Mr. Satoru Iwata passed away a week ago on July 11th. There have been many write-ups and remembrances of Mr. Iwata online, and I have been struggling to find what I wanted to add. Like many, I feel a profound sense of loss for a man I have never met.
Iwata was only 55. He wasn’t just the President and CEO of Nintendo, whose many accomplishments can be read about elsewhere. He was one of us, someone who loved games, and fun. Through his Nintendo Directs, he was not just an advocate for what was coming the following season from your friends at Nintendo, he was an advocate for gaming and play itself. More than that, he was – by all accounts – a humble, kind man. He left the world a slightly better place than how he found it.
It’s not much, but you may have seen some of my fake Commodore 64 screens on Twitter. I put together a fake Nintendo Entertainment System screen below, in tribute. I’m certainly using too many background palettes and pretty sure I’ve used up more than my allotted tiles, but it’s very close to what could actually be displayed on a real NES. Thank you, Mr. Iwata, for everything.
