This week occurred in the shadow of a huge loss for the games industry, as Nintendo announced that President Satoru Iwata passed away last weekend, at the age of 55. He left behind him a huge legacy at Nintendo, as an immensely popular figure who wasn’t just able to lead Nintendo to the successes of the Nintendo DS and Wii – as well as set the foundations for another reinvention of the company in the years to come – but do so while exhibiting such a sense of fun and openness to the company’s fans.
A number of you left your thoughts and tributes to the man, and it’s only appropriate that we share some of these.
Kennykazey:
The man was an absolute legend, and he will be sorely missed. My thoughts go out to his family and friends, as well as his co-workers.
This is a sad day for the industry and gamers, but his memory and legacy will be bright and good.
Thank you, Satoru Iwata.
Bunimomike:
Read about this last night (I think it was) and was a little watery-eyed at his passing because of how he was regarded. Almost a unanimous outpouring of respect and compassion.
I truly hope his family, friends and colleagues are coping as well as they can be expected.
Light Liguria:
Awesome person that brought so much happiness to millions of people, not only a CEO but a talented programmer. Gonna be missed by many gamers regardless of choice of platform.
Rest in peace, and may humanity one day blue shell the heck out of cancer.
Ace-Michie:
Terrible, unexpected news. He died too soon but left behind such a powerful legacy, that he will always be remembered.
My thoughts also go out to his family and friends at this difficult time.Thank you, Mr Iwata for all that you have done for Nintendo and for all the incredible games you worked on. You were much more than a CEO to a company, you had passion and love for the work that you did and it showed.
Rest in Peace.
In news of a completely different tone and calibre, Rovio announced a sequel to their long standing Angry Birds series. In a surprising turn of events, it’s going to be called Angry Birds 2, despite there being 15 games in the series!
“Never heard of half of those,” said Forrest_01, “and I thought that there were a lot already!”
TSBonyman wrote, “Ah ok, they were pre-seagulls,” as he referenced a witty comeback from the Angry Birds Twitter account. “Eggs-actly, maybe the nest instalment could be called ‘trouble in t’aviary’ from a Yorkshire pigeon fancier’s perspective,” Freezebug replied, taking things to a whole other level…
Yet, I can’t help but feel that CR8ZYH0RSE was being a little insincere when they said, “Wow, what a surprising twist. I never saw that coming.”
Finally for this week was the unexpected news that Yager Development have been dropped from Dead Island 2 by Deep Silver, leaving the future of the series in question.
Scavenga said, “Would have been more concerned if Dying Light hadn’t been such a brilliant replacement. I hope Dead Island 2 will see the light of day, of course – and that everyone at Yager still have their jobs.” Bunimomike replied, “I feel like Dying Light had a very real impact with the above decision. Perhaps Deep Silver (and Yager) have no real idea how to pull the Dead Island franchise along (and up a notch).”
Bunimomike also responded to beeje13 pondering whether or not Techland could return to the series.
That would be a massive surprise. Techland went on record about how Deep Silver were holding them back and gimping things, whereas Dying Light has been a real success for them since they moved away from them (both financially and creatively).
However, I’d love to see the Dead Island franchise flourish as I had a lot of fun with the first two outings.
Of course, there might be a silver lining, if Yager are now free to return to previous stomping grounds. JustTaylorNow said, “Now Yager go make Spec Ops 2. The Line was one of the most underrated last gen game.”
Everyone and their dog seems to be playing Rocket League, since its addition to the PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection, and while it’s a game that throws lots and lots of trophies at you, not many people have managed to platinum it just yet. DividSmythe and R1MJAW both got the shiniest of trophies though, with Divid managing to set the record last weekend.
That wasn’t the only record that Divid set, getting Rayman Legends on PS4 on Friday, and expressing his surprise that it hadn’t yet been claimed. Similar levels of astonishment cam from BadBoyBoogie, who netted both Trine and Trine 2’s PS4 platinums earlier in the month.
Blast71 completed the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare single player campaign, and looks all set try out the online component, before giving up in the face of more experienced players, while tactical20 looks to be getting quite close to the end of Batman: Arkham Knight and Carrot381 is closing in on The Witcher 3’s platinum, after beating the High Stakes Gwetn tournament.
Avenger didn’t quite get the memo about F1 2015, as he’s “bagged and tagged” the platinum for F1 2014, and is now returning to GRID Autosport. Freezebug warns him that getting the platinum is quite an uphill struggle, thanks to needing to check in each week and earn experience from the weekly challenges.
A inferior race has been busily tapping your latest trophies into his tables, and you can head over to page 2 to view the latest trophy leaderboard. Meanwhile, I leave you with the usual submissions form below:
Pixel_nme
Congratulations all on those platinums.
Avenger
A shame to hear that Jules Bianchi passed away. I was hoping he’d recover and return to F1 as he had a promising season in 2014.
I got the memo about F1 2015 just fine, I just didn’t bother pursuing it! -)
gazzagb
I completely agree with Taylor, we need to see a Spec Ops: The Line 2 (or something similar) that stops and makes you think. I think I loved it so much because it was so unexpected – I thought it was just ‘another’ generic shooter (which for the most part it was) but the storytelling was fantastic.