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Iwata Satoru, the president of Nintendo, died Saturday, July 11th, of a bile duct tumor at the age of 55. Mr. Iwata led the company from 2002 to his death in 2015 and directed the development of both the DS and the Wii, greatly contributing to the company's success.
Iwata was an extremely skilled programmer, managing to squeeze in the entirety of the land area from Pokemon Red and Blue into Pokemon Gold and Silver despite the large new area added and the limitations of the Game Boy cartridge simply because he had compressed the game so much that he thought he should fill the newly available space with something. He even reprogrammed Earthbound from scratch, single handedly, to cut down on size and improve performance and he ported the battle code from the original Game Boy Pokemon games to Pokemon Stadium on the N64 without reference documents despite the completely different hardware architecture.
He was also, by all accounts, extremely friendly and personable, willing to speak with fans personally about what was going on with the company. When the Wii U sold less than expected, Iwata cut his own salary in half rather than lay off employees.
Iwata was an extremely skilled programmer, managing to squeeze in the entirety of the land area from Pokemon Red and Blue into Pokemon Gold and Silver despite the large new area added and the limitations of the Game Boy cartridge simply because he had compressed the game so much that he thought he should fill the newly available space with something. He even reprogrammed Earthbound from scratch, single handedly, to cut down on size and improve performance and he ported the battle code from the original Game Boy Pokemon games to Pokemon Stadium on the N64 without reference documents despite the completely different hardware architecture.
He was also, by all accounts, extremely friendly and personable, willing to speak with fans personally about what was going on with the company. When the Wii U sold less than expected, Iwata cut his own salary in half rather than lay off employees.
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