There’s A Heart Warming Tribute To Satoru Iwata On The Nintendo Switch

Earlier in the year a Switch owner wanted a reason why NES Golf had appeared on the Switch when they left it and came back. It was discovered that the user was able to play the game as normal, which left others baffled as to how it had appeared on the console in the first place. Modders delved further into this, and found that there was in fact the NES Golf game hidden inside the Switch’s firmware under the name ‘flog’ which is ‘golf’ backwards. Some people speculated that there was some kind of hidden method that allowed players to launch the game from the Switch menu, but at this point, no one knew just how to trigger it. Turns out this appears to be a heart warming tribute to the late Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata. “We thought they had included it during manufacturing by mistake,” Plutoo, one of the modders, told Kotaku over Twitter direct messages. “But when we [dug] deeper, we found there was some suspicious code in the ‘Home Menu.” When Plutoo decided to look into it. He discovered even more information: “The code looked for the date July 11th, and the code right before seemed to enable the ‘Joycon sixaxis’ motion sensors.” Plutoo advised that the he code enabled a “secret handshake” which unlocked something on July 11 on the Switch’s home screen. He also advised that the motion hidden in the code was said to match Iwata’s well known Nintendo Direct gesture. This, along with the fact that Iwata passed away on the 11th July, and programmed NES Golf back in the 80’s, seems like all of this has been put together as a touching tribute to the late CEO. Since you can trick the Switch into thinking that it’s 11th July at any point, a user named Fiskerdin tried something out for himself. “I booted the unopened Switch up, did the setup procedure, and decided to try it out the gesture which was posted,” he explained over e-mail to Kotaku. “I simply put both Joy-cons parallel to each other and pointed towards the ground, then raised them in a vertical position and waited, the screen turned blank, an audible cue was played, and then I was greeted with the Golf menu.”

Bid On This Custom Satoru Iwata Amiibo For Charity

A custom amiibo maker GandaKris has created a Satoru Iwata model in memory of him and is auctioning it off for charity in collaboration with Amiibo Alerts. You can bid for the Satora Iwata amiibo on eBay All proceeds will be going to Child's Play.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata Has Passed Away Due To Cancer

Sadly, the other day it was announced that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has passed away, he was 55. "Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth", as in Nintendo’s statement. Iwata had spent the last few years battling a growth on his bile duct. For those who don’t know Satoru Iwata began working at Nintendo in the 1980s as a programmer. A lot of the success of Kirby is due to Iwata, who created the Dream Land in Kirby's debut on the Game Boy in 1992. He became a director of the company in 2000, and was appointed President of Nintendo in May 2002. Iwata oversaw the launch of many Nintendo products including the GameCube, the Nintendo DS, 3DS, Wii and Wii U. This is a huge lost of the gaming industry and for creative minds everywhere. His legacy will live on in everything that is Nintendo. In memory of Satoru Iwata we should all play Nintendo games today.  “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I'm a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.” - Satoru Iwata, 2005. Those were true words. You will be missed, thank you for all that you have done. 

Nintendo’s NX Won’t Be At E3 This Year

Looks like Nintendo will not reveal any new information or show NX, its next gaming console, at E3 this year.Company chief executive Satoru Iwata was asked specific details on the console during a recent meeting with investors. "We do not plan on talking specifics about the NX until 2016," Iwata would not provide any additional details or a release window for the NX, only calling it a concept, not thinking of the system as a replacement' for the 3DS or the Wii U.

Nintendo Looking Into Making NX Region Free

Nintendo is apparently looking into removing region locks from its gaming systems, starting with its next console,  codenamed NX. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said the company is currentl investigating the problems that could present themselves when implementing the feature. Iwata said that, while it was exploring the possibilities of the NX being free from region locking, it is unlikely the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U will have their regional restrictions removed. "Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don't consider that to be very realistic," Iwata explained. Finally I can get my hands on Japan exclusive games. What do you think of this news ? Would the NX being region free be great for gamers ?