
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has died [pdf] - hkmurakami
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2015/150713e.pdf
======
pdknsk
Very sad news. A true hacker. Started programming on a programmable
calculator, with which he made games for his classmates. After he got himself
a Commodore PET, he went to Nintendo claiming he can make games for them, and
so he did.

Edit: I found a PET quote from Iwata Asks.

[http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/4/0](http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/4/0)

> Iwata: Disassembling! Wow, that really brings back memories. I remember
> getting my first computer, which was a PET, and disassembling it to try and
> analyze it. We didn't have printers at the time, so I wrote everything on
> the screen by hand. I really can't believe I did that. (laughs) That's how I
> found out what was going on inside.

> Iwata: It just so happens that a computer and the Famicom system had a
> similar CPU. That's why when I started working with Nintendo, I knew about
> the 6502 better than anybody else in the company.

~~~
Tiktaalik
Iwata was apparently a legendary programmer. We've learned bits and pieces of
his prowess in translated interviews over the years.

Iwata was a lead programmer on Earthbound/Mother 2 (my favourite game of all
time). The game went through a troubled development and if you trust the
impressions of Itoi, the lead designer, Iwata's incredible skills saved the
game from cancellation. An Earthbound fan translated a Famitsu interview from
Mother 2's initial release where he talks about programming a bit.
[https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-
septe...](https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-
september-9-1994-2/) EDIT: More here:
[http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/itoi-iwata-discuss-
moth...](http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/itoi-iwata-discuss-
mother-2-before-virtual-console-release/)

Incredibly, Iwata was still doing some programming work during the Gamecube
era in the 2000s. [http://nintendoeverything.com/iwata-on-his-super-
programmer-...](http://nintendoeverything.com/iwata-on-his-super-programmer-
days-helped-get-smash-bros-melee-out-on-time/)

~~~
agumonkey
First time I take a look at Earthbound. Fine pixel art.

~~~
david-given
Earthbound's amazing. Don't let the cutesy pixel art fool you --- there's a
lot more to it than first appears. And the end game boss is, like, one of the
most disturbing ever.

My only complaint is that it is a bit long. It'd be nice to have some cheats
that would let you level up more quickly, in order to get through the story a
bit more briskly. But even so it's totally worth playing, and has a killed
soundtrack.

~~~
JonnieCache
I still haven't played earthbound (iirc it wasnt published in europe) and I'm
thinking of trying this romhack which apparently improves the controls. Can
anyone whos played the original comment if this is a good idea?

[http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1111/](http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1111/)

~~~
gambiting
Mother and Mother 2 are both available on Wii U as Earthbound:Beginnings and
Earthbound. Good reason to buy them legally :-)

~~~
coldpie
The trouble with buying them legally is you can't mod them. Well, I guess you
could buy it and then just to find a ROM and hack that and be morally in the
clear.

Mother is basically unplayable in 2015. The encounter rate is beyond
ridiculous. I'm a little surprised they released it unmodified. Shortly before
the official Nintendo release this year, someone put out a great hack that
makes the game actually enjoyable. If you're going to play Mother, play this
version.

[https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-25th...](https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-25th-
Anniversary-Edition/page/1/)

Earthbound is pretty good unmodified, but there are hacks around that make the
game more playable.

~~~
JonnieCache
If we're posting romhacks, this super metroid hack is absolutely amazing. An
entirely new tileset, an all-new much larger map, new mechanics, AI, it could
be super metroid 2. _Highly_ recommended if you enjoyed the original. Oh, and
the ending. _The ending!_

[http://www.hyper.metroidconstruction.com/](http://www.hyper.metroidconstruction.com/)

Hacks of 16 bit games are getting really interesting at the moment.

------
antonmaju
Iwata during GDC 2005: "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."

~~~
FrankenPC
I love that. All that corporate maturity and yet the young gamer lived on. He
was the perfect Nintendo president. How are they going to fill those shoes?

~~~
ekianjo
> perfect Nintendo president

Not talking about him as a human being, but his decisions in the past few
years have put Nintendo in trouble, actually.

~~~
agumonkey
It's hard to understand Nintendo state, money wise they're doing better than
others, but on the game/machine level they're a bit off.

~~~
robotpony
I'm not so sure. I spent the last few nights with my 14 and 16 year old kids,
playing Mario Cart, Mario Party, and Mario Bros, and loved every second. Maybe
it's our expectations that are off.

