I, like many of you, was saddened and absolutely shocked to hear about the passing of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata on Saturday. A gamer first and a businessman second, he faithfully guided the company that played such an important part of many (if not all) of our formative gaming years.
Taking a step back from just simple biographical facts about Iwata’s life, I wanted to share a few anecdotes and thoughts that have affected me as I reflect on his passing.
Iwata famously took a voluntary 50% pay cut (not once, but twice) in response to the “poor” reception of the Wii U. What a different world we might live in if more of our CEOs had this personal attitude towards their corporate responsibility.
His focus on revolutionary hardware and gaming experiences, starting with the Nintendo DS and culminating in the Wii, literally dominated a console generation and changed how all the other major players approached console development.
What was once simply a race to bigger, faster, and more powerful hardware and graphics, was suddenly flipped on its head—and we can honestly say the industry was changed by Nintendo’s innovation and will henceforth never be the same. I know the word “visionary” gets thrown around a lot in this industry, but if anyone was ever worthy of the title, it’s Iwata.
You might expect that someone who achieved such staggering success in their career could let their success go to their head, but Iwata was well known for both his good humor and humility. Remember this photoshoot back in 2013?
The gaming world has suffered a great loss, but I choose to remember Satoru Iwata for both all he did for the gaming community, and for the humble and good humored man that he was.
