Let's say happy birthday to our favorite CEO! Satoru Iwata!

Toad.T said:
Happy Birthday! Why don't you take the year off? And the next one too! And the next one. And the next one. And the next one...

I always hear about him being a programmer, but what games is he most famous for making, besides Balloon Fight?
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He used to be a programmer at HAL and was heavily involved in games like Kirby's Dream Land and EarthBound.
 
Even if Iwata is forced to resign, he has a back up plan because he's also the CEO of NOA. He won't be leaving us.
 
zenosparadox said:
Bam! 38 posts before I found it. Knew someone would say it.
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Don't get me wrong. I like him as a game designer and I think he makes a good face for Nintendo. He isn't just a good CEO. I'd like to see him remain with Nintendo....as the guy who leads all the Nintendo directs, but not as the person who is in control of the company.

I do wish he has a very nice birthday though.
 
Fanboys gonna defend him even as he steers the company into the iceberg. Then when the ship is sinking, oh no, it wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could do. It was the market.

Some of us love Nintendo and want to see it succeed. Iwata has to go.
 
I love how people think they understand how Nintendo operates as a company and how you should run a huge business.

Happy Birthday Iwata!
 
the_batman said:
favorite CEO? that's just sad.

everyone knows Kaz is superior

af5U400.gif
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wink-point-kaz.gif

Fuck yea he is, but we are here to celebrate Iwata's birthday.
please understand
 
Somnid said:
Happy Birthday Iwata!

I don't care what they say about you, anyone
who thinks good content is worth money,
who can say no to the temptations of crappy DLC,
who thinks subscriptions are not a good idea,
who can delay a bad game to make it good even under pressure,
who has actually made a worthwhile game,
who believes physical and digital mediums can coexist,
who believes in promoting positive images of gaming for all ages and genders,
who thinks gaming can train your mind and your body.
who can host a video program better than Spike,
who can do a better interview than IGN,
who make an reasonable, intelligent and fact-based argument when your shareholders ask stupid questions,
who will do things even though nobody else is,
who believes that, in the end, what matters is the games and how fun they are
has to be a pretty awesome CEO.
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It is pretty... sad, to think that, perhaps Nintendo's current state is exactly because its CEO is a believer of such things, when every other guy in the industry takes different path than the above.

Happy birthday Iwata. Hopefully you can live a happy life and Nintendo can always enjoy good fortune in the future!

suppadoopa said:
muh bananas
muh please understand
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Now what do you have against bananas, huh.
 
Happy Birthday Iwata, thanks for the Wii U it's a massive hit at my house.

If someone sends you the link to this thread: unified accounts and Wave Race please :)
 
GillyH said:
Yes! He's the age now to receive his retirement pension!
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I was stunned when I saw the ages of the top guys at Nintendo! He's got a good ten years left at Nintendo! For instance, head of hardware Genyo Takeda is 64 and I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed there for a while longer too. He must have one of the most controversial and awesome jobs in the world too, the one in charge of Nintendo's hardware :-P

Anyways, happy birthday Mr. Iwata! I didn't know about Nintendo Directs and banana shenanigans until this year despite feeling myself to be aligned with "Team Nintendo" for the longest time, so I'll always keep a closer eye out on what you and your company are up to from now on; as much of a roller coaster ride it can be, it's always entertaining to watch it unfold, and luckily I love roller coasters ;-)
 
mrpeabody said:
Fanboys gonna defend him even as he steers the company into the iceberg. Then when the ship is sinking, oh no, it wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could do. It was the market.

Some of us love Nintendo and want to see it succeed. Iwata has to go.
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People love him because he stands up for the ideals of games. So his recent console is somewhat of a failure...it may bounce back yet...the 3DS has.

Unless the microtransaction laden video game future really entices you, I fail to see why you believe other CEOs are better. As Somnid said, Iwata stands up for gamers.

He is against throwing things behind a paywall. He is against rushing a game out. He is against throwing in microtransactions just because they could make money of it. He is against pointless DLC, mandating that the DLC has to be full, the game has to be complete and the DLC is to be developed and conceived of after the launch of the game. He also likes to try new things...sure, the PS4 is great, but at the moment it just feels like a graphical upgrade. The games are all the same style as before but with better graphics.

