“On my enterprise card, I’m a company president. In my thoughts, I’m a sport developer. However in my coronary heart, I’m a gamer”.
eleventh July 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of Satoru Iwata’s passing; a person who cemented himself as not solely an distinctive chief throughout occasions of each success and failure, however a figurehead that will steal the hearts of numerous followers all over the world.
It is troublesome to essentially say something that hasn’t already been expressed in some unspecified time in the future within the final decade, however we predict it is clear that Iwata’s presence continues to be felt in each Nintendo circles and the gaming business at giant. Certainly, with the current information of in depth layoffs from Xbox and Microsoft and the turmoil at studios internationally during the last couple of years, many have recounted the phrases spoken by Iwata throughout a shareholder Q&A session in 2013:
“If we scale back the variety of staff for higher short-term monetary outcomes, nevertheless, worker morale will lower, and I sincerely doubt staff who concern that they might be laid off will be capable to develop software program titles that would impress folks all over the world.”
Iwata additionally paved the best way for the Change — Nintendo’s most profitable house console of all time — having labored extensively on the system earlier than his passing in 2015. The results of this are nonetheless felt to this very day, with Nvidia paying tribute to Iwata in a current video on the Change 2:
“I nonetheless bear in mind the day Iwata-san shared his dream with us. He needed to create one thing no-one had seen earlier than: a console highly effective sufficient for large cinematic video games, however sufficiently small to take anyplace. It sounded inconceivable, however that imaginative and prescient turned the unique Nintendo Change.
“We misplaced Iwata-san earlier than the launch, however his readability, his goal, it nonetheless evokes our work on a regular basis.”
5 years in the past, former NL editor Tom Whitehead wrote about Iwata’s profession and his legacy, and it is unusual to assume {that a} full decade has now handed – and to think about how the world has modified in that point. We surprise what Iwata would make of the state of the business, of Change’s success, and of the model new console we’re having fun with.
All that is left to say is, effectively, thanks, Iwata-san. Nintendo wouldn’t be the place it’s at this time with out your management, ardour, and need to ship the perfect experiences in gaming.
What are your favorite reminiscences of Satoru Iwata? Depart a remark along with your tales and ideas down under.
