Satoru Iwata: A Reflection

Satoru Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo sadly passed away five days ago at the age of 55. From his time at the HAL Laboratory to his leadership of Nintendo, Mr Iwata contributed so much to the gaming medium over the years. Video games as a whole are showing more and more that certain individuals and contributors can become just as influential on an equal level to authors and actors. Tributes have been pouring in from Nintendo’s fan-base and beyond, so I thought I would do my own reflection. This may seem rather basic compared to other tributes, but keep in mind that my experience of Mr Iwata’s titles mostly involved going over to friend’s houses and playing.

His greatest contributions

1. Super Smash Bros

Super Smash Bros is one of the most popular fighting franchises in gaming and for good reason. It’s an outrageous amount of fun with friends and I used to play the first three iterations of the series very often back when gaming was more about local play than using the internet. Not only that, but it has an incredible amount of depth in both items to unlock and gameplay facets to master. Usually I always chose between Luigi, Kirby and Fox while playing the series, though the only title I ever owned was Brawl, a game which I still haven’t fully completed or mastered. Super Smash Bros still stands as one of Nintendo’s strongest and most beloved franchises and we have Satoru Iwata to thank for giving us hours upon hours of multiplayer fun.

2. Pokemon

It doesn’t seem nearly as popular as it used to be, but there’s no denying the impact of Pokemon. The monster collecting/training series probably wouldn’t even exist if it hadn’t been for the work of Satoru Iwata and his colleagues at Creatures Inc. As a founder of the company, Iwata contributed a great deal to the series, beginning with Pokemon Gold and Silver. As a child, I felt pretty jealous of everyone lucky enough to have the original games on the Game Boy Colour and later the likes of Fire Red and Leaf Green. I managed to get into the series with Pokemon Platinum, a mashup of both Pokemon Diamond and Pearl mixed with a few new elements. While the franchise hasn’t really evolved or changed too much over the years, it retains the same addictive formula that brought in one of the biggest fan-bases in gaming.

What I’ll remember him for

The philosophy of Iwata’s work in the gaming industry is summed up with the following quote: “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”. Despite suffering a few setbacks as every company does, Iwata’s sheer dedication to his work was what kept Nintendo going strong and his unique and creative ideas with the Wii managed to bring gaming to the masses like no one had before. At one point he even voluntarily cut his salary in half to assist Nintendo when it was struggling financially. When the Wii was released, just about anyone and everyone could play it and this has contributed in no small part to the immense mainstream popularity that gaming has achieved today. Iwata understood gaming as a whole and will be greatly missed by everyone in the games industry.