Ask Iwata

1) "After we found ourselves in dire straits, and I took over as president and tried to make things right, the staff gave me the benefit of the doubt, since I had won their trust as the most well-rounded member of the development team. On the flip side, everyone had basically lost faith in the company. Let's put it this way: if your company is on the brink of bankruptcy, all you can see as one of its employees is a heap of problems. After all, it's only natural to look at things and say, 'Is this what happens when we take orders from corporate?' This is why I spent my first month as president interviewing everybody at the company. The discoveries were endless. My plan was to be a sounding board and to get a sense of what was happening, but when I sat down with each person individually, I was blown away by how much I was learning. The idea was to figure out everybody's strengths and weaknesses. Without this kind of knowledge, I knew I couldn't make decisions on behalf of the whole company."

2) "[When] presented with a fact, my first reaction is to come up with a hypothesis for why it happened. Once you have a hypothesis, you test it out, then come up with another. Pretty soon you can see further off, from angles that weren't available to you before. I learned to see the world this way from Shigesato Itoi, who has a knack for seeing the future. More often than not, the things he likes catch on and become the next big hit. Working alongside him, I've seen this happen time and time again. I'm always asking Itoi, 'How did you know half a year out that this would be so popular?' Without fail, Itoi answers the same way: 'I don't predict the future. I simply notice the world starting to change a little before everybody else.'"

3) "I think the sort of ideas that Miyamoto talks about, ideas that can solve multiple problems in one go, become harder to find the closer you examine things. The sort of details you won't notice unless you change your point of view are lost on the average person. Because Miyamoto is so ready to change up his perspective, he's able to arrive at actual solutions rather than implementing stopgap measures that save one life by sacrificing another. I think most people out there think of Miyamoto as an artist—something of a genius, who puts stock in inspiration and thinks with the right side of his brain, coming up with unlikely observations one after another, as if guided by divine inspiration. But that's not the case. Miyamoto is an extremely logical person. But that's not all. His mind is capable of both extraordinarily logical, left-brained considerations and the sort of speeding-bullet thinking you might hear from someone who has pursued a career in the arts. I hate to say it, but I envy him."

4) [Shigeru Miyamoto] "By the way, did you know that we sometimes called Iwata 'Kirby' at the office? If you're stuck in a long meeting, and there's a pile of candy, it's easy to eat a ton, right? Well, doing that earned him the nickname 'Kirby,' and we made sure there was always lots of candy close at hand. [..]. Iwata may have passed on, but the company is going strong. Thanks to all the ideas and systems that he left behind, our young hires have been able to thrive. What makes me sad is that if I have a crazy idea over the weekend, there isn't anybody I can tell about it on Monday morning. When I'm eating lunch, he isn't there to say, 'I think I've figured out your problem,' which leaves me feeling stuck sometimes. I really miss him."

5) [Shigesato Itoi] "Iwata thoroughly enjoyed seeing people smile. This was behind his management philosophy for Nintendo. I think his life's work was to foster happiness. And he was the kind of guy who spared no effort to achieve that goal. He loved supporting people, loved to understand things, and loved the communication so essential to the process. That's what made his Monday lunches with Miyamoto so important to him. They were a combination of all the things he loved. A chance for him to say 'I think I've got it' and work through an idea that would make his close acquaintances and customers smile."

6) "It's always like this, whenever we release things. It's scary, every time. That's why I think it's always worth a try."