Satoru Iwata Biography

Satoru Iwata was a renowned Japanese video game programmer and businessman who is best known as the fourth president of the Japanese video game company, Nintendo. He later took additional responsibility as the CEO of Nintendo of America. Prior to joining Nintendo, he served as a programmer for HAL Laboratory, Inc., which he joined during his university days. While still at HAL, he collaborated with Nintendo on a number of video games and came close to Hiroshi Yamauchi, the then-president of the company. He trained himself in marketing and helped both HAL and Nintendo in increasing their profit margins. He is also known for his revolutionary ideas, and had a great role in developing the touch-enabled dual screen Nintendo DS, the motion controlled Wii, and in conceptualizing the Amiibo figurines. He became the public face of the company in later years and hosted the interview series titled ‘Iwata Asks’ and showed his sense of humor on ‘Nintendo Direct’, a series of online press conferences. A proficient programmer, who is also a self-proclaimed gamer, he was highly respected by programmers and gamers alike.