Nintendo announced yesterday that president Satoru Iwata died yesterday of cancer, aged just 55.
Starting as a programmer at a Nintendo subsidiary in the 1980s, Iwata became president of Nintendo in 2002 after the struggling period of the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube, which had seen Nintendo lose market share year after year.
His effect was almost immediate. The first hardware release under Iwata was the Nintendo DS, which has since become the best selling handheld of all time. After this, Nintendo released the Wii in 2006 which outsold both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 by a healthy margin.
Sadly, last year after a battle with cancer, Mr Iwata was told by physicians that he was too ill to travel to E3. After making a recovery, he relapsed earlier this year and died on 10th June to bile duct cancer.
Tributes poured in from all across gaming, with even fierce rivals PlayStation tweeting:
Thank you for everything, Mr. Iwata.
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 13, 2015
And I’d like to echo their sentiments on behalf of PowerGamer, and leave you with this Satoru Iwata quote:
On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.