Satoru Iwata

Satoru Iwata
Iwata at Game Developers Conference in 2011
Native name	岩田 聡
Born	(1959-12-06)December 6, 1959 Sapporo, Japan
Died	July 11, 2015(2015-07-11) (aged 55) Kyoto, Japan
Cause of death	Complications from a bile duct tumor
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	Tokyo Institute of Technology
Employer	HAL Laboratory (1980–2000) Nintendo (2000–2015)
Notable work	EarthBound, Balloon Fight, Kirby, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros.
Title	President and CEO of Nintendo
Term	2002–2015
Predecessor	Hiroshi Yamauchi
Successor	Tatsumi Kimishima
Spouse(s)	Kayoko Iwata (m. ?–2015; his death)

Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru^?, December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese video game programmer and businessman who served as the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo. He is widely regarded as a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games to a wider audience by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.

Born in Sapporo, Japan, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He later majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. During his early years at HAL Laboratory he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Notable titles to which he contributed at HAL include EarthBound and the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL Laboratory in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability to the company. In the following years, he assisted in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate-planning division in 2000.