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| Nintendo's Satoru Iwata dies at 55 | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Japanese video game maker Nintendo has said its chief executive Satoru Iwata has died of cancer at the age of 55. | Japanese video game maker Nintendo has said its chief executive Satoru Iwata has died of cancer at the age of 55. |
| Mr Iwata underwent surgery last year and had resumed his duties after a brief period of recovery. | |
| He is a highly revered figure in the Japanese gaming scene and considered the leading figure behind Nintendo's successful turnaround after he joined the company in the year 2000. | |
| Most recently, he led Nintendo into the rapidly growing mobile gaming sector. | |
| Mr Iwata started out as a programmer in a Nintendo subsidiary in the 1980s and became president of Nintendo in 2002. | |
| Under his leadership, the company launched its hugely successful Wii and Nintendo DS consoles and he is considered the crucial driver behind the focus on easy-to-use consoles, a move that allowed the company to tap into a much wider audience beyond the traditional gaming community. | |
| His death comes as Nintendo expects to double its annual operating profit based on the long-awaited entry in the rapidly growing smartphone gaming sector to counter weakening sales of its traditional consoles. | |
| Last year, Mr Iwata said he would halve his salary for several months after the company was outpaced by rivals Sony and Microsoft in console sales. | |
| Nintendo shares dropped 0.7% in early Monday trading. |