Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, dies at 55

Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo Company Ltd. since 2002 and former programmer at HAL Laboratory, has died at the age of 55.

Nintendo Company Ltd. announced this morning that its President and figurehead of the past 13 years, Satoru Iwata, passed away on 11 July due to a bile duct growth.

Mr Iwata had previously undergone surgery to remove a tumour in his bile duct, forcing him to miss E3 2014 in June of that year, and he had since began to make public appearances once more, most notably in Nintendo Direct presentations for which he was well known.

Born on 6 December 1959, Iwata majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, during which time he carried out freelance work at HAL Laboratory, later joining the company full-time and lending his name to Balloon Fight, EarthBound, and many other popular titles.

Iwata was also involved in the founding of Creatures, one of the main players in the development of Pokémon games, in 1995; he also took on development roles in Pokémon Gold and Silver, as well as the original Pokémon Stadium.

After joining Nintendo in 2000 as the head of the corporate planning division, Iwata succeeded to the role of President and CEO of Nintendo in May 2002 following the retirement of Hiroshi Yamauchi, and he helped to revolutionise Nintendo's position in the gaming world with the groundbreaking releases of Nintendo DS in 2004 and Wii in 2006.

More recently, Iwata has been involved in Iwata Asks and Nintendo Direct, two pieces which play a large part in relaying information from key figures in Nintendo and other companies directly to Nintendo and gaming fans around the world.

We are all incredibly saddened by the passing of Satoru Iwata, and our thoughts are with Mr Iwata's friends and family, as well as his colleages from around the world and all of his and Nintendo's fans, at this very sad time.