Satoru Iwata



Satoru Iwata (December 6, 1959 - July 11, 2015) was the fourth president of Nintendo, succeeding Hiroshi Yamauchi and was the only president that wasn't related to the Yamauchi family by blood or marriage.

Before he joined Nintendo, Iwata worked at HAL Laboratories in 1983 and worked on games such as Balloon Fight, Earthbound, and the Kirby franchise. He eventually became president of Hal Laboratories in 1993 before he joined Nintendo in 2000.

He became president of Nintendo in 2002 and oversaw the development of the Nintendo DS, which revitalized Nintendo's handheld market, and oversaw the development of the Nintendo Wii, which caused Nintendo's stock prices to rise up. Iwata even took half of his own salary to help compete against Sony and Microsoft. During his entire career, he was the chief producer of over 117 game titles

In 2014 around E3, Satoru Iwata underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his bile duct. Sadly, Iwata soon developed complications and on July 11, 2015, Nintendo announced that Iwata had passed away.