Satoru Iwata, who helped oversee the successful launches of the Nintendo DS and Wii as Nintendo CEO, had died. He was only 55 years old.
The company announced that Iwata died on Saturday due to a bile duct growth. He had been director at the company since 2000 and was named president in 2002. In June 2013, he was named CEO of Nintendo of America Inc.
Iwata started in video games at HAL Laboratory during the 1980s. in 1993, he became HAL’s president after Kirby’s Dream Land. He went to Nintendo in 2000, working on Super Smash Brothers and Pokemon games, notes the New York Times.
When Iwata became president of Nintendo, it helped give the company a younger look and during the past decade, the company did successfully launch the DS and Wii. However, in recent years, Nintendo has struggled to stay in competition while mobile games became hot. Iwata told Time magazine in March that the company would finally start focusing on mobile games. In May, the company also signed a deal with Universal Studios to bring rides to the theme parks.
According to Time, Iwata was just the fourth Nintendo CEO and the first not to be a member of the Yamauchi family.