Satoru Iwata, Nintendo president, dead at 55

Satoru Iwata, who led Japanese video game company Nintendo Co. through years of growth with its Pokemon and Super Mario franchises, died July 11 of a bile duct tumour, the company said Monday. He was 55.

Iwata, president from 2002, died in a Kyoto University hospital. He had not been seen recently at game events, such as E3 in Los Angeles, where he was usually a participant.

Iwata led Nintendo's development into a global company, with its hit Wii home console and DS handheld, and also through its recent woes caused by the popularity of smartphones.

• Nintendo fans pay tribute to Satoru Iwata
• Pictures of rare Nintendo-Sony Play Station console posted online
• Nintendo attractions coming to Universal Studios theme parks
• Nintendo, DeNA partner for smartphone games strategy

His replacement was not immediately announced, but the company said star game designer Shigeru Miyamoto will remain in the leadership team along with Genyo Takeda.

Iwata had been poised to lead Nintendo through another stage after it recently did an about-face and said it will start making games for smartphones meaning that Super Mario the plumber will start arriving on cellphones and tablets.

The falloff in appetite for game machines in the past few years was partly because people are increasingly playing games or doing social media and other activities on smartphones. Nintendo has repeatedly had to lower prices on gadgets to woo buyers.

Pioneering innovation

Until the recent shift in strategy, company officials including Iwata had repeatedly rejected the idea of developing games for mobile devices, a market that they brushed off for years as irrelevant.

In March, Nintendo announced an alliance with Japanese mobile game company DeNA Co. to develop games for mobile devices.

The company returned to profit in the fiscal year ended March 2015 after several years of losses.

Nintendo pioneered game machines since the 1980s, developing one of the first machines and the hit Game Boy hand-held machine.

Its main rivals in the business are Sony Corp. with the PlayStation machines and Microsoft Corp. with the Xbox One machine. Both companies have done better in adapting to the era of online and mobile games.

Respected figure

Iwata succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ruled over the Kyoto-based company for half a century, transforming it from a traditional playing-card company to a technological powerhouse. Yamauchi died in 2013 at 85.

Iwata was picked, with Yamauchi's blessing, and Yamauchi remained an adviser for many years.

Iwata was a respected and popular figure in the game industry, partly because he was relatively more approachable than executives at other Japanese companies, who tend to be aloof and rigid in demeanour.

A funeral service will be held on July 17. He is survived by his wife Kayoko. The company declined to disclose other details of his family.