It actually boggles my mind that people want someone who stands up for the ideals of gamers to be replaced by someone with more "business sense". It's just asking for more crap like $120 cars, $10 horse armour etc.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Iwata. You're the CEO that gamers want, but they won't realise it until you are gone.
 
Somnid said:
Happy Birthday Iwata!

I don't care what they say about you, anyone
who thinks good content is worth money,
who can say no to the temptations of crappy DLC,
who thinks subscriptions are not a good idea,
who can delay a bad game to make it good even under pressure,
who has actually made a worthwhile game,
who believes physical and digital mediums can coexist,
who believes in promoting positive images of gaming for all ages and genders,
who thinks gaming can train your mind and your body.
who can host a video program better than Spike,
who can do a better interview than IGN,
who make an reasonable, intelligent and fact-based argument when your shareholders ask stupid questions,
who will do things even though nobody else is,
who believes that, in the end, what matters is the games and how fun they are
has to be a pretty awesome CEO.
Click to expand...
*nods in approval*

Also wouldn't sell his own grandmother for a nickel and a dime. Can't say that about every CEO.
 
Iwata went into games because he loves making people happy, starting with when he'd program games on a calculator for his friends to play. He then worked in the trenches as a game designer at Nintendo, programming Balloon Fight and other gems. He's motivated by making people happy and he knows what it's like to make the games to achieve these ends.

This makes me more inclined to see him as authentic, when usually I eye CEOs suspiciously, thinking they're sunny on the outside but dicks behind closed doors. But I don't think that's the case with Iwata. He seems like a legitimately good person, and I wish him well. Whatever his legacy ends up being as head of Nintendo, he has my gratitude for all of the great games, the rousing humor and inspiring talks. :)
 
I've heard some amazing stories about Iwata personally compressing the code of Gold/Silver to fit on the cartridge, and completely rewriting the code for Earthbound to save it from cancellation... really talented guy!
 
Mistle said:
I've heard some amazing stories about Iwata personally compressing the code of Gold/Silver to fit on the cartridge, and completely rewriting the code for Earthbound to save it from cancellation... really talented guy!
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I would love to see some sources for this. I knew he was involved with Earthbound, but not to that degree. And I didn't know he had anything to do with Pokemon Gold/Silver, aka my gateway drug to Nintendo games proper (through Smash Bros of course, which was a HAL venture, so did he have a hand in that too?).
 
Makonero said:
I would love to see some sources for this. I knew he was involved with Earthbound, but not to that degree. And I didn't know he had anything to do with Pokemon Gold/Silver, aka my gateway drug to Nintendo games proper (through Smash Bros of course, which was a HAL venture, so did he have a hand in that too?).
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Here is the involvement that Iwata had in Earthbound:


http://kamedani.tumblr.com/post/45700864819/mother-2-re-release-discussion-part-1

—: At the time, the man who showed up while Mother 2 was having difficulties during development and needed to fix a number of things was Satoru Iwata-san. By the way, at that time you were both the President of HAL Laboratories and a programmer, right?

Iwata: Correct.

—: If you want to speak, please tell the whole story.

Iwata: Um, according to my memory, at the time the project wasn’t even on its way to being finished yet. So the first thing I said to Itoi-san was “I don’t think you’re going to be able to finish if you go on like this.”

—: Wow.

Iwata: I continued and told him “I can help you if you would like but there are two ways to proceed.” That is when I said what Itoi-san just credited to me. I then went on to say “If we used what you have now and fix it, it will take 2 years. If we can start fresh, it’ll take half a year.”

Itoi: Pretty cool, right?

—: Itoi-san, what did you do after hearing that?

Itoi: Well, of course I said “please!” but if I tell you the truth, at the time I didn’t really understand.

Iwata: At that point, I told him “I’ll try to get it working” and took what they had made up to that point with me. Exactly a month after that we got the map scrolling to work and showed it to Itoi-san’s team. They were all really shocked.

Itoi: Yeah, we were very surprised. We were all like “Whoa! It’s working!”

—: Wow, development had had that many issues.

Iwata: Everyone was really surprised and the whole environment was oddly tense but to me I had the opposite reaction; it was odd. We’d only completed a simple task.

