News Lost Satoru Iwata Interview Resurfaces 20 Years Later

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20 years ago, Nintendo was building up the hype for two of the most important hardware releases in its history: the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii (then known by its codename, Revolution).

Despite the groundswell of interest, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (who tragically passed away in 2015) remained notoriously tricky to track down for one-to-one interviews – but on May 19th, 2004, Adam Doree of Kikizo.com pulled it off – and he has just remastered and republished the full interview on his YouTube channel to mark the 20th anniversary of its occurrence.

"For the first time, this new remaster is at full quality, in Japanese and English and includes previously unseen material," Doree explains. The unseen material includes comments from Iwata regarding the late Nintendo chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Interestingly, although Iwata gives plenty of respect to the man who transformed Nintendo into one of the world's gaming giants, he hints that he wasn't always looking to follow his rules slavishly:

Hiroshi Yamauchi is a person who has led Nintendo for over 50 years, and in the past 20 years, he is someone who can be called the father of today's gaming industry. I have heard a lot from him in the past about his philosophy on how the gaming industry should change, and I intend to inherit that philosophy as it is, if it's good. And he himself said that we need to change with the times, and I also intend to inherit that. In that sense, I don't think we should just do exactly what he has said in the past, but I definitely think the essence of his ideas will continue to be applicable in the future.

This video represents the first time these comments have ever been revealed.

Doree is now VP of International & ZD Global Partners at Ziff Davis, Inc., the company which owns IGN, so you could say he's done rather well for himself. Certainly, securing such a high-profile interview back in 2004 was a masterstroke, especially at a time when Iwata was not only new to his role but also famously reluctant to give personal interviews.