Been gone a while, have I?
No. I’m still here. I’m just toiling away at one project after another. A series of assessments and courseworks and I’ve been bombarded every week with another. There hasn’t really been much time until now. I have finished MOST of my assignments. All in the hopes that come Tuesday I can do what most of you will also be doing:
Yup! Got my Pip Boy Edition on the way Tuesday morning. I won’t be able to enjoy the physical copy because it’s in the States, but I can at least get the code from the box (with a little help) and play it. I’ll give myself in the realm of 3 entire days to enjoy it and then I’ll go to my next assignment due on the 26th.
I’m sure you’re all excited and to avoid spoiling things I would recommend you stay off of Reddit and avoid social media from Sunday evening onwards. Many people have already begun to receive their copies and a few of them have taken to trying to spoil the game. I don’t think its malicious; they’re just trying to share their bounty with everyone. :-p
Anyways, now that my words have been said about Fallout I’ll talk about one of the things I have been meaning to talk about for a few months now. The passing of Satoru Iwata.
I’m sure you all can guess by now that I want to be a game developer. Anyone following this ‘blog’ should be aware of my last year of learnings (at least a little bit) and how involved I try to stay in the industry and the media regarding games.
Iwata’s passing was definitely a game changer. The atmosphere at Nintendo feels different. They have been making a LOT of changes in their business plan and infrastructure but even through all that it felt like Iwata was trying to retain their identity in spite of the flow towards mobile gaming. Whatever Nintendo’s official stance was on all of this everything they did still felt very Nintendo-y.
And yet, now things feel like they could go in any direction. Tatsumi Kimishima is the new President. He was already the President of Nintendo of America for a while until Reggie took over in ‘06 and so its understandable they would pick him; he has experience and, presumably, wisdom. He worked for the Sanwa Bank of Japan for 27 years in their corporate planning, international business development, corporate communications, and promotions. He obviously has a lot of experience working with corporations and making them sustainable. His experience has taken him all of the USA, parts of Central America, and the Caribbean. All of this sounds great in his corporate resume, but there is one thing anyone who has grown up with Nintendo will recognize; Nintendo is about more than just profit margins and investments.
Nintendo has been full of heart since the early days. Their games always have a different tenor then anything Sony and Microsoft ( or Sega ) have ever made. You can attribute a lot of what made Nintendo what it was to the names and faces we have come to recognize in the industry as legends. I won’t name all the names because there’s a very long list, but a few you will know right away were Iwata and Miyamoto.
A little bit of background on Iwata. He started as a developer long ago. A code monkey, if you will. He had a mind of the logic and a heart for the games. He worked on many industry favorites like Kirby, Balloon Fight, Earthbound, Pokemon games, Smash Bros., etc. Iwata was never above rolling up his sleeves and coding even in his days as the President of Nintendo. How many executives do you know that will sit down in a chair and help the lower level guys get through a task they’re struggling on? Most execs don’t even know HOW to do the jobs below them. (”That’s what I pay you for, slave!” -Random Exec). If you’ve ever played Pokemon Stadium you can thank Iwata. He took the code from Pokemon Green and Red and ported it into Stadium by HIMSELF in ONE WEEK. He made the entire battle system single-handedly.
Iwata was responsible for the direction Nintendo took with the DS and Wii. Innovating new technology despite what people thought about it’s applications and look where we are now. Touch Screen technology is ingrained in the industry as more than just a gimmick. Motion technology became a household staple in gaming for a while and still persists today. Iwata knew the potential these technologies were capable of and had the foresight to implement new designs before anyone else thought of it.
When the company saw its first financial losses in nearly 30 years of operation instead of blaming people below him and firing staff to compensate the books he took a huge pay cut (half his salary) to avoid laying off any staff. No other CEO would do this for their company. Nintendo was more than just a job to him. (Iwata would go on to take another pay cut later for the same reason.)
I could go on and on about his accomplishments and his amazing gestures to the people around him, but I think enough has already been said for anyone to understand why he was so great. I wish I had the opportunity to meet him, but I know that it is unrealistic to meet people you look up to. I will still take his life as a lesson to learn from. If I ever get to be that successful I will remember who brought me up when I needed it the most. I’ll strive to bring the others around me up and help them succeed.
No person should ever be above getting his hands on the work he will attribute his namesake to. And no one should ever be so successful they forget where they came from.
