Satoru Iwata was arguably Nintendo's most influential president, overseeing the company's transformation from a stagnating giant into a trendsetter with complete dominance in the handheld market.
Iwata joined Nintendo during a time of crisis. The PlayStation 2 and the XBOX were leaving the company's GameCube in the dust in the early days of the console wars, and the company's reluctance to embrace online gaming was not helping.
Using his perspective as an avid gamer, Iwata correctly identified that Nintendo needed to chase games that simply felt good to play, rather than treat every release as a chance to push the boundaries of graphics and tech achievements. He also improved communication between corporate and technical teams within Nintendo, helping find common ground that was nonexistent before his tenure.
Quote of the Day by Satoru Iwata
Satoru Iwata said this fateful quote during a keynote speech in the 2005 edition of the Game Developers Conference, delivering it as his opening line.
Iwata prided himself on being an early adopter of technology in Japan. After catching the gaming bug through Pong, as most of his generation did, his first foray into game development was cooking up a baseball game in an HP calculator...
