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Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passes away at age 55

Nintendo has announced its CEO, Satoru Iwata, has passed away at the age of 55.

Ozzie Mejia

July 12, 2015 5:35 PM

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Tragedy has hit the video game world, as Nintendo has confirmed that president Satoru Iwata has died. Nintendo has issued a statement explaining that Iwata passed due to a bile duct growth.

"Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth."

Today's news come as a surprise considering how healthy Iwata-san looked during Nintendo's E3 2015 digital event. It appears he may not have been as healthy as we all would have guessed, especially after he had to skip E3 2014 due to an undisclosed health issue at the time and had surgery to remove a growth later that year.

As of now, Nintendo has yet to mention who Iwata-san's successor will be, although both senior managing director Genyo Takeda and legendary game designer and producer Shigeru Miyamoto currently appear to be taking control of the company for the time being.

Iwata-san first joined Nintendo back in 1983 where he helped create some of the company's most legendary titles and series, like Earthbound and some of the early Kirby games. He then went on to become Nintendo's corporate planner in 2000, moving on to lead the company in 2002 and becoming the first to do so outside of the Yamauchi family.

Under Iwata-san's leadership, Nintendo went on to develop the GameCube, DS, Wii, 3DS, and Wii U, and slowly but surely, helping shape the future of gaming. Both the DS and 3DS have dominated over the years, cementing the company's dominance in the handhelds industry, and that train doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. As for its console business, while the Wii U is still struggling, its predecessor, the Wii, did exceptionally well for Nintendo.

We here at Shacknews give our deepest condolences to the Iwata family and to Nintendo fans around the world affected by today's news.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?