Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata dies at 55

Catherine Garcia, The Week US's avatar
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Satoru Iwata.
(Image credit: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images)

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata died Saturday, the company announced Sunday. He was 55.

Nintendo said Iwata died due to a bile duct growth. Last year, Iwata took time off to focus on his health, and had surgery to remove a tumor, The Verge reports. Before Iwata became president of Nintendo in 2002, he was a programmer at Nintendo subsidiary HAL, working on games like EarthBound, Balloon Fight, and several Kirby titles. Iwata also appeared in Nintendo Direct broadcasts and his "Iwata Asks" series of interviews with developers.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.