Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto opens up about the late Satoru Iwata in new book

Nintendo‘s Shigeru Miyamoto has opened up about the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in a new book that was recently published in Japan by Hobonichi. “To me, he was a friend more than anything,” Miyamoto says. “It never felt like he was my boss or that I was working under him. He never got angry; we never fought about anything.”

While Miyamoto and Iwata seldom worked on a game together (Pokémon Snap, an idea they conceived together, being one of the exceptions), the two shared opinions over lunch on a daily basis. Miyamoto still remembers one of their first meals together. Iwata, who was running Kirby and Smash Bros developer HAL Lab at the time, was in Kyoto to work on a project. Late at night, they went for a bowl of ramen.

“Nintendo doesn’t pay for social expenses, so we had to go Dutch on the bill,” says Miyamoto. “That became a tradition that lasted even after he became company president and I became an executive.”

Miyamoto remembers how Iwata used to call himself a “Miyamoto watcher,” and how he was known to recall Miyamoto’s quotes better than the Mario creator himself.

“Since he passed away, Nintendo has been doing just fine,” says Miyamoto. “He left many words and structures that live on in the work of our younger employees today. The only problem is that, if there is some good-for-nothing idea I come up with over the weekend, I have no one to share it with the next Monday. That I can no longer hear him say ‘Oh, about that thing…’ is a bit of a problem for me. It makes me sad.”

Source: IGN.com