Anyway, on July 11, 2015, Satoru Iwata passed away. In case you don't know who he is (in which case shame on you! He's the most famous name in gaming!) Satoru Iwata was/is(?) the CEO of Nintendo. Nintendo is a video game company.
This is Satoru Iwata.
LIFE STORY TIME!!!
EARLY LIFE!!!
Satoru Iwata was born on December 06, 1959, in Sapporo, Japan. He expressed interest in the creation of video games early on. He made quite a few simple number games (using an electronic calculator) that he shared with his friends during his high school years.
After high school, Iwata was admitted to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he majored in computer science. While attending this school Iwata was one of the several unpaid interns at Commodore, Japan, helping subsidiary's head engineer with technical and software development.
HAL LAB!!!
Iwata also did freelance work at HAL Laboratory Inc. (which he would become president of before working with Nintendo), which was a video game developer that often worked closely with Nintendo. After graduating from university/collage (both of which are the same thing) he began to work at HAL Laboratory full time. He became the company's coordinator of software production in 1983. Some of the games he worked on were Balloon Fight, Earthbound (which the whole world wants a sequel to), and the Kirby franchise.
NINTENDO!!!
Although he wasn't working for Nintendo at that time, he helped to make Pokemon Gold and Silver for the Game Boy Color in 1993. Also in 1993, Iwata aided in the programming of Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64.
In 2000, Satoru Iwata held a position at Nintendo as the head of the corporate planning division. When Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo since 1949, retired on March 31 2002, Satoru Iwata became president of Nintendo with Yamauchi's blessing. Iwata was the first CEO of Nintendo who was not related to the founding family at all.
At the time of Iwata's promotion, Nintendo wasn't doing as well as it's competition. In 2006, Iwata stated that the gaming industry is becoming too exclusive. So he made two systems designed for a very wide audience: Everyone. The first was the Nintendo DS, a handheld gaming system that had a secondary touchscreen, and had several novel games in it's library. The second was the Wii which introducing motion control in gaming. Both systems were very successful, doubling Nintendo's stock price.
He also pushed production of the Wii U (which had a lot of early confusion because most people thought that it was just a add-on and not an entire console) and the 3DS (even though it took Nintendo years to make the 3D work without giving people headaches). He also made Nintendo focus part of it's attention to mobile gaming in early 2015.
ILLNESS AND PASSING :(
In June 2014, Nintendo announced that Satoru Iwata couldn't come to E3 2014 (a convention where video game companies showcase their upcoming products) due to medical reasons. It was later revealed that he was undergoing surgery to remove a tumor in his bile duct.
On July 12, 2015, Nintendo announced that Satoru Iwata died the previous day at the age of 55 from the tumor. He is survived by his wife, Kayoko. Funeral plans are being held on July 17, 2015.
Flags at Nintendo were lowered to half-mast. The entire world expressed sadness for Iwata's passing (the picture below shows you how sad the world is). The day after his unfortunate passing a rainbow appeared at Nintendo HQ. Everyone there dubbed it the "rainbow road to heaven", after a race track in Mario Kart.
Fun fact about my blog. This was an unintended post because today's blog was going to be about my new pet finches (maybe I'll write about them in the next post!? STAY TUNED!!). But my good friend Vincent called me and was like (and I quote) "O MAH GAWSH SPENCER SATORU IWATA IS DEAD!!!" and I was like "...what?". So shout-out to Vincent for a blog idea!
P.S. I am sorry if I made anyone feel sad.
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