Yoot Saito reflects on Iwata – confirms Iwata approached him about Seaman 3DS and more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 11 Comments
Japanese developer Yoot Saito posted a lengthy blog about the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata yesterday. In it, he discusses his first meeting with Iwata, working on an idea or StreetPass way back in the day, how he came up with putting a speaker on the Wii Remote, and perhaps most surprisingly, confirmed that Seaman for 3DS once existed.
You may recall that Seaman was rumored for 3DS back in 2012. We now know that the project once existed, but Saito sadly gave up on the project.
Head past the break for Saito’s entire heartfelt message. The translation comes courtesy of Zefah.
I heard the tragic news about the passing of Nintendo’s president, Iwata-san… I can’t believe he’s gone.
I first met Iwata-san back in 1996, so it was a time before you would typically see him in a suit. It was at HAL in Kofu. I remember that he always carried around a Mac (PowerBook), which was quite rare in the games industry. I think that formed a bit of connection between us—a feeling that we shared the same interests. It was around the year after that when I saw him with a G3 PowerBook, which even I had hesitated to buy, and I remember thinking, “this guy really loves Macs.”
It wasn’t until a bit later that I got a chance to work with him. It was around the time when Seaman was taking the world by storm and I was really busy working on planning for the sequel and taking interviews and such.
Iwata-san got in touch and asked if we could meet, and he even came all the way out to the apartment I was renting in Tokyo to see me.
