Nintendo Chief Satoru Iwata Dies

Megalith

Megalith

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Shocking and unexpected news tonight. Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata has died at the age of 55. Originally starting out as a programmer for game developer HAL Laboratory, he later joined Nintendo and worked on staples such as Zelda and Earthbound, eventually succeeding Hiroshi Yamauchi as Nintendo's president. Iwata was widely regarded as the face of the company with his participation in events such as Nintendo Direct. Thanks to eth3ton for sending this in.

Nintendo reports that President and CEO Satoru Iwata has died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth. The executive had been forced to skip E3 2014 due to health issues and had surgery to remove a growth later that year, but it's unfortunately clear that this wasn't enough to help him recover.
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Really sucks :( He was rather young and really seemed passionate about games and gaming. A loss for the industry.
 
"died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth"

Holy Sh!t, never even heard of a bile duct growth before, gonna have to google that one.

So many things in this world that can unexpectedly kill a person.
 
So sad to hear him go.

Also, any digestive system cancers kill amazingly fast, it killed my uncle in two weeks.
 
ShamisOMally said:
So sad to hear him go.

Also, any digestive system cancers kill amazingly fast, it killed my uncle in two weeks.
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Really sad to lose a pioneer like this. Another reason we need to invest in ways to treat and prevent cancers. I really never heard of this type of cancer.
 
RIP :(

/usr/home said:
WTF? Since when does Megalith post news stories??
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IIRC, MajorDomo has retired from posting weekend news, and Kyle was looking for someone new to fill in. I guess Megalith got the position.
 
Guess he forgot the Konami code...:(

/usr/home said:
WTF? Since when does Megalith post news stories??
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Megalith has made a name for himself by posting multitudes of threads in GenMay, sometimes controversial to stir the pot...then never replies to them. Even when he does reply, he never responds to criticism and personal attacks but still keeps up the post count with dedication.

Oddly, that's perfect for front page news posting. I won't fault him for taking the job even though his habits in GenMay are a bit annoying.
 
This genuinely sucks. He is quite possibly the only CEO in the gaming industry on the big publisher side that actually legitimately gave a shit about games.
 
Aspendancer said:
"died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth"

Holy Sh!t, never even heard of a bile duct growth before, gonna have to google that one.

So many things in this world that can unexpectedly kill a person.
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Probably their way of saying Cancer.
 
I agree Kor, I have never heard of horror stories from his camp. After reading his bio along with Shigeru Miyamoto, they were both creative visionaries and not dictators which seems to have helped with the creativity. Most major studios today are head hunters for smaller studios to buy up franchises to wash/rinse/repeat spit out iterations of the same games.
 
Aspendancer said:
"died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth"

Holy Sh!t, never even heard of a bile duct growth before, gonna have to google that one.

So many things in this world that can unexpectedly kill a person.
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Sounds like pancreatic cancer, to me...Often people who develop it die within 6 months of diagnosis...by the time it's advanced enough to cause symptoms it is already too late to stop it...My mother died from it, and a symptom of the disease is bile-duct blockage...that's when she was diagnosed.
 
The Avalon said:
For the first time in the history of me being on the internet, I agree.
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Just because you care more this time. Don't be a hypocrite. Humor is never too soon in these situations. It doesn't mean lack of respect.
 
RIP to Iwata-san. You're creations are an ingrained part of my childhood and that of my family and friends. Thank you.
 
Aspendancer said:
"died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth"

Holy Sh!t, never even heard of a bile duct growth before, gonna have to google that one.

So many things in this world that can unexpectedly kill a person.
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yeah, you don't hear about it much, kinda rare, but there is a lot that can still go majorly wrong. My dad almost died from a damn gallstone. A decent tolerance to pain, so he never felt much till It backed everything up. Thus causing pancreatitis. After two surgeries, losing 50 pounds in a month or two, he survived though hes now a diabetic.
 
jroe52 said:
I agree Kor, I have never heard of horror stories from his camp. After reading his bio along with Shigeru Miyamoto, they were both creative visionaries and not dictators which seems to have helped with the creativity. Most major studios today are head hunters for smaller studios to buy up franchises to wash/rinse/repeat spit out iterations of the same games.
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He wasn't just a creative visionary, he was a technical genius as well. A lot of Nintendo's success with games in the 90s was literally due to his programming. He wrote the scripting engine for Earthbound which made the whole game even workable and saved the project. And he basically saved Pokemon Gold and Silver:
In development, the game filled up the entire cartridge despite only being half-finished. Satoru Iwata, former president of Nintendo, singlehandedly did some very heavy compression to save the project from being released as an Obvious Beta. When he was done, there was enough space in the cartridge to include all of Kanto. To summarize, thanks to the current CEO of Nintendo, this game has twice as big a setting region-wise as every other Pokémon game released until the remakes.

Read more: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/PokemonGoldAndSilver#ixzz3fpVUopMJ
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One of the CEOs in gaming who was truly an engineer.
 
Rizen said:
He wasn't just a creative visionary, he was a technical genius as well. A lot of Nintendo's success with games in the 90s was literally due to his programming. He wrote the scripting engine for Earthbound which made the whole game even workable and saved the project. And he basically saved Pokemon Gold and Silver:
One of the CEOs in gaming who was truly an engineer.
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“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.”

Quoted from his business card.

Very sad indeed.
 
So sad and so young too. Gotta be careful about those cancers. As humans so many things can kill you quickly.
 
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