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RIP: Nintendo President Satoru Iwata

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Japanese videogame giant Nintendo announces the death of president Satoru Iwata on 11 July, age 55, due to bile duct cancer.

IwataIwata was named the fourth president in Nintendo's 126-year history-- and the first outside the founding Yamauchi family-- in 2002. An industry veteran, Iwata was originally a programmer, having worked on classic titles such as Balloon Fight, Kirby and EarthBound, before moving into upper management.

Under Iwata's tenure Nintendo launched some of its most successful (and arguably riskiest) hardware to date, namely the Wii home console and the DS handheld family, as well as the more recent Wii U. He also embraced the role of public face for the much loved company, regularly appearing in quirky "Nintendo Direct" videos and interviewing game developers in the "Iwata Asks" series.

"Video games are meant to be just one thing," Iwata said in 2006. "Fun. Fun for everyone."

The company gives no word of possible successors as yet, but it names executives Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto as representative directors in the interim.

Go Nintendo Notification and Personnel Change of Representative Director (President)