Satoru Iwata, president of Japanese multinational consumer electronics company Nintendo, died last Saturday of a bile duct tumor.
Sources reported that the company announced the death of its chief executive in a statement to media last Sunday. According to AP, as reported in abcnews.go.com, he died at a Kyoto University Hospital. He was survived by his wife Kayoko. Funeral services will be held on July 17.
Widespread sorrow and condolences over Iwata's death were expressed on Twitter and other social media as well as Miiverse, Nintendo's online community.
"He didn't just create technology. He created a whole culture," Nobuyuki Hayashi, a consultant and technology expert, was quoted as saying by AP. "It wasn't just a consumer product that he delivered. He brought to people something that's eternal, what people remember from when they were kids. He was special."
According to the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, the Nintendo chief executive had surgery on the tumor in June 2014 and missed the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2014 and the company's annual stockholders' meeting. But he had resumed his duties as president and was active until lately.
According to Time, Iwata, 55, was the company's fourth president and the first outside the Yamauchi family, which owns Nintendo. He replaced Hiroshi Yamauchi, who had been president since 1949, in May 2002.
Iwata's death comes at a time when the company is about to enter the mobile gaming market, a move which, according to the Wall Street Journal, the president had been reluctant to make.
Upon his appointment as chief executive, Iwata presided over the introduction to the world market of bestselling products such as the Wii console, Nintendo DS handheld and Amiibo interactive figurines. However, the company's share price and market share began to fall as games on mobile devices became more popular and lucrative.
At a press conference last March, Iwata announced that his company had formed a partnership with Japanese game provider DeNA to develop video games for smartphones based on characters like Super Mario and Pokemon. The two companies reportedly exchanged ownership stakes and set a new mobile game platform for the purpose.
