Satoru Iwata, who died in July, led the gaming company for
13 years
Two months after the passing of its former CEO, video gaming
giant Nintendo has announced who will take the company’s helm.
The Japanese company announced Monday that Tatsumi
Kimishima, a former banker and a longtime Nintendo director, is the choice to
take over as CEO in the wake of the July death of Satoru Iwata, who led
Nintendo for 13 years. Kimishima had most recently been serving as the
company’s Managing Director after previously spending seven years as CEO of
Nintendo of America.
Since Iwata’s passing, Executive Directors Genyo Takeda and
Shigeru Miyamoto have steered the company, with most speculation centered
around Miyamoto — known for creating classic Nintendo franchises such as Mario,
Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda — as the presumptive pick to be the next
Nintendo CEO. Instead, it will be the lesser-known Kimishima, who joined the
company’s Pokémon subsidiary in 2000 before becoming a Nintendo director two
years later.
Kimishima now has to fill the large shoes left behind by his
predecessor, Iwata, who passed away at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth
after having led the gaming company through one of its most successful periods
as just its fourth president and CEO. Iwata’s legacy at the helm of Nintendo
will likely be the Wii console system, which sold more than 100 million units.
The next step for the company will likely be mobile gaming,
as Nintendo looks to launch a handful of mobile video game titles within the
next two years. While the company has shown reluctance to enter the mobile
gaming realm in the past, Iwata said in March that Nintendo would develop games
featuring some of its classic characters through a partnership with smartphone
game maker DeNA.
Meanwhile, as Nintendo’s most famous character, Mario of
Super Mario Bros., celebrates his 30th anniversary this week, the company has
recently received a boost from the online gaming, led by the success of online
shooter Splatoon.
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