Satoshi Iwata, born in 1959, is 39 years old this year.

I'm very young, but I'm already the president of the HAL Research Institute.

In 1982, Satoshi Iwata graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

HAL's start-up team consisted of only 5 people, and among the graduates of the same class, Satoshi Iwata undoubtedly joined the "smallest" company.

At Nintendo, Satoshi Iwata spent most of his time working at the HAL Research Institute, mainly writing game programs, and was known as a "genius programmer" in the early days.

Because of the shortage of manpower, everyone at HAL has to wear many hats.

While working as a programmer, Satoshi Iwata is also responsible for the design and promotion of the game, and even helps everyone order food and clean it, but he enjoys it.

In February 1984, the FC game "Pinball" was released, the first FC game that HAL participated in the development of, and their work was appreciated by Nintendo, and the two sides established a very close relationship.

Satoshi Iwata's first work was to assist Nintendo in the development of the FC version of "Golf", which achieved more than one million sales.

Since then, HAL has continued to contribute several well-known works to Nintendo, including "Kirby of the Stars", "Earth Adventure" and so on......

In the autumn of 1992, Masahito Tanimura, president of the HAL Research Institute, invested a large amount of money in real estate such as securities and real estate, and the debt reached more than 2 billion yen, and the company was in a desperate situation of bankruptcy.

Satoshi Iwata thought of Nintendo, who he had been working with, and went to Kyoto alone to meet Pu Yamauchi.

Yamauchi Pu used [Let Iwata Satoshi become the president] as a condition to guarantee that this helped the HAL Research Institute get through the difficulties, and it was with the help of Yamauchi Pu -

In 1993, Satoshi Iwata was promoted to the position of president of the HAL Research Institute.

Yamauchi Pu likes this young man very much, and from this point of view, Yamauchi Pu has the grace of knowing Iwata Satoshi.

……

Satoshi Iwata showed his talents early on, not only in the field of games, but also in business and management, and when Satoshi Iwata was the president of the HAL Research Institute, he was saddled with a debt of 2 billion yuan.

But the amazing sales of "Kirby of the Stars" eventually helped HAL turn a profit.

Since then, various game titles have been well received, and since then, the money borrowed from Nintendo has gradually paid off, and HAL has successfully become Nintendo's most important second partner in Japan.

In his previous life, in 2000, Yamauchi recruited a young man, Satoshi Iwata, to Rentendo as the head of the business planning department and paved the way for him.

Two years later, Satoshi Iwata became the fourth president of Nintendo and the first president who was not a member of the Yamauchi family.

The first of the few things that Yamauchi did wisely in his life was to shift the main business of Rentendo from fireworks to video games.

The second thing is that when he was unable to do it and was about to step down, he supported Satoshi Iwata and handed over the president of Rentendo to him.

These two decisions have helped Ren Heaven become the leader of the game industry, and it has been evergreen.

Although Yamauchi Pu is a bit domineering and dictatorial, he has an unusually accurate vision in the matter of looking at people, and his iron wrist has continued until he retires, and at the time of parting, he still uses thunder means to find the next captain for Ren Heaven, instead of using his close family member Minoru Arakawa, or Miyamoto Shigeru Miyamoto, who has been following him and is better than a relative although he is not a relative.

I have to say that Yamauchi Pu is quite bold.

However, it is not easy for an outsider to convince the public, and Minoru Arakawa alone is very dissatisfied with this matter.

In order to help Iwata Satoshi ascend to the throne, Yamauchi Pu even swept his son-in-law out of the house, and Arakawa resigned in 2002, and then Yamauchi took back all the power of Beimi and handed over Rentendo to Iwata Satoshi completely.

Before the legend of Arakawa was written, it was called "card".

A wound at the end made the original legend forever unfinished.

No one blames Yamauchi, judging from Nintendo's later achievements, choosing Satoshi Iwata, who has a gentle and humble personality, is undoubtedly Eiming's decision.

There are no ifs in reality, but if Lao Yamauchi really chose Arakawa as his successor, would Nintendo really succeed in the future, and could there be such an achievement as Iwata?

No one can be sure.

Perhaps, the helpless departure that day can be regarded as another perfect curtain call.

After Satoshi Iwata took over Renten, he successfully developed Rentendo and subsequently launched NDS and WII, making many imaginative changes in both game equipment and game design.

And Satoshi