Topic: Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has passed away.

A tragic loss for the video game industry. The man was a legend and was responsible for some of gaming's greatest accomplishments. He will be sorely missed.

I hope they say some nice words during the next Nintendo Direct.

This actually worries me about thte future of Nintendo.

@LztheQuack: This

...I say Sakurai...because that would be awesome...owo

@LztheQuack:

Well, why shouldn't it? But that's normal, just like whenever there's a US presidential election, you get worried that some lunatic gets elected and ruins the country. I'm sure they're going to find somebody competent. I just hope it's someone who still trusts the developers, and doesn't totally sell out the company.

Yet another person who went away way sooner than expected. Goodbye Iwata. ;(

That's a bad idea if I ever heard one. This is the man that refused to do another dramatic story mode in Smash 4 just because he wanted his first one to be a surprise. Sakurai's a little too high-strung to withstand the pressure of running a company like Nintendo.

Went to wikipedia, Satoru Iwata

in the biography

Died: "Gods dont die"

it made me laugh and cry

@Faruko: It was like this at one point

Apparently Miyamoto is the new CEO.

@Nicolai: Not that you're entirely wrong--I do agree that Sakurai would be a bad choice, but for other reasons relating him being too high-strung--I just want to point out that he didn't do a dramatic story in Smash 4 because he felt like that wasn't enough of a reward to the player, since anyone could just go look it up on YouTube. No, the reasons for that go a little further into Sakurai's hatred of the sequelization of games. That's why he left Kirby, why he won't do another Kid Icarus and why he probably won't be playing a lead role in the next Smash game, either. We need a little less of an Artiste to take the reigns, HOWEVER! Now is not the time to discuss who would fit best. Let's just look back for not on what Iwata's done for Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole and all of Iwata's victories. Let's look at how even to this year, he wanted to see his audience smile. Looking at this year in retrospect, it makes a ton of sense why Nintendo did what they did, if you assume they knew this was coming. From their frequent Directs and coverage since March to E3 just a few weeks ago, it seems they were trying to put things on the line in such a way that at the end of his life, Iwata's crowning achievement would be giving the power of Game Design to ordinary gamers.

Speculation aside, this is devastating news. Iwata's a great role model for the company and gamers as a whole. He had a positive influence on many around him and I feel that Nintendo evolved when they let him take the reigns, and now that he's gone, Nintendo can evolve again, and hopefully for the best. Iwata's influence will not be forgotten and he will be sorely missed.

(As a side note, for those of you asking about the selection process at Nintendo, while we don't know the specifics, we DO know that Yamauchi appointed Iwata before resigning. That leaves the results of this up to what Iwata managed to prepare for, but don't expect to hear ANYTHING until AFTER Super Mario Maker launches.

half-mast

Citation?

Everyone is now saying he was a great man when half of Nintendo fans were dissing him hard and pushing for his resignation, all because the Wii U wasn't the greatest console. It's not a bad console, and it has great games, in my opinion. People are also forgetting he's not the only person making decisions at Nintendo. But people just solely blame him. It makes me angry. The man had the biggest passion for video games in the whole entire world until the day he died. He made jokes and tried to make us smile in presentations and in Nintendo Directs even while those fans watching were trash talking him over one thing and acted like he was the sole person responsible. Shame on you. Seriously.

Of course I didn't know him, but he seems like he was such a wonderful man with a beautiful personality. さよなら、岩田さん。

I'm not certain either, but according to MeddlingIdiot, Miyamoto is the new CEO (at least temporarily). You should probably ask him, I just assumed he was being honest based on what I knew of him.

To be fair, he was the CEO from the DS, so thats 3 massive success and 1 failure (which is not even THAT bad, there were dozens of other bigger failures in the industry)

Also the Wii U, although poor in comparison to the other consoles, it still managed to turn a decent profit. So it wasn't that big of a failure.

It's sad that people think the people at Nintendo or any game company are just robots that churn out games, when they're people too. I think it says a lot that Iwata would apologize and, meme aside, say "Please understand." He really cared about gamers and the programmers. How many CEOs would give genuine apologies? He was always pleasant and smiling in all the Directs and E3 footage I've seen of him. He wanted to meet our/Nintendo/shareholders' expectations. I never knew him, but he seemed like a great guy.

I'm pretty torn up about this even though I somewhat expected it. Bile Duct cancer has a very high mortality rate, even with surgery. Still I keep feeling like Iwata-san knew this and instead of spending his last months in peace, he like any respectable Japanese person went right back to work. That really bothers me, that human culture has gotten to the point that you as a person doesn't matter at all. I've seen gamers call for him to resign, get fired, die and I can't help but be struck with how kind and humble he had remained until the end. I've never been much of a people person, but putting the asinine whining of the gaming community on a person that even though he loved it, it just boils down to him doing his JOB... Just makes me sick. I just hope he got to spend some time with family and friends and that he passed pain free. He put in a great deal of good work behind the scenes (brawl getting out on time, pokemon gold and silver work to have kanto fit and the game go out on time) as well as the work he did as President and before as a programmer. I for one am so grateful for everything he has done. The world is poorer for his loss.

@TylerTheCreator: There are those of us that always supported him and have more realistic views of how a company works that are also pretty torn up about this. Honestly I'd rather see the haters put down their pitchforks for a little while as we all mourn this loss. I know we are going to get a few trolls so I'd rather see us band together now than keep tearing each other apart.