is reason to be worried.

It was always good to know that the head of Nintendo was a programmer himself. It's a bit of a waste of talents to put someone like him into a position were they can't actually develop games but I believed that as long as he was around, the craft would always matter to a degree, it would never be entirely about money.

And he seemed to have been one hell of a programmer as well. Like, his role in the development of Pokemon Gold & Silver seems almost unbelievable. I am grateful that he gave us the opportunity to revisit Kanto.

I am also impressed by his very visible role in Nintendo's marketing in the last years. Maybe others aren't impressed by this but personally this is something that I would be absolutely terrified of doing, especially when not being able to use my native language, so he has my respect there. And these kind of things, like the Iwata asks and the Nintendo Directs, will help people to remember him and consequently his accomplishments as well. He is never going to be just another suit on the top of a global company.

Edited by BrightBow
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The world has lost a great man.

Thanks to his vision, in just 13 years as CEO, he gave us three home consoles, three handhelds, and many memories in thousands of games. He lead the gaming industry in the simplest of ways and reminded us that we can have fun even in a business settin. He always spoke directly to us to make us happy above all else. We always understood you Mr. Iwata. May you rest in peace.

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After school, I checked Facebook from my mobile and news from Iwata's death just suddenly appeared. It made me really sad to know that happened.

Thanks to Iwata, he made the DS, Wii and 3DS successful. The Wii U is struggling a bit, sadly, which Iwata probably wish to be successful.

I hope Nintendo will stay strong after your passing, Iwata.

Edited by Hyperthrough
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What's shocking:

1) he's 55. He did not die old.

2)Out of the 4 Nintendo CEOs his term of service was the shortest.

3) The sudden-ness. Was there any "he fell ill" news leading up to this?

EDIT: twitter tributes from all around the world

http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/07/12/from-sony-to-microsoft-and-many-more-the-gaming-industry-pays-homage-to-satoru-iwata/

Edited by omglmaowtf
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Mr. Iwata. . . Thank you. Thank you for having designed the games we've come to love. Thank you for leading one of the greatest companies to ever exist during it's best and worst times. Thank you for being a truly good man. And thank you, for admitting that in your heart, you too are like all of us, a gamer.

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