Satoru Iwata was the fourth president of the popular video game company Nintendo. Iwata had a huge interest in video games from an early age, and majored in computer science at the Tokyo University of Technology. In 1980 he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory, where he worked as a programmer and began collaboration with Nintendo. Some of his contributions to HAL Laboratory include the game series Kirby and EarthBound. Iwata became president of HAL Laboratory in 1993, where he assisted in the development of Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. He officially joined Nintendo in 2000.

Nintendo noticed that Iwata was showing amazing growth, and eventually he became president of Nintendo in 2002, succeeding previous president Hiroshi Yamauchi. He developed two new consoles for Nintendo, the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii, which both were huge successes. Later console releases were the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo WiiU, which weren't as successful as the previous products. Iwata was also famous for his "talk-show", Iwata Asks, and appearing on Nintendo Direct, a program that showcases upcoming games and consoles.

In June of 2014, he went to a routine physical exam at the doctor's, where it was discovered that there was a tumor in his bile duct. It was removed, and he went back to work. However, it returned in 2015, and Iwata died on July 11, 2015 at the age of 55.

During his life, Satoru Iwata created a huge impact on the video game industry. His passing resonated with Nintendo fans around the world.