Back in July of last year, it was announced that an English-language version of 'Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom', a Satoru Iwata tribute book, was set to published in 2021. That launch is still scheduled to go ahead next month, but it's now been reported that it'll release in plenty of other languages, too.
It was originally published in Japan and was put together by Hobonichi – a company founded in 1998 by EarthBound creator, Shigesato Itoi. Hobonichi has now confirmed that the book will launch in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, alongside the already-announced English release, for a total of ten translated variants.
Interestingly, the French translation will actually be the first to launch, arriving tomorrow, 1st April. The English release is set for the 13th, the German version will land on the 20th, with the others to follow.
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Are you planning on giving this a read? Let us know in the usual place.
- Read more: Feature: Remembering Satoru Iwata
[source 4gamer.net, via siliconera.com]
Comments 21
Is it translated Iwata Asks or more of a biography?
That's very nice
To this day I'm still saddened by the early loss of a good person
This makes me very happy for some reason, I'm not even entirely sure why
Frag Iwata?
Bit harsh isn't it?
@GrailUK Hahaha omg. I am german so I did not noticed it at first.
Our „the“ is mostly done with „die“. That should also be some possibility for unintentional brutality.
The New York Mets
Die New York Mets
Nice!
When is Ask Furukawa launching?
Just found this quote from Miyamoto in the book.. this is so sad...
"To me, Iwata was a friend more than anything. He left many words and structures that live on in the work of our younger employees today. The only problem is that, if there is some good-for-nothing idea I come up with over the weekend, I have no-one to share it with the next Monday. That I can no longer hear him say 'Oh, about that thing...' is a bit of a problem for me. It makes me sad."
@GrailUK That was my first thought too, then i remembered "Oh yeah, German" ^_^;
I should get this book, only $20 too! I just realized it comes out in only 2 weeks too. I'll try and get it day 1.
Is it just me or is the French version just a joke?!?
@GrailUK That book chronicals Iwata's secret life as a hardcore FPS champion, where he would destroy everyone singlehandedly at Nintendo after an especially hectic work week. 😉
Brilliant news, just pre-ordered the kindle version.
@d-slice Sort of... both. It’s a selection of passages from various sources, both old and new, that tell the story of Iwata in his own words and those of the people closest to him. They’re pieced together to not only describe his journey from student to programmer to corporate president, but to give insight into his musings and philosophies on games, creativity, and running a company.
I wouldn’t call it a fully fledged biography, but it’s certainly more than a random bunch of interviews scrunched together in a book. Much of the information is not new, but some is, and the way it’s curated and structured gives as clear and cohesive a picture of the man’s life and outlook as I can imagine.
The majority of the book consists of Iwata’s own words taken from various points during his presidency, but there are also contributions from Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Masahiro Sakurai. The focus is very much on Iwata himself however, so to present it as just a compendium of ‘Iwata Asks’ extracts (in which the focus lay more on the games Iwata was asking about than Iwata himself) would be misleading.
@EVIL-C Hahaha
@Yanina Eek, yeah, I never realized how harsh the German language is lol
@Clyde_Radcliffe We need Ask Kimishima first!
Available on Kindle as well. Nice!
pre-ordered back in december and i'm absolutely looking forward to diving in
I miss Iwata Asks. It was one of the highlights of a new release to read the behind the scenes and history of the CEO talking with the devs in a candid roundtable. You don't get that with anyone else. Not even Spencer who's the closest thing to Iwata the industry has right now in an actual gamer/dev/executive combination.
I think I will buy this one. Iwata asks was always interesting to read, and he seemed very gentle.
He sure was also a tough leader.
I'm just gonna say it right now, Frag Iwata sounds like they're cussing the poor guy out.
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