Japanese electronics company Nintendo said on July 13, Monday, that its chief executive officer Satoru Iwata has died. Iwata, who was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, died on July 11 at the age of 55.
Iwata undergone a major surgery to suppress the spread of cancer cells in June 2014. Nintendo publicized the death of Iwata through a brief and precise statement, "Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth."
Iwata started his career as a programmer at Nintendo's HAL Laboratory and was appointed as Nintendo's chief executive in 2002. He replaced Hiroshi Yamauchi and was named fourth president of Nintendo in a company saga than spanned 125 years. Iwata was also the first non-Yamauchi to be appointed as Nintendo president.
According to BBC, Iwata was responsible for putting Nintendo on top of the gaming sector when he released the Nintendo DS which became the best-selling handheld video game console when it hit the market in 2004.
Two years after the release of the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo Wii was launched which added more success to the company. However, the unprecedented rise of mobile phone gaming has caused the popularity of the Nintendo DS and Wii to significantly dwindle.
Nintendo's consoles have continued to struggle against rivals from Sony and Microsoft. The Nintendo Wii U has been sitting idly in the third spot while the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One continued to dominate the top two spot in terms of sales dominance in the console gaming market.
Before leaving the company for medical reasons, Iwata made some important decision and finally agrees to move into other areas of the gaming market. In March, Nintendo announced its plan to acquire mobile gaming company DeNA as part of the company's plan to move into the smartphone gaming market, according to The Guardian.