Oddworld creator apologizes for remarks made about Satoru Iwata, clarifies Nintendo comments
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 69 Comments
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.
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Miyamoto on what sticks out to him about Iwata
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
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.
More: interview, Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, top
Happy 57th birthday, Satoru Iwata
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
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 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 12 Comments
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 8 years ago by Zack in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments
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.
More: famicom, Joust, Satoru Iwata
Iwata continued to work from the hospital until his passing, including Pokemon GO
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 20 Comments
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.”
More: Niantic, Pokemon GO, Satoru Iwata
Let’s take a moment to remember Satoru Iwata
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 22 Comments
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.
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Denis Dyack on Shadow of the Eternals, working with Miyamoto/Iwata, NX excitement, more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch | 4 Comments
Eternal Darkness creator Denis Dyack spoke with YouTube user SuperMetaldave64 in a new podcast published today. Dyack gave an update on the Shadow of the Eternals project, his experience working with Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata, his excitement for NX, and more.
Here are a few excerpts:
On Shadow of the Eternals…
“There’s likely to be some announcements in the not-too-distant future. When we actually do it, I can’t say at this point, but I do think that there’s going to be a couple of shockers coming. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the responses are. We’re really excited. And remember as well, our company we’re not just doing games, so we’re pairing with television and film as well so it’ll be a myriad of things coming out on some of the things that we’re doing. It’s going to be very different.”
Star Fox Zero credits pay tribute to Satoru Iwata
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 19 Comments
It’s not often that we post credits from games. However, there’s a particularly touching inclusion within Star Fox Zero’s staff roll, which we felt was worth sharing.
About halfway through the credits, the following line pops up: “This game is dedicated to our wingman who fell in battle.” It’s a clear nod to late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who passed away last year.
Head past the break for the video with the full credits if you’re interested in doing so ahead of launch! It naturally contains a few final scenes from the game.
More: PlatinumGames, Satoru Iwata, Star Fox Zero, top
Satoru Iwata given a tribute at the 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
Satoru Iwata was honored at the DICE awards last month with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Tonight, it was GDC’s turn to celebrate the life of the late Nintendo president.
David Hellman and Raber Umphenour created a special animation that was shown at the 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards a short while ago. Here’s the full clip:
