The computer game industry is spilling in tributes for Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata after news of his going at age 55, IGN reported. The items and administration of Iwata's long residency at Nintendo, starting in the 1980s as a software engineer, has touched and roused numerous computer game designers and symbols in the business.
Iwata became Nintendo's CEO in 2002, the company's fourth since it was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889. Despite Iwata's short stint as a president, he paved a way for the company's long term direction. Before he became the top man of the giant game maker, he was responsible for the company's strategy on both before and during the introduction of the Nintendo GameCube console in 2001. Iwata was able to increase Nintendo's sales output by 41% equating to $4.4 billion at the end of the 2011 fiscal year.
This success was the deciding factor why he was named as Hiroshi Yamauchi's successor.
Iwata, according to IGN, began his career as a part time games programmer for HAL Laboratory Inc. while pursuing his studies. He finally joined HAL in 1982. While with HAL, Iwata was responsible for NES games Balloon Fight and Open Golf. After HAL, he continued to develop games for other games and Nintendo. As an independent programmer, his most notable work is the Kirby Dreamland. The game was finally released in 1992 and later on in the American region.
He also played a key role in the development of the games Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Animal Crossing, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
In 2000, he was promoted as the head of Nintendo's Corporate Planning Division, in which he was tapped to oversee Nintendo's corporate planning around the world.
Of all of Iwata's accolades, his most popular brain child is the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
Iwata succumbed to a tumor bile duct despite going a surgery.