~~~
daeken
I agree. Mario Kart 8 is absolutely, hands-down one of the best games ever
made. The controls are perfect, it has an insanely high replay value, the
challenges are well-balanced, and it's absolutely gorgeous. They did a
fantastic job.

~~~
Nadya
The splitscreen is a vertical split, as opposed to a horizontal split, so both
players become unable to accurately drift turns because you can't actually see
where you are going. Half of your camera is your Kart and the other half is
the sky. Rather than being able to see the road.

That's my own gripe with the game. Why offer splitscreen if the game becomes
unplayable?

~~~
lttlrck
If it was split the other way it would be worse, vertical FOV is just as
important as horizontal FOV on most of the tracks in MK8. I cannot imagine
Rainbow Road with horizontal split, it would be terrible.

They made the right call.

~~~
Nadya
That's the _only_ track where I could see it being worse. I'd gladly have
difficulty on one track than _every other track in the game_.

Being unable to take any turn without having the track memorized by-heart is a
large issue.

------
jtchang
It is always amazing for me to read about Nintendo's history, especially
during the 80s and when they released the NES. It is even more amazing when
you think about everything that has changed about gaming since then.

It is kind of sad to me that the newer generation does not get to grow up
playing old school games like Final Fantasy and Zelda. Some of the games these
days really focus too much on graphics and not gameplay. I felt a lot of games
back then were much harder and more unforgiving than games today.

~~~
zobzu
i find graphics and environment are actually much nicer in games with "no 3d
engine".

they're not nearly as detailed, but they're just more artistic/pleasant, as if
more time was spent in that direction to "compensate" for the lack of detail

~~~
jonkratz
What are some good examples of games without a 3d engine? Your comment makes
me feel like I'd like to check them out.

~~~
greyskull
Usually smaller scale indie games are the ones doing it, big shot studios feel
the need to go ham on graphics. Here's a handful I managed to scrape together
from memory and quick searches, but it's easy to find more.

    
    
      - Shovel Knight
      - Dust: An Elysian Tail
      - Hotline Miami
      - Don't Starve
      - Spelunky
      - Braid
      - Papers, Please
      - Sunless Sea
    

There _has_ been quite a few retro-style, pixelated graphics style games to
come out of that sector for one reason or another, but ignoring that, the
games tend to have a more stylized feel to them. Limited fidelity means the
games need to more creative, but I think that tends to just come with works of
passion from smaller studios.

~~~
eru
Also, all kinds of strategy games. Eg Europa Universalis 4, any Civilization
game (even though they may look 3d these days, it's not why you play them).

~~~
Tomte
Re: EU IV, I'd really like to get into it, but the in-game tutorial is very,
very bad. I've had several tries over the last year, but always gave up way to
soon.

Is there a practical intro somewhere? One that allows me to actually _play a
game_ , even losing it badly, but not encounter half a dozen "huh, I have no
idea what that means and what I should do now" situations every turn.

~~~
eru
You could try some videos as bookwormAT suggested, alternatively (or in
parallel) you can just play as one of the easy nations (Ottomans, Spain,
Portugal, France, etc) and blunder about. The Ottomans are nicknamed Easymans
by the fans.

That's how people learn Dwarfortress, which is even less penetrable. Remember,
losing is fun.

~~~
Tomte
I have nothing against losing, but the UI has dozens, if not hundreds of
buttons at any time, most very inconspicuous (oh, that's a button?!), and no
way to guess what they are for. It's... frustrating.

~~~
eru
Oh, that's true. Though they do show you a bunch of the basic features in the
official tutorial, don't they?

------
Tiktaalik
There's a long running series of interviews called "Iwata Asks" where Iwata
would interview various Nintendo game developers around the time of their
latest game release. Iwata certainly doesn't ask very hard hitting questions,
but nonetheless they're interesting looks behind the scenes of Nintendo
development and well worth reading.

[http://iwataasks.nintendo.com](http://iwataasks.nintendo.com)

------
johladam
It's really painful to hear something like this, Mario and Zelda was my
childhood, and I play the most recent Animal Crossing on my 3DS still. I hope
his family understands how many childhoods he impacted.

Funny picture, when asked to draw Kirby. Artists vs Programmers. Miyamoto,
Sakurai and Iwata I believe.
[http://i.imgur.com/S5Cq9lT.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/S5Cq9lT.jpg)

~~~
Figs
It's really hard to read the text in that picture because of the JPG
compression artifacts, but I did my best to try to transcribe and translate
it. I'm not a native speaker of Japanese though, so if anyone sees a mistake,
please correct me!

