Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has passed away at 55 of a bile duct growth. He leaves behind an eternal legacy of gaming and business done right.

Satoru Iwata, one of Nintendo’s recognizable faces along with the American branch president Reggie Fils-Aimé, has passed away the last 11 of July after a hard battle with a type of bile duct cancer. Nintendo broke the news through their web page which read “Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth“.

Iwata had already been through a series of procedures when this cancer was first discovered, and even skipped a few high-profile events such as E3 to take care of his health. With Iwata gone, we’ve lost one of the pioneers of the first, early Nintendo. He had been in the company since the 80’s and helped create classics such as Balloon Fight or the beloved Earthbound, the second entry in the Mother series. In early 2000 he became the company director, and in 2002 he was named the fourth president in the Japanese giant’s history, taking over former president Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Iwata had a central role along the lives of several consoles such as the Gamecube, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U – some of those broke all records and became a part of history, some others failed to impress gamers and investors. Regardless of victories and failures, Iwata leaves behind him a trail of pure innovation and the magic of one of the industry’s giants – maybe the only man with a legacy quite as important would be Shigeru Miyamoto himself, the creator of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda.

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