alexigingerov:

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, is gone. Since he was more visible to the public in recent years, people will most likely remember him as a guy who showed up in Nintendo Direct videos, but he was so much more than that:

• He was solely responsible for porting the battle system from Pokemon Red/Green to Pokemon Stadium, and did it in a week
• He was called in to help with Pokemon Gold/Silver, and compressed/optimized the game’s code to such an extent that they had room on the cartridge to add Kanto as a playable region
• He was the lead programmer on Earthbound and producer on several SNES-era Kirby games while serving as president of HAL Laboratory
• When Nintendo was facing tough times financially as a result of the Wii U’s lackluster performance, he took a 50% pay cut

He was a kick-ass programmer and had a tremendous influence on some of Nintendo’s most memorable games. He will be sorely missed.