R.I.P. Satoru Iwata

Just a couple days ago the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata tragically passed away from complications involving a bile duct tumor. I just want to take a few moments and look back at how much of an impact this man had on the gaming world. While he became the president of Nintendo in 2002, his impact on the games we know and love today started much earlier. Personally speaking I am especially thankful for Iwata helping to bring life to both the Kirby and Pokemon series. Had it not been for this man, the games of these two series as well as the Super Mario series and others may not be anywhere near what they are today.

All in all Mr. Iwata helped to make some of the best games that have ever existed. He did so with a basic, yet outstanding philosophy. As he once so brilliantly said "Video games are meant to be just one thing. Fun. Fun for everyone". That is a statement that I find to be 100% dead on accurate. Sadly the days of the majority of video games being purely for fun seem to be fading out quickly. Sure, for many people, the games that Iwata created are still heavily played, but less and less it seems like games are for fun and it's a sad thing to see. Today it feels more and more like games are becoming more and more competitive in nature and less and less as a means of relaxing fun. Iwata was a true gamer at heart and knew just how fun a video game should and really could be.

The loss of Satoru Iwata I feel also brings about a potential loss of future fun for gamers. If you take a look at the latest E3 lineup presented by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, you'll see that only one of these companies focused on pure entertainment and fun this year. That company was Nintendo. Yes Sony has a slew of great games coming out and Microsoft has the whole backwards compatibility thing coming, but neither of those companies focused on the entertainment factor nearly as much as Nintendo lead by Iwata. Without Iwata at the helm a cloud of mystery has formed over the future of Nintendo. I hope the company will continue to focus on creating the most entertaining games it can and not get sucked into the whole graphics war and the battle of who can create the most emotional or violent game.

Thank you Satoru Iwata for everything that you've done for the world of video games. Thank you for always keeping the fans in mind and becoming a real icon in the industry. You literally made countless children's childhoods (including myself) something really special through your games. Had it not have been for you we may never have had Earthbound, the DS, the Wii, the Wii U, and other franchises of games that we have come to know and love. Age 55 is far to young for this sort of thing to happen and you will be deeply missed and never forgotten by gamers around the world.