Nintendo loses its CEO Satoru Iwata – Le Figaro

VIDEO – The video game fans paid tribute Monday to the Japanese company’s CEO, died at age 55 after cancer

The gaming world is in mourning. Nintendo announced this morning in a statement the death of its CEO, Satoru Iwata, head of the group since 2002. Satoru Iwata’s condition was not unknown to the general public in the last Salon of the video game in Los Angeles last June, the head of the Japanese company, too weak, could not make the trip. These are Genyo Takeda, one of the current leaders of the brand, and Shigeru Miyamoto, behind hits such as Mario and Zelda, that will ensure the interim presidency.

At Nintendo, where he entered in 1984 as a developer, Satoru Iwata had inity a new movement. Convinced of the need to broaden the audience of the brand, he was responsible for creating the handheld DS and Wii lounge, two success. More recently, he also had to face the failure of the console Wii U. It was following this undertaking to establish a more direct relationship with the audience, through the Nintendo Direct: videos posted on the YouTube channel of Nintendo, which presented itself projects.

Satoru Iwata was a man very popular with gamers. He was eager to speak directly with self-deprecating to a public which he had become the star. Last year, when he underwent surgery for a tumor, internet users were posting on Twitter in support of their hero pictures of themselves with bananas, in reference to Donkey Kong, famous Nintendo character. Even today, on Twitter, Internet tributes to the CEO of the Japanese brand is growing.

The announcement comes at a key moment for Nintendo. Iwata indeed represented the last bastion to the mobile brand development, whose CEO was afraid he would cannibalize its core business: the consoles. Iwata had finally relented and announced in March 2014 the partnership with DeNA, a Japanese mobile society. Immediately after the death of Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s share had soared to 4.48% at the opening of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The death of the charismatic leader visibly signing the beginning of a new era.

(with AFP)