From left to right:

桜井 政博さん Sakurai Masahiro-san

「星のカービイ」を考えましたスゴイ人！ 開発スタッフの中ではいちばん若いけど、 おもしろいゲームを作ることなら、 だれにもまけない。
口数の少ないアイデアマン。

The amazing person who thought up Kirby's Dream Land! Although he's the
youngest of the development staff, when it comes to making interesting games,
he won't lose to anyone. An idea man of few words.

宮本 茂さん Miyamoto Shigeru-san

「スーパーマリオ」や「ゼルダの伝説」シリーズなどを作った。 有名な人！みんなもよく知ってるよね？ 今回の「カービイ」でもプロデューサーを担当。

He made series such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda. He's famous! But
you already knew that, right? For this Kirby, he took on the roll of producer.

岩田 聡さん Iwata Satoru-san

任天堂から発売されたゴルフゲームの、ほとんどを作ったエライ人！ 「カービィ」では、 みんなを明るくはげましなから、プログラムもやってしまうプロデューサー。

He's the great person who practically made Nintendo's golf game! Due to
everyone's enthusiastic encouragement, he was both a programmer and a producer
for Kibry.

~~~
Camillo
Last one should be: "The amazing guy who wrote pretty much the entirety of
Nintendo's golf game. For Kirby, on top of cheering everyone on as a producer,
he ended up doing programming too."

~~~
Figs
Thank you for the correction. If you don't mind, could you please explain the
grammar of "はげましなから" since it seems I was mistaken in interpreting that
construction? (I thought it was "because of encouragement".) In particular,
that な is confusing me now.

~~~
andycjw
you probably confused the 'nagara' in the end as 'kara',
はげます(encouraging/cheering) ながら (while/on top of)

------
dhfromkorea
I feel so sorry to hear this. I have been a long time fan of Nintendo. RIP
Iwata san. We will miss you so much. The rest of crew at the company will
continue to carry the torch.

~~~
cmollis
True. RIP.

------
soldergenie
In addition to being CEO, one of his many other accomplishments was that he
was the main programmer for Earthbound, a game close to my heart. A death like
this always tragic, but the death of a fellow programmer makes it feel closer
to home.

------
DiabloD3
I grew up with a NES and SNES. He worked on many games that I enjoyed (during
his time at HAL), the most notable of my collection being Earthbound (of
which, I still have to play every few years just because of how good it is).

I'm sad to see him finally leave us.

------
gkoberger
Wow, he was only 55. He had been sick for a while, but this was unexpected.

------
hkmurakami
As per the IR announcement, "bile duct growth" is cited as the cause of death.

The Japanese announcement says 胆管腫瘍.

Just when Nintendo has started having some bright spots in their business.

RIP.

~~~
lamontcg
Cancer of the bile duct? If so, its nearly always fatal. By the time the lump
is big enough for someone to go to the doctor to get it checked out, its
always stage 4, terminal and inoperable. Only way it turns out differently is
when a surgeon is poking around in there for some other reason and stumbles
across it. Mostly kills people in their 70s and 80s or older so there's not
much research done on it.

~~~
pdknsk
This is the announcement of the diagnosis. He only survived a year.

[http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/140627/](http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/140627/)

~~~
lamontcg
Same as a friend of mine lasted. Doc gave him 9 months.

EDIT: and I think he was lying a bit about the diagnosis in that letter, or
else his docs were lying a bit to him. That may have been what he wanted to
believe. If it was discovered "routinely" outside of surgery it was stage 4 to
begin with, and there wasn't any hope, and it was probably inoperable (the
fact that he got an operation and only lasted 12 months suggests the op didn't
do any good).

Not really casting aspersions on him, though, just cancer is really shitty,
and this one particularly bad.

------
Tycho
What a loss.

I wonder if the Wii and the DS are used as case studies in business schools.
Smaller company playing a disruptive strategy against giant competitors.

I also think it's equally impressive how Nintendo always lived to fight
another day... seems so many technology firms have one or two hits then get
wiped out when a new product under-performs.

~~~
andrepd
Hardly. Nintendo was already one of the (if not _the_ ) major video game
companies. Mario was a household name, they had hundreds of millions of games
shipped, they made such massive hits as the NES, SNES, Game Boy, not to
mention making literally dozens of celebrated timeless games.

It's a bit ridiculous to try to paint the picture of a small company upsetting
the balance and applying the "disruptive" buzzword to 2000s Nintendo.

