Satoru Iwata’s “directly to you” pose inspired a Gravity Rush 2 design element
Posted on 1 month ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Random, Switch | 0 comments | 0 Likes
Gravity Rush concept artist Takeshi Oga recently attended an event where illustrators and concept artists discussed their work. As part of this, Oga revealed that he actually took some inspiration from late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s “directly to you” pose, which was often demonstrated during Nintendo Directs. This ended up having an influence on a design element in the PlayStation 4 game Gravity Rush 2.
Here’s what Oga shared:
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“Homebrew tool” can be used to activate NES Golf on Switch
Posted on 6 months ago by Tyler(@tylerlelliott) in News, Switch | 8 Comments | 0 Likes
As previously reported, the NES version of Golf is hidden as an easter egg within the Switch’s firmware as an apparent homage to the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who was the programmer for the game. In order to unlock Golf, the Switch’s cached network time needs to be set to July 11, the day that Iwata passed away. With this in mind, many people believed they would have to wait until 2018 to unlock the game.
However, a member on NeoGaf has posted a workaround that involves changing the internal clock in a way that will keep the easter egg active in order to activate it. More information is available here.
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Satoru Iwata passed away two years ago today – let’s remember his greatness
Posted on 9 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 46 Comments | 0 Likes
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed ago two years ago today. Iwata lost the fight to bile duct cancer on July 11, 2015.
With Iwata’s contributions to Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole, we should take a moment to recognize and reflect on his importance. He wasn’t your typical president having originally started out as a game developer. Iwata kept coding until he was 40, and helped Smash Bros. Melee get out on time. He was instrumental in the hugely successful Wii and DS. And really, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
So, thank you Iwata. It’s still unbelievable that you’re not here with us still, but everything you accomplished will not be forgotten.
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Oddworld creator apologizes for remarks made about Satoru Iwata, clarifies Nintendo comments
Posted on 9 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 69 Comments | 0 Likes
In April, Oddworld creator and Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning appeared on The GameOverGreggy Show. Though the show was originally recorded in April, some comments Lanning made about Nintendo made the rounds at the end of this week.
Lanning noted a few things – he personally thought Switch would likely be unsuccessful, that it might not be worthwhile for third-parties given what happened on Wii and Wii U, and several other comments.
Ultimately the biggest remark that caught on is something Lanning said about late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. He said that “The thinking has to change,” before adding: “The biggest problem I see at Nintendo is the thinking. Personally, I think it killed Iwata – that he couldn’t move the organization into a really successful arena.”
Lanning has now apologized “for the poor choice of words concerning Satoru Iwata.” He also clarified what he was originally trying to say. We’ve rounded up everything Lanning passed along on Twitter below.
Miyamoto on what sticks out to him about Iwata
Posted on 1 year ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments | 1 Likes
In an interview conducted by The New Yorker, Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about the piece of advise late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata gave to him which he cherishes the most.
Miyamoto thought about the question for a bit, and then went on to mention that Iwata “had this unique ability to rally people around a vision.” Iwata was able “to take something, give it shape and then to motivate people.”
Miyamoto also spoke about how unique Iwata was from the standpoint of a programmer. Although such developers may tell designers why something would be impossible, Iwata was the opposite, and “would say he was going to figure out how to make it work.”
You can listen to Miyamoto’s full comments on Iwata below.
Happy 57th birthday, Satoru Iwata
Posted on 1 year ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments | 0 Likes
Satoru Iwata may no longer be with us, though we do like to honor his memory when possible. And since Nintendo’s president/CEO would have been 57 today, we wanted to recognize his birthday. Well… we’re technically a day late. It’s December 7 in Japan, but his birthday falls on the 6th.
In any case, happy birthday to Iwata. Thanks for everything you contributed to Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole. You left us much too soon!
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Iwata wrote messages to Nintendo’s various employees before passing away last year
Posted on 1 year ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 12 Comments | 0 Likes
Since the passing of Satoru Iwata, we’ve heard some interesting stories about the late Nintendo president. For instance, he was said to have worked from his hospital bed on various projects and kept in touch with The Pokemon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara on Pokemon GO.
The latest issue of Toyo Keizai has a Nintendo feature, and offers additional background information as to how Iwata approached his work while being ill. It seems that he wrote frequent messages aimed at all employees after leaving the hospital. Thinking about Nintendo’s future, it sounds like he wanted to leave the things he inherited from his predecessors to others.
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First Nintendo code ever written by Satoru Iwata possibly found
Posted on 1 year ago by Zack in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments | 1 Likes
The first piece of Nintendo code ever written by the late Satoru Iwata may have been discovered in the circuit boards of several old Famicom games. The circuit boards were purchased and discovered by Frank Cifaldi, the head of restoration at developer Digital Eclipse. Calling them an “incredible piece of video game history”, Cifaldi went on to explain the importance of these relics. The four boards he purchased belong to the games Hyper Olympic, Stargate, Soccer and Joust. While all are valuable treasures to a game historian, the most noteworthy item is the circuit board for Joust, as it was programmed by a young Iwata in 1983 as part of deal between Nintendo and Atari that never went through, long before he became the president of Nintendo.
What makes the circuit boards especially valuable is the fact that this is “earlier-than-retail” code, possibly being some of the earliest versions of each respective game. Together with the fact that the Joust code was the first piece of code that the president Satoru Iwata ever worked on, and the Joust circuit board likely predating the official release of the game means that Frank Cifaldi has stumbled upon what is possibly the first piece of code ever written by Iwata. You can find the series of tweets detailing the discovery below.
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Iwata continued to work from the hospital until his passing, including Pokemon GO
Posted on 1 year ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 20 Comments | 0 Likes
Late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed away from bile duct cancer last July. Yet up until his death, he still continued to be deeply involved with different projects, such as Pokemon GO.
In a new article, Nikkei writes that “[Iwata] continued to work in a hospital room until the last moment, using his favorite PC and exchanging views on ‘Pokemon Go’ with Tsunekazu Ishihara, the Pokemon Company’s president and his close friend.” The site also says that Iwata was “closely involved” with Pokemon GO’s development “from the planning stage.”
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Let’s take a moment to remember Satoru Iwata
Posted on 1 year ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 22 Comments | 1 Likes
One year ago, late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed away. He was just 55.
Iwata passed away on July 11 (it’s now that same day in Japan) of last year. We actually didn’t know about what had happened until a couple of days later. Out of nowhere, Nintendo put up an official notice on its investor relation’s website about the situation.
Looking back on that time, everything felt so surreal. I still remember seeing that notice on Nintendo’s website and questioning if what I was looking at was legitimate. We knew Iwata was dealing with a health issue, but I just couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen the news floating around anywhere else, so I was just hoping that it was somehow untrue.
It was an extremely sad period around this time for everyone last year. For me, Iwata’s passing really had an impact – more so than I could have ever imagined. Even though I never knew him personally, I just felt incredibly sad knowing that he wasn’t here with us anymore.
There’s no question that Iwata has been missed over the past 12 months, and that will continue. All we can do is keep his memory alive, remember all that he did for the gaming industry, and how many people he impacted.
Thank you for everything, Satoru Iwata.
