By Nick Maker
Remember my tribute article on Robin Williams?
Well, today not only do I have to recover from a big loss of him; it seems Mr. Reaper decided that one of my favorite childhood heroes just wasn’t enough to make me even sadder.
Yes, if you haven’t heard who is this guy, Iwata is the president of Nintendo; or was the president of Nintendo. He passed away on a Saturday July 11 at the age of fifty-five by a duct bile growth, which is just a fancy term meaning a cancer growth around the duct bile area. It was so shocking to me, and by that I mean to everyone, because it was really really sudden that he was gone. Two years ago the old president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, age eighty-six died. When I heard that he died, I thought it was a troll message when I was watching some YouTube video and a comment popped up talking about it.
Iwata wasn’t mentioned to me in my life until the Wii era when they put up the first Nintendo direct which was supposed to show Nintendo game news, and he showed up for the first time on my TV screen in my Wii system. At first he was fine but later on I caught up his charm and started liking the guy. So did the rest of the people I guess, since he has a common trait of awkward moments which result in us creating memes, but we all love him anyway.
Did you know that Iwata was the president of Hal Company, the same company where he worked on the Kirby titles and Earthbound? That’s right, he did; with gaming developer Sakurai, the same person who created Smash bros. So yeah you can thank him for that. He worked on the ds and the Wii of which the ds sold like hot cakes. While the Wii did sell well, it didn’t catch up later on due to the gimmick it was. For me I really don’t care what they say; I enjoyed both either way. The ds is my most memorable moment because I remember I got Animal Crossing (which I regret selling it, wah!) and when I saw the two screens I got excited thinking two screens what’s that witch craft!? The Wii I remember I played it a lot too with the motion controls especially when I got Mario kart Wii, that was fun.
Look, I understand that Nintendo and Iwata aren’t the most current-minded people because of past mistakes and I’m not saying we should now praise Nintendo about everything now that he’s gone; no, he was only human. What kind of person does without mistakes? He did some great things like the recent cutting of his paycheck in half to not fire his workers over the recent loss of sales. To me that’s a sign of taking the bullet for the team, and I tip my cap to him. He had always been a leader that can take hits, but manage to get up, and that’s what I like about him. He could stay up on his feet and perform his tasks nicely (cough cough splatoon). I feel sad that he won’t get to see his next console he’d been working on and the rumors of a Nintendo Land in Universal (is true).
I’ll remember Iwata as a leader who put the company first before himself and kept on making us smile. This quote from him I’ll always remember him by for his inspiring words:
“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.” ~Satoru Iwata
For that he made all of us gamers- to love gaming. If you want reasons about what he did for the company here’s two links, enjoy.
About Nick… “I am a studious person who loves reading and loves researching about virtually anything! I play the piano and every year I have to give a performance in a church. I love video games – especially when it’s a puzzle and action game. I would like to become a programmer one day in the field of computer science. I love my family so much, even if we drive each other crazy sometimes, we’re still one big happy family.”