Iwata Quotes

On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.

No part of my experience has turned out to be a waste of time.

I think distance has a way of letting facts obscure a situation. Those close at hand, however, have access to a much rawer set of emotions.

Apart from “What made you join the company,” there’s another question I like to ask: “Out of all the work you’ve done so far, what was the most interesting thing? And what was the most painful?” This is all about them, too—making it easy to respond, and above all giving you a sense of who they are.

The more frustrated someone is, the more important it becomes to listen to them. Unless you make a point of this, anything you try to say goes in one ear and out the other. If you interrupt them midsentence and say, “It’s more like this,” it’s only natural for them to think, “This person has absolutely no clue what I’m saying.

None of my experience has turned out to be a waste of time.

When people receive feedback about what they’ve done, they feel more motivated the next time around.

As human beings, unless we have someone to compliment our work and enjoy what we’ve created, we’re not apt to go out on a limb.

If you maintain the status quo, you wind up fighting for survival, and gradually your fan base disappears.

In my view, talent isn’t about achieving results so much as deriving pleasure from the results that you’ve achieved.

The number of things we should be doing is always greater than what we can actually do. If you try doing everything on your list, you’ll only wear yourself out.

We know every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering.... - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1986

After all, the whole point of a company is for regular people, each with their distinctive characteristics, to join forces and accomplish giant tasks they could not undertake alone.

You might realize that somebody is making a mistake, but unless you can advise them in a way that they can readily accept and comprehend and fit into their point of view, your advice—right or not—is meaningless.

Nintendo not letting itself make a browser Mario game has not stopped a flash flood of in-browser Mario games. Super Mario Flash, New Super Mario Bros. Flash, Infinite Mario, and the amazing Super Mario Crossover, which lets you play the original SMB games using characters from Castlevania, Excitebike, Ninja Gaidan, and more. (If you like that, try Abobo's Big Adventure.) There are free (and unlicensed) Mario games where he rides a motorbike, takes a shotgun to the Mushroom Kingdom, decides to fight with his fists, is replaced by Sonic, replaces Pac-Man in a maze game, and plays dress-up. They receive no admonition from Nintendo's once-ferocious legal department. Why not? Iwata's explanation is commonsensical: "[I]t would not be appropriate if we treated people who did someone based on affection for Nintendo as criminals." This is also why no one has been told by lawyers to stop selling Wario-as-a-pimp T-shirts.

If you force yourself to study things that have no bearing on the world around you, the material will have no way of sinking in. So, rather than waste your time, it makes far more sense to prioritize the things that you truly enjoy, whatever speaks to you.

temperature in the storehouse seemed to have risen a notch. I guessed it was my anxiety. The air was faintly smoky, as if somebody was smoking a cigarette. Takeo smoked. I remembered his long-ago offer of a cigarette. I’d declined and bhe had never smoked in my presence after that. Was he inside and smoking as he leisurely made his way toward me? No, he wasn’t the one. I knew that the danger was Eriko Iwata. I heard

About two years after I got hooked on that calculator, Apple released its first desktop computer out into the world. But as soon as I was able to test out one of these new computers, my fantasies evaporated. I realized the computer was not some dream machine, capable of anything.

decision-making means gathering and analyzing information and managing priorities, and that as you discover your priorities, you should see where they take you as you work through your decisions.

And so, when the whole group can earn praise without working insanely hard, things get better and better on their own, creating a virtuous cycle where the work only gets stronger.

I used to tell myself, “I wish that I could clone myself three times over.” Looking back, however, I recognize this thought was arrogant and narrow-minded. Our differences are what make each of us so valuable and give life meaning. I’m embarrassed that I ever thought this way. These days, things have flipped. I take for granted that everyone has different strengths, and what I most want to learn about is what sets each person apart. Making space for this transforms relationships, opening up all kinds of possibilities. It’s so exciting.

I used to tell him he was already extremely skilled in so many ways. “Can’t you get along without mastering this too?

The delightful part about digital is that if done right, it actually gets people to tell us who they are and what they’re looking for. Organizations can get an actual understanding of what their needs or aspirations are, enabling every business to be much more relevant in their engagement with customers. When that starts to happen, people get excited because you actually see the people you’re trying to reach and serve as they are. And it makes a huge difference. But for this to happen, the rate and pace of the adoption of digital for everyone has to happen quickly and in the right way to act on and harness this new power. Principally, most organizations have a skills and mindset gap with the amount of process change, tooling, and data that is being put into place. I’m convinced that the future of digital is going to change so many things. And we can’t wait. Most people are just as anxious as I am to get to that future.” —Jon Iwata, senior vice president, marketing and communications, IBM

If you maintain the status quo, you wind up fighting for survival, and gradually your fan base disappears. That’s the one direction I’m always trying to avoid.

When you figure out exactly “what is necessary for this game,” a world of possibilities will open up. So, rather than tossing in whatever you want, it’s good to remember the creative power of paring back.