Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata, who led the Japanese gamemaker back to ascendancy in the early 2000s with the Wii console, has died. He was 55.
Iwata died July 11 from bile duct cancer, the Kyoto, Japan- based company said in a statement Monday.
The first president from outside the Yamauchi family since it started selling cards in the late 19th century, Iwata had led Nintendo since 2002 and helped oversee a tripling of revenue with hits including the Game Boy Advance SP and the Wii. The rise of smartphones ate into sales of the company’s handheld game player and its Wii U console failed to match its predecessor’s success. Iwata took a leave last year for surgery to remove a bile-duct growth.
“Iwata made a great contribution to the industry,” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute in Tokyo. “It’s a great loss for Nintendo.”
In March, Iwata ended his hold-out against making Nintendo’s iconic characters available on smartphones and tablet computers, agreeing to form a venture with DeNA Co.
Shares of Nintendo rose 4.1 percent to 20,315 yen as of 9:05 am in Tokyo. The stock has surged 61 percent this year compared with a 14 percent rise in the benchmark Topix index.