Itoi: We hadn’t even been able to do something “simple” for a while. Now that I think about it, we were in a bad place. From that point forward we all relied on Iwata-san. To tell the truth, it took half a year to get everything working.

—: In total, about how long was Mother 2’s development time?

Itoi: How long…? How long was it again?

Iwata: Ummm, from the beginning of development it was pretty much 5 years.

—: That’s including the the time you weren’t there, Iwata-san?

Iwata: Yes, 5 years in total. There were 4 years without me and then I only helped for the final year.

—: Oh? I only just realized now but it only took a year from when you joined the project, Iwata-san?

Itoi: That’s right. It was quick.

Iwata: That’s because many of the individual elements were already completed. The graphics. scenarios, and sound, to name a few, were already completed. They pieces were all there.

—: But it didn’t work, right?

Iwata: No, it didn’t work. (laughs)
 
Makonero said:
I would love to see some sources for this. I knew he was involved with Earthbound, but not to that degree. And I didn't know he had anything to do with Pokemon Gold/Silver, aka my gateway drug to Nintendo games proper (through Smash Bros of course, which was a HAL venture, so did he have a hand in that too?).
Click to expand...

Here is the source for Iwata working on Pokemon Gold / Silver's code:

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/ds/pokemon/0/2

Ishihara:
I remember thinking that there just weren't that many people out there who would be able to read the entire Game Boy source code, which was by no means written in a highly-refined programming language, and grasp how everything connected with everything else. So Iwata-san, you analyzed the whole thing and reworked the code, decided on the way to localize Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, got the battle system running on N64... I was surprised that you managed all of that...

Iwata:
Well at that time, I felt that for the whole team at Nintendo, the biggest priority was not to do anything that would adversely influence the development of Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. So I very naturally slotted in on the development side for Pokémon.

Morimoto:
What's more, there were the tools for compressing the Pokémon graphic code...

Iwata:
Ah yes, the compression tools.

Morimoto:
You were kind enough to create those tools.

Iwata:
Yes. (laughs) Well, I had heard from Ishihara-san that you'd been rather concerned about it.

Morimoto:
At that point, we got a little carried away and were making all sorts of demands, saying: "This part isn't quite right - do you think you could fix it?" We had some nerve to be making those requests to a company president... (laughs)

Iwata:
Well, I was willing to do whatever I could! (laughs)

Ishihara:
It would have been a waste to just have you as President! (laughs) All (laughs)

Iwata:
Being able to participate in that small way in Pokémon, I came to feel a real affinity for the software. In any case, while it was tough going, Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver were successfully released.
 
Somnid said:
Happy Birthday Iwata!

I don't care what they say about you, anyone
who thinks good content is worth money,
who can say no to the temptations of crappy DLC,
who thinks subscriptions are not a good idea,
who can delay a bad game to make it good even under pressure,
who has actually made a worthwhile game,
who believes physical and digital mediums can coexist,
who believes in promoting positive images of gaming for all ages and genders,
who thinks gaming can train your mind and your body.
who can host a video program better than Spike,
who can do a better interview than IGN,
who make an reasonable, intelligent and fact-based argument when your shareholders ask stupid questions,
who will do things even though nobody else is,
who believes that, in the end, what matters is the games and how fun they are
has to be a pretty awesome CEO.
Click to expand...
This is great.
 
Happy birthday Iwata! May the god of videogames bless you With hapiness, fortune and many more (laughs).

Screw the haters

Edit: Also this:

Somnid said:
Happy Birthday Iwata!

I don't care what they say about you, anyone
who thinks good content is worth money,
who can say no to the temptations of crappy DLC,
who thinks subscriptions are not a good idea,
who can delay a bad game to make it good even under pressure,
who has actually made a worthwhile game,
who believes physical and digital mediums can coexist,
who believes in promoting positive images of gaming for all ages and genders,
who thinks gaming can train your mind and your body.
who can host a video program better than Spike,
who can do a better interview than IGN,
who make an reasonable, intelligent and fact-based argument when your shareholders ask stupid questions,
who will do things even though nobody else is,
who believes that, in the end, what matters is the games and how fun they are
has to be a pretty awesome CEO.
Click to expand...
 
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