With the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, fans located near the company’s North America were hopping to pay their respects today. Visitors left behind flowers, a special drawing, and even a silver Mario amiibo.
A funeral for Satoru Iwata will be held on July 17, according to ABC. His wife Kayoko should be attending the service when it takes place later this week.
Iwata passed away on Saturday due to a bile duct growth. He was 55 years old.
The first trailer for Legend of Kay Anniversary is now available. View it below.
Legend of Kay Anniversary launches for Wii U on July 28.
We’ve been posting various comments from members of the gaming industry about the sad passing of Satoru Iwata throughout the day. However, there have also been reactions from at least a couple of non-gaming companies/organizations.
Skype posted the image above on its Twitter account a short while ago. Meanwhile, PETA senior director of marketing innovations Joel Bartlett passed along the following statement:
We at PETA are deeply saddened by the death of Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata. Many of us grew up with Nintendo—we’ve celebrated games such as Nintendogs, which PETA Europe named Best Animal-Friendly Video Game, and our love for these games powered the parodies we’ve made, such as the Super Mario Bros.–spoofing Super Chick Sisters, in which players try to save Princess Pamela Anderson from the evil Colonel Sanders, and Pokémon Black & Blue: Gotta Free ‘Em All, in which players battle to free Pokémon from human enslavement. Our thoughts are with Mr. Iwata’s family and everyone at Nintendo today.
Back in March, TIME conducted an interview with Satoru Iwata. Much of the interview was left out of the site’s original report, but with Iwata’s passing, they’ve now been put online for all to see.
In what was likely one of Iwata’s final interviews with a media outlet, he commented on engaging with Nintendo fans in unique ways, the evolution of digital content, the importance of multigenerational design, working on the original Smash Bros., amiibo, and bringing out the Wii.
You may have seen a couple of these comments in shorter form before. However, most of them should be entirely new.
We’ve posted those comments after the break. You can also find TIME’s original article here.
Nintendo fans have started a campaign to pay their respects to Satoru Iwata. Through the QR code above, you can obtain Iwata’s Mii on your Wii U console. People are using his Mii in Mario Kart 8 as a means of paying tribute to his memory.
If you happen to be around Nintendo World in New York, you can stop by the store to offer condolences for the passing of Satoru Iwata. It looks like a couple of books have been set up so that fans can leave messages in recognition of the Nintendo president.
Update (7/13): Amazon’s announcement was expected today, but it has been pushed back to tomorrow due to the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The same representative from the retailer posted the following on Reddit about a half hour ago:
Hey everyone. I know how excited you are for what we have in store, but my team just had a discussion, and out of respect for Satoru Iwata, we’re going to be delaying our announcement by one day. Iwata was a visionary that had a near-immeasurable impact on the industry as a whole, and we didn’t want to simply ignore that and push forward without acknowledging. RIP Satoru Iwata.
Amazon is gearing up for some sort of amiibo announcement on Monday. Over on Reddit’s amiibo board, one of the retailer’s representatives made a topic titled: “No, Esteban! Not until Monday!”
Some of you might be wondering what the image above is about. Furthermore, you may be curious as to who Esteban is. This handy explanation should sort things out for you:
Esteban was an Amazon employee who gave this sub some info about when certain Amiibo would go live on the site. A cult following resulted in Amazon posting a picture of a rooster on Twitter. Allegedly, the rooster is Esteban.
So this picture, from AmazonJosh, likely implies that something big and Amiibo-related will occur on Monday, and the tie around his beak is to keep Esteban’s mouth shut so as not to spoil the surprise.
Basically, some sort of amiibo announcement is happening at the beginning of next week. Maybe a restock of figures? That’d certainly make sense given how amiibo have been reappearing at stores such as GameStop and Target.
Moving Player first confirmed plans to bring Rakoo’s Adventure to Wii U last October. Today, the company shared concrete details about this new console version.
Rakoo’s Adventure has been renamed to “Rakoo & Friends” on Wii U. Moving Player says that the eShop release “bloomed into a multiplayer console version full of fun and surprises”.
Here’s an overview of the game’s features:
– Join Rakoo in his adventures with this Full HD Wii U release
– An original racing and adventure game filled with humor and amazing cartoon graphics
– Up to 5 players in an exclusive multiplayer mode!
– Over 60 levels to complete with this endearing hero you will guide with your Wii U GamePad
– A multitude of enemies with various characteristics and epic bosses
– Fun bonuses ranging from «Hot Spicy» that boosts the speed to «Destructive Mount», an epic mount!
– Collect rewards and unique Miiverse stamps.
– Customize your heroes with fun objects!
Rakoo’s Adventure will be shown at Gamescom 2015 next month. It’s being tested for release by Nintendo, so it should be launching sooner rather than later.
Source: Moving Player PR
