We lost Satoru Iwata a few years ago and it’s still hitting us like a ton of bricks. It seems like only yesterday that he was featured in Nintendo Directs, giving us memorable facial expressions and phrases while we checked out the latest that was coming from the publisher. Indeed, he is missed.
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With that, Satoshi Mitsuhara, the president of HAL Laboratories — where Iwata got his start before moving on to Nintendo presidency for several years — talked with Forbes about his fond memories with Iwata-san. And, man, now we wish we were close friends with him.
Mitsuhara first talked about how Iwata was able to bring HAL and Nintendo together when it came to working on the initial console from the company, the Famicom. (That’s the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System, btw.) “Satoru Iwata, who had worked for HAL Laboratory back then, expressed that he wants to make Famicom games to Nintendo. That was the beginning of our relationship with Nintendo. The differentiating point between us and our competitors was that we made games before the Famicom was released. That meant we had the know-how,” he explained.
But then Mitsuhara got personal, talking about how Iwata also shined as a lovable human being. “Satoru Iwata was a very straight person. Never tried to cheat or have any kind of intent to do that at all. Even when other people were cheating or doing something underhand, he never used that as a reason to do likewise. At work, he was also a very serious and honest person, that sincerity and honesty made the company very pleasant. He also had a big capacity for things, he could take on a lot. We were very close friends.
“One time, when we were extremely busy on Mother 2 (also known as EarthBound) for Super Famicom we often went out together for dinner after work. On our way home from dinner, we used to go to the arcades and play Daytona USA exactly twice. Always twice and leave. I reckoned we did that every week. It was really like work hard and play hard.”
Man. We can’t imagine how fun it would’ve been to race Iwata-san at Daytona. Sigh. We miss you, sir.
Want more memories? Check out the full interview here!