As for living to fight another day, well, that's the price of innovation. For
every Wii, there is a Virtual Boy. For every Ocarina of Time there is a
Phantom Hourglass. Not every bold move pays off, not every innovation is well
received. Fortunately for Nintendo they never stopped innovating and taking
risks. The times it paid comfortable offset the times it didn't (like the
current gen Wii U). Besides that, they have extremely valuable IP they can
cash on (Mario, Pokémon, etc).

~~~
Tycho
1.Nintendo was a much 'smaller' company than Sony and Microsoft, who had many
other businesses besides video games. The video games industry in the 2000s
was far bigger than it was when Nintendo dominated it in the 80s and 90s.

2\. The Wii is practically the definition of a 'disruptive strategy.' They
stopped trying to compete on what was previously considered key (specs, AAA
games) and instead focussed on adding a radical new dimension to gaming
(motion sense controller).

------
marcelocamanho
It's hard to understand, Mr. Iwata. RIP From the stories, it seems he was a
great programmer, and really loved what he did.

------
corndoge
Farewell o7

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqf1Fztvr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqf1Fztvr8)

------
ilamont
This is terrible news. My sincere condolences to his family.

Five years ago, I read (and saved) a series of fascinating interviews about
the development of the Wii. Some of them were on the Nintendo corporate sites
(see
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.ninten...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.nintendo-
europe.com/163.html)) while others were from Japanese magazines that a
colleague translated. It was really a remarkable tale — Iwata was a CEO who
loved to work with his engineers and designers, and in the case of the Wii,
they created something that was truly innovative, and not just in an
engineering sense. The following excerpt discusses the creation of the Wii
remote/nunchuck:

 _Iwata: I still remember the first time I saw the pointer demo in one of the
conference rooms. From the moment I picked it up, it just felt right. I had
handled other pointer devices before, but they are not normally responsive and
leave you feeling more frustrated than relaxed. The pointer idea itself was
also good, but in this case it was the sense of control, the finish of the
product, that was particularly good. I suppose that was the result of the
technology brought in by Mr Takeda.

Ashida: Well, it was because the main controller was just a rod. (laughs) It
clearly couldn't be used to control existing games. Since Wii is compatible
with GameCube games, and we also had the concept of the Virtual Console, we
had to make it possible to play games from the NES days, too. On top of that,
we also had to consider FPS (first person shooter) games for the overseas
market. These factors ultimately gave birth to the idea of combining various
controllers to the main controller with an extension connector.

Miyamoto: The idea of connecting controllers spread very quickly, but the
Nunchuk, which had such a strong impact when it was announced, was done much
later.

Ashida: I first heard about the idea for the Nunchuk from Takeda-san. He said,
“can you try to make something like this?” There were also requests from the
development teams for Metroid and other software titles asking for a new kind
of controller that uses both hands, that can offer a new type of gameplay. And
so, yet again, we started out by moulding another clay model. (laughs)

Takeda: This idea originally came from one of the young developers involved in
the project I mentioned earlier, the one aimed at selling packaged peripherals
with GameCube games.

Iwata: I can still vividly recall the look of anxiety on Mr Ashida's face when
he showed me the Nunchuk. What was running through your mind at that time?

Ashida: Well, I thought it wouldn't fit well with the streamlined designs of
the console and controller. At first, I also considered a design similar to
that of the remote. But since it was so obvious that the right and left hands
are used differently, I realized that making the designs similar would just
make it harder to control. When I asked for Mr Takeda's advice, he reassured
me that it was fine for them to be different since they would be used
separately.

Ikeda: we used to call the Wii Remote the Core Controller, or alternatively
the Core Unit, because peripherals were attached to its extension connecter.

Miyamoto: Oh, that's right, we called it the Core, didn't we? But the term
Core Unit doesn't sound very accessible, even though that's what we were
aiming for all along! (laughs) It was Mr Iwata who insisted that the main
controller be called a remote, wasn't it?

Iwata: Yes, that was something that I was unusually stubborn about. The TV
remote is something always sits within reach and is picked up and used by
everyone all the time. Since I wanted the controller to be used in the same
way, and since it ended up looking like one in the end, I strongly believed
that it should be called a remote. And also because one of the most
fundamental questions behind Wii's development was why some people use the TV
remote all the time, but hesitate to pick up a game controller. So I really
insisted that it be called a remote.

Ikeda: n the early stages of development we ran into a number of problems that
we hadn't anticipated, like the fact that the controller would react to
fluorescent light, for example. Creating a mechanism that prevents the
controller from responding to fluorescent light and sunlight may not sound
overly difficult, but it still caused us a good deal of trouble.

Iwata: So, that's how the specifications of the Wii controller were decided.
However, it wasn't until the Tokyo Game Show last year that it was unveiled to
the general public. I was up on stage at that event, and I still vividly
remember the silence that followed the video that introduced the controller.
It felt like time was standing still... It was as though the audience didn't
know how to react. Given that you'd all worked so hard on the controller, what
did you think of that reaction?

Miyamoto: Like Mr Takeda, I too was very much on edge. I was certain that they
wouldn't understand Wii unless they actually tried it out for themselves, and
so I was unsure how convincing the presentation alone would be. Everyone was
clapping, but I couldn't help but wonder whether our message had gotten
across, or whether people thought it was too unconventional. However, looking
at the other unveilings at the Tokyo Game Show that day, I was very much
relieved by the fact that Nintendo was the only one doing something new.
Everyone else seemed to be just polishing up something that everyone had
already seen before.

Ashida, when asked about reax from developers: For the most part, their
feedback was very positive, which was a great relief. Needless to say, there
were a few cries of dissent, but most people were left with a favourable
impression.

Ikeda: I was often left in charge of explaining the controller's functions,
but it was only when they actually got their hands on the controller that
their faces would light up. Seeing this, I really felt as though we'd scored a
hit. And then, immediately after they had a go on Wii, they started coming up
with ideas. Right there and then they were already discussing what they could
do and how they could do it! I was amazed by the speed of this.

Iwata: Producers are more likely to pick up the controller and start thinking
about its limitations. Creators, on the other hand, are more likely to look at
what is possible, come up with ideas and ask a lot of questions. They'll go
home with smiles on their faces, won't they?

Iwata: In bringing Wii to the world, we've filled up countless boxes with
mock-ups, prototypes, trial software, and so on. But I truly feel that none of
our efforts were wasted. These concepts came and went at a remarkable pace,
until we came across those special technologies that solved all of our
problems at once. Nowadays, nobody has any doubts about the "d-pad with two
main buttons" interface. But twenty years ago many people wondered whether
such a controller could really be used to play games. So, if we continue to do
what we know has to be done, our controller, which now appears quite unusual,
may very well become the new standard. As someone who has made it their life’s
work to make innovative products, I feel very lucky to have had the chance to
witness this story from beginning to end. Everyone, thank you very much._

Japanese companies are sometimes portrayed as being too conservative. However,
I have found that there is a creative/innovative streak in certain firms that
can lead to truly innovative products that push the engineering and creative
envelopes, open up new markets, and force everyone to realize new
possibilities. Satoru Iwata deserves much credit for what happened at
Nintendo.

