Box of Bunnies
Banned
His final role with the company will be to commit ritual suicide in the last Nintendo Direct.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Iwata Asks is really rad, but... well, nothing. It's just rad. Let's read 'em again.
- Thread starter @MUWANdo
- Start date
His final role with the company will be to commit ritual suicide in the last Nintendo Direct.
Aquamarine
Member
If Iwata does retire, he'll go back to HAL Laboratory and continue making Kirby stuff.
He's actually a very hands-on CEO. Believe it or not, even as president of Nintendo he helps out with game development from time to time.
Weird, how is he helping out? As CEO of a multi billing international company you would think that he has more important stuff to handle.
Nintendo is a bizarre company in so many respects. It is what makes them so great, but could you imagine Kaz getting down to business working with the coders?
Aquamarine
Member
Most CEOs of game companies (I'm looking at you, Activision) don't even PLAY video games. Iwata is a game developer and a gamer at heart...games are much more than just "a business" for him.
Just look at Iwata putting all this effort into "Iwata Asks" as proof of this.
tauroxd
Member
The fake Iwata Asks Kamiya a GAFfer made was so good, it deserves to get a mention
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42109000&postcount=4218
Thanks, hahahaha. I wanted to see it since it was mentioned here.
Do you have any sources to back up this claim? If it's true, I'm really curious about what exactly he helped with.
Doesn't he have a codec in Metroid Prime 3? Dunno if he was CEO during that time... but he talks about working on it, I thought.
The fake Iwata Asks Kamiya a GAFfer made was so good, it deserves to get a mention
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42109000&postcount=4218
This is the best thing I've seen today made me lol.
Good catch, I completely forgot about it.
Him, Kensuke Tanabe, Yoshio Sakamoto, Kenji Yamoto and Shigeru Miyamoto all have a codec in Metroid Prime 3. According to a reader of the Nintendo site you go to, Iwata supposedly says: "Hello, this is Iwata from Nintendo. You may not know from an outsiders point of view, but being a director is really hard! When things are really busy and stressful we (us directors) may look tired and sick, then people may feel sorry for us. But in my case, it's the opposite, I get fatter and fatter, so then people don't think I'm stressed at all!" But someone else translated it as president. I watched the credits and he is credited as executive producer and not director so the first one is probably a mistranslation, though it would be nice if someone well versed in Japanese could confirm which is it.
Iwata became NCL's president in 2002, roughly 5 years before MP3's relese.
He assigned himself to the Smash Bros. Melee team to help out during the final stretch of development, not long after he became president. I can't find a link to the source right now but it's from a speech he gave at GDC or E3 or some other international gathering in the early 2000s.
There are other stories that come up in various Iwata Asks articles that mention the hands-on work he did while he was president of HAL, too--he made all the localisation/debugging tools for the first Pokemon games, for example, and ported the Pokemon battle logic to N64 in about a week.
Included a link to the Japanese Iwata Asks directory to the OP--there's a bunch of Japanese articles pertaining to first-party games like Tomodachi Collection and Kiki Trick that will never be localised, as well a bunch of third-party stuff.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/links/index.html
There's an Etrian Odyssey 4 article up there, but it seems like NOA doesn't translate articles for games they aren't publishing themselves, which sucks.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/links/index.html
There's an Etrian Odyssey 4 article up there, but it seems like NOA doesn't translate articles for games they aren't publishing themselves, which sucks.
Great thread!
Just re-read the Yoichi Kotabe Iwata Asks and as a Nintendo fan and an anime fan who had the chance to meet Kotabe, it's a fantastic read. When you know from where Kotabe came as an animator, his essential and historical contribution to the Japanese animation and the fact that he became, later a critical/key person at Nintendo, involved with so many great franchises... I say wow! In a certain way, the legacy of the early Toei Animation days, those where people like Takahata, Miyazaki, Otsuka and Kotabe defined a certain vision of the animation, this legacy is also a part of Nintendo approach/philosophy.
I like this part of this Iwata Ask:
Just re-read the Yoichi Kotabe Iwata Asks and as a Nintendo fan and an anime fan who had the chance to meet Kotabe, it's a fantastic read. When you know from where Kotabe came as an animator, his essential and historical contribution to the Japanese animation and the fact that he became, later a critical/key person at Nintendo, involved with so many great franchises... I say wow! In a certain way, the legacy of the early Toei Animation days, those where people like Takahata, Miyazaki, Otsuka and Kotabe defined a certain vision of the animation, this legacy is also a part of Nintendo approach/philosophy.
I like this part of this Iwata Ask:
I don't know if this qualifies as an Iwata Asks, but it's interesting nonetheless. It's a really insightful conversation with Itoi about multiple subjects.
http://www.1101.com/iwata/index.html
http://www.1101.com/iwata/index.html
Given that Iwata Asks is based on and even coordinated by Hobonichi, it's definitely relevant to this thread.
There are a few more interviews on Hobonichi that feature Iwata and/or Miyamoto, but they're all in Japanese.
Found a fan translation for the Etrian Odysse4 article--it's a bit rough around the edges, but unless NOE handles the game in Europe it's probably the best we're gonna get:
http://red-shoulders.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/rpgs-old-and-new-atlus-interview-with.html
http://red-shoulders.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/rpgs-old-and-new-atlus-interview-with.html
Guh? That makes no sense. Smash Bros. Melee came out in 2001, Iwata didn't even become president until what, 2003? 2002 at the very earliest.
