Leader, Developer, Gamer
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. -Satoru Iwata
This site is a research project about the late Satoru Iwata and his role at Nintendo as well as the success of the Nintendo Wii and its development under Iwata.
Timeline:
1959: Born in Sapporo, Japan
1976: Acquired his first programmable calculator and began creating games
1982: Graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology; joined HAL Laboratory full-time
1991: Appointed President of HAL Laboratory, tasked with turning the company around financially
Late 1990s: Contributed significantly to the development and localization of pivotal games like Pokémon Red and Green and Pokémon Stadium
2000: Joined Nintendo as the Head of Corporate Planning.
2002: Succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi as President of Nintendo.
2004 & 2006: Led Nintendo through the highly successful launches of the Nintendo DS (2004) and the Wii (2006)
2011: Oversaw the launch of the Nintendo 3DS.
2012: Oversaw the launch of the Wii U
2014: Underwent surgery related to a bile duct growth.
2015: Passed away at the age of 55.
See the navigation menu for more pages!
References
Gaming Historian. (2015, November 23). The life of Satoru Iwata [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4cJh2YgrKE&t=1463
Google Gemini 2.5 Pro was used for assistance in creating this project.