~~~
euske
[off topic] What's really conservative in Corporate Japan is its lifetime
employment system, and even Nintendo isn't immune from that. The entire
society is gridlocked in that assumption and it will probably take a national
upheaval to change it. I'm expecting that the change is inevitable sooner or
later, and it will be very painful one.

~~~
ihsw
Interestingly, China's employment system operates in stark contrast to that
(perhaps even a polar opposite) -- employees are so disdainful about future
prospects that they contribute to savings accounts, and related financial
instruments, in droves. The combined value of such investments is staggering
beyond comprehension.

Society is gridlocked in a similar fashion -- people are afraid to spend their
money so much that the economy, on a national scale, is generally sluggish.
Yes, extravagance is abound in the nouveau riche, however that is the
exception rather than the rule.

There is a great fear that their new jobs will vanish on a moment's notice,
and there is little faith in the social support systems.

------
Mahn
This is incredibly depressing. Nobody should ever have to die that young. May
he rest in peace.

------
interesting_att
Such sad news. Iwata's influence has been enormous on my childhood as well as
many others. Gaming is becoming a legitimate hobby, in no small part to people
like him. He truly cared about the company, the products, and the consumer.
RIP

------
abbabon
Truly a sad day. Leave luck to heaven :'(

------
nness
Vale Satoru Iwata.

------
fourstar
He was still relatively young. RIP.

------
philliphaydon
:( Sad news.

------
slater
RIP.

------
renegadesensei
Amazingly depressing.

May the way of the hero lead to the triforce, my friend.

Thread theme:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKAFK5djSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKAFK5djSk)

------
lordvadur
I'm not a conspiracy person but the parallels are eerie
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi)

nintendo executive mid 50s latest console was not well received dies suddenly

------
allsystemsgo
Haven't been following Nintendo very much. If he was so ill why was he still
CEO? Not saying he wasn't capable but, if I were that sick, not sure I would
want to be running a company.

~~~
michaelpinto
There are some people who love their job more than many other things in this
life. The CEO in question was a true gamer at heart, and i suspect that many
other gamers if given the job of being CEO of Nintendo would do that their
last day.