I found the quote--it was from his GDC 2005 speech:
http://au.ign.com/articles/2005/03/11/gdc-2005-iwata-keynote-transcript?page=3
Wikipedia says he officially became president on May 31, 2002, whereas Melee came out in late-2001 in Japan/NA and mid-2002 in PAL-land (May 24 in EU, May 31 in AUS), so yeah, the dates don't precisely match up for every version of the game.
KojiKnight
Member
Something to remember about Nintendo is that day to day operations are done via the board of directors. Yes, Iwata is President, but that more or less makes him the head of the board (and the figurehead of it). Of course he still has a lot to do and a lot of power within the company, but that doesn't mean the company relies on him for all of the business end of the operations at all times.
Huh, very interesting.
universalmind
Member
Hey man. Cool thread title. Thanks for this.
Actually it was the original Smash Bros. on N64 while he was president of HAL, not Melee and his presidency at Nintendo.
Scroll up.
CoconutTank
Member
Thanks for putting this together, will be fun to read through all this! 
Looking through the list, it looks like the link for the Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition article is just 'v'. For anyone else that would like the link this is it:
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/4/0
Edit: Yay the link was updated in the OP!
Edit2: Also this interview with Ono is a pretty good read :O
Looking through the list, it looks like the link for the Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition article is just 'v'. For anyone else that would like the link this is it:http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/4/0
Edit: Yay the link was updated in the OP!
Edit2: Also this interview with Ono is a pretty good read :O
oh shit yes
I think that secondary source is off. There was some Iwata ask with HAL people or Sakurai were they directly talked about Smash Bros. (the original, not Melee) and mentioned this with early screens of it having started as a generic fighting game, as well as other times he got similarly involved (as with Mother 2).
I haven't read much of these, but they're always great. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D one is amazing. He interviews the sound designers, the original dev team leaders, the team leaders at Grezzo, and Miyamoto. I really need to read more of these. I wasn't expecting there to be as many funny moments as there are either.
Not strictly an Iwata Asks article, but I figure it's worth mentioning here:
Nintendo and Shigesato Itoi are celebrating the release of Mother 2 on the Wii U VC with a "Mother 2 Resurrection Festival", which is a fancy way of saying "we're gonna reminisce about Mother 2 for a few weeks".
Anyway, Itoi has begun posting a series of conversations held with Iwata about Mother 2 on his website, Hobonichi; there are three all up and they intend to release one per day. The first part has already been translated by a fan, and he's going to translate the others as they're released, too. Check it out!
http://kamedani.tumblr.com/post/45700864819/mother-2-re-release-discussion-part-1
Nintendo and Shigesato Itoi are celebrating the release of Mother 2 on the Wii U VC with a "Mother 2 Resurrection Festival", which is a fancy way of saying "we're gonna reminisce about Mother 2 for a few weeks".
Anyway, Itoi has begun posting a series of conversations held with Iwata about Mother 2 on his website, Hobonichi; there are three all up and they intend to release one per day. The first part has already been translated by a fan, and he's going to translate the others as they're released, too. Check it out!
http://kamedani.tumblr.com/post/45700864819/mother-2-re-release-discussion-part-1
They even have an Iwata: laughts right away.
Will be a great read, thanks for posting the link!
peanutbutterlatte
Member
So do you think anytime somebody asks a question about Mother 2 and Europe they get whacked?
gingerbeardman
Member
It wouldn't be as easy to appreciate how awesome Iwata Asks is and what a range of stuff it has covered.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Hope we get a Luigi one soon!
Great find, thank you for sharing.
And looking at Iwata's reddened cheeks and the way conversation kicks off I doubt there is actual tea in their cups
gingerbeardman
Member
I was investigating how easy it would be to create iBooks/PDFs of the Iwata Asks series. Mainly so I can read them on my iPhone/iPad more easily, and build up an archive.
The answer: its not easy enough for me to go through and do all 200. Generally the Nintendo website was not created to allow for easy reading of these articles. And because there's no easy reading, there's no easy ripping.
But I wondered if the product of the past hour would be useful for people?
So, here's my test file of the latest Iwata Asks:
Pokémon X & Pokémon Y (1MB PDF)
Pokémon X & Pokémon Y (2.3MB iBook)
This was done by cutting and pasting each page of text into iBooks Author, and then applying some standardised formatting. Videos were embedded as links. Images were not used inside this particular Iwata Asks.
Thoughts appreciated.
The answer: its not easy enough for me to go through and do all 200. Generally the Nintendo website was not created to allow for easy reading of these articles. And because there's no easy reading, there's no easy ripping.
But I wondered if the product of the past hour would be useful for people?
So, here's my test file of the latest Iwata Asks:
Pokémon X & Pokémon Y (1MB PDF)
Pokémon X & Pokémon Y (2.3MB iBook)
This was done by cutting and pasting each page of text into iBooks Author, and then applying some standardised formatting. Videos were embedded as links. Images were not used inside this particular Iwata Asks.
Thoughts appreciated.
gingerbeardman
Member
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
Iwata joined Nintendo in 2000 as Corporate Planning Director. He was pretty much heading the board of directors while Yamauchi enjoyed his last 2 years as emperor.
Thanks for sharing this
I hope they do one with Curtain Call and the new Bravely Defualt