Satoru Iwata

born December 6, 1959, is the fourth president of Nintendo succeeding to the long-standing previous president of the company, Hiroshi Yamauchi. The always-jovial Iwata began his reign in 2002. Satoru Iwata was responsible in great part for defining Nintendo's strategy both before and during the release of its GameCube video game console in 2001, a vision which helped Nintendo generate a 41 percent increase in sales at the end of the 2002 fiscal year.

Biography

Early years

Iwata was born in Sapporo of the Hokkaido Prefecture of Japan. He expressed his interest in the creation of video games early on, and originating in an environment with a tradition of computer programming, he produced electronic games at his home during his high school years. The several simple number games Iwata produced, which made use of an electronic calculator, he shared with his schoolmates.

Education

Following high school, Iwata was admitted at the prestigious Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he majored in computer science. Such an environment allowed Iwata's technical expertise and passion for video games to be recognized and as such, he was taken a part-time games programmer at HAL Laboratory, Inc., a subsidiary of Nintendo, while still pursuing his tertiary studies until graduation.

HAL Laboratory, Incorporated

In 1982, after succeeding at college, Iwata was recruited by HAL Laboratory, Inc. for a full-time position. He became the company's coordinator of software production in 1983. Some of the video games he helped create while he worked there were Balloon Fight, EarthBound, and the Kirby games. Iwata was eventually promoted to president of HAL in 1993. Nevertheless, he and his branch sometimes aided in the creation of Nintendo video games, himself on a freelance basis.

Nintendo

In 2000, Iwata took a position at Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division. When Hiroshi Yamauchi, then the company's president since 1949, retired on May 31 2002, Iwata succeeded as Nintendo's fourth president. He continues to help out at HAL as a correspondent. It is said that Iwata still works as an artist there, assisting in creating concept art of Kirby characters for use in the Kirby series of video games. His last project was Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Quotes

"Nintendo has strong views on how we should run our company. We consider ourselves, above all else, as a gaming company. We believe other companies (in the console marketplace) see themselves primarily as technology companies.” ^*
"I suppose I could give you a list of the technical specs. I believe you would like that, but I won't for a simple reason: they really don't matter." ^*
"You say you want a Revolution?" - Nintendo E3 2005 Conference

Trivia

He owns more than 51 Kirby T-shirts and is usually seen wearing one when not on duty.
Iwata is the only president of Nintendo unrelated to Fusajiro Yamauchi.

References

External links

Satoru Iwata Keynote given at Tokyo Game Show 2005
IGN: E3 2005: Satoru Iwata Interview
Gamespy: Nintendo's New Direction - A discussion with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata
Heart of a Gamer speech at GDC '05

1959 births | Living people | Nintendo people | People from Hokkaido | Living people

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