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The king is dead, long live the king!

Most people don´t like Mondays, and I´m perfectly fine with that especially today, because if you haven´t heard that sad news yet. Then yes, it´s true. Nintendo’s CEO Mr. Satoru Iwata (he was the CEO of Nintendo from 2013 to 2015) has died at the age of 55, and this came as a big shock to me (and probably everyone else), as the news sucker-punched me really hard this morning. At first, I thought that it was a bad and tasteless joke, but sadly enough no, it´s true. Mr. Satoru Iwata has passed away this Saturday after a long struggle against cancer (Iwata was undergoing surgery for a tumor in his bile duct back in 2014).

RIP Mr. Satoru Iwata, you will be greatly missed by everyone, and thank you for your hard work, passion and dedication in the industry.

So I’m having a hard time trying to coop with that news right now, because for me, Satoru Iwata was not “just” a well-know and talented games industry person (Iwata worked on EarthBound, Ballon Fight and a handful of Kirby games, he was also the CEO of HAL back in 1993), Iwata was that kind of guy whom you really liked and cared for. Why? Because Iwata had a really nice personality, he could joke about himself (or others), he didn´t take himself too seriously, and he knew how to entertain people. (just watch Iwata appearance in Game Center CX´s show, when he played “Balloon Fight” on the Wii U).

So all I can say is this, rest in peace mr Satoru Iwata, and thank you for everything that you´ve done for the industry.

“He was a man who understood Pokémon, and a great leader. When I visited the other day, he was well. I will pray for his soul from the bottom of my heart.” – Junichi Masuda, Composer and director

“He has given a great contribution to the development of the gaming industry. I will pray for Iwata’s soul.” – Shuhei Yoshida, president of SCE Worldwide Studios

What will become of Nintendo now? And who will become the new CEO?

That´s the one million-dollar question right there. As I see it, there is just three possible CEO candidate’s CEO, and that´s Shigeru Miyamoto (general manager of Nintendo EAD, 62), Genyo Takeda (senior managing director, Nintendo, 66), or Reginald “Reggie” Fils-Aime (President and COO of Nintendo of America, 54). However, from an investor and economic perspective, I think it´s most likely that Genyo Takeda (he created Punch-Out and StarTropics) will become the CEO of Nintendo, since he seems to be the most business experienced person at Nintendo at this time. It´s also said that Genyo Takeda has been chosen to lead the committee for Iwata’s funeral, and that could be a sign that he be taking on the leadership role.

However, Mitsuo Shimizu (Japan Asia Securities deputy general manager), had this to say on this subject on “Who shall become the next CEO of Nintendo?”:

“They say it’s not yet decided who the next CEO will be, so there’s a slight uncertainty,”

“This comes just as we saw a glimmer of hope for the company. There were lots of expectations around the DeNA partnership and the direction it was taking towards online gaming.” – Japan Asia Securities deputy general manager Mitsuo Shimizu said, via reuters.com

So at this time, it´s somewhat unclear who will become the new CEO of Nintendo.

The lack of respect for the dead

I wish that I had no more bad news to share with you (our readers), sadly enough, that´s not true, because when I found out about Mr. Satoru Iwata´s tragic death, I was also informed that people had started to post mean and evil comments about Iwata´s death. This made me both sad and angry, as it´s a really low thing to do (the deceased has no way to defend themselves from this kind of thing). However, there is more, I also noticed that people have started to monetize from Iwata´s death, that´s just as tasteless as the hateful comments, in my opinion.

So much for loving games…

Even so, Anita Serkessian disappointed me the most, because even though it´s been known for hours now that Mr. Satoru Iwata has passed away, Serkessian (and Jonathan McIntosh) just keeps on ranting about Batman: Arkham Knight…So I really hope that she will acknowledge Iwata´s recent death and pay her respect to him.

Source:

Reuters

Nintendo Japan