Satoru Iwata

Satoru Iwata.

"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' speaking at GDC 2006.

Satoru Iwata (December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was the fourth President and CEO of Nintendo, promoted in 2002 by the previous President, Hiroshi Yamauchi, before his retirement the same year, making Iwata the first president to not be related to Yamauchi's family. Iwata was known for his contributions to the Nintendo subsidiary, HAL Laboratory, Inc., and was attributed to the success of the Nintendo GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, and the latter console's launch title, Brain Age.

Iwata began his career while in college as a freelance programmer for HAL Laboratory, and was employed full-time after he graduated, becoming a software coordinator almost one year after. While at HAL, he worked on the concept and design for the EarthBound and Kirby series of games, and eventually was promoted to president of the company in 1993 after making a deal with Hiroshi Yamauchi. His work at HAL carried over to his career at Nintendo as he was transferred to their main office, contributing towards titles such as Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Finally, in May of 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi promoted Iwata to president as his successor, and in 2013 Iwata succeeded Tatsumi Kimishima as CEO of Nintendo of America.

During his tenure. made cameos in a number of Nintendo games, but the most notable appearances were in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! where he appeared on Wario's TV and in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, where he (under the name Shop Manager Iwata) was the owner of a video game store and sold 18-Volt a Game & Watch for 9-Volt.

In 2014, Nintendo announced that Iwata did not attend E3 2014 due to a recent surgery to remove a tumor in his bile duct. Regardless, on July 11, 2015, Iwata passed away from a bile duct growth at age 55.