President and CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, passed away on July 11.

I've known about the guy since before he became Nintendo's president, back when he was a programmer at HAL Laboratory, through reading issues of Nintendo Power. I still remember being surprised when he was crowned president, because it seemed like such an unexpected thing at the time, for someone at his position to ascend to the top so quickly. Being that I've been playing HAL's games ever since I was a kid, Iwata's work has had a huge impact on my life. In more recent years, I enjoyed Iwata Asks, where Iwata interviewed game developers within Nintendo about the games they worked on and then published the translated transcripts online. I didn't know the man personally, but I'll miss him.

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