Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata dies of cancer aged 55

Nintendo said Monday that its chief executive Satoru Iwata has died of bile duct cancer at the age of 55, several months after he abandoned the Japanese gaming giant’s consoles-only policy.

In a brief statement, the Kyoto-based company said Iwata died on Saturday.

Iwata, who started off as a programmer, took the top post at Nintendo in 2002, two years after joining and was more recently pushing a long-awaited departure from its consoles-only policy in a bid to repair a battered balance sheet.

Shares in the maker of the Wii U console fell 0.51% to 19,415 yen ($158) in early trading, tumbling back from a nearly 5% jump at the open.

In 2014, Iwata said he would halve his salary for several months to atone for the downturn at the maker of the Donkey Kong and Pokemon franchises, which has struggled as rivals Sony and Microsoft outpaced it in console sales.

All three companies are also fighting off the trend toward cheap – or sometimes free – downloadable games for smartphones and other mobile devices.

Nintendo’s chief had argued that venturing into the overpopulated world of smartphones and tablets risked hollowing out the core business and cannibalising the hard-fought value of their game creations.

But Iwata later acknowledged Nintendo had to move into new areas.

“The world is changing, so any company that is not coping with the change will fall into decline,” he said.

Nintendo in March unveiled plans to buy a stake in Tokyo-based mobile gaming company DeNA as part of a deal to develop smartphone games based on Nintendo’s host of popular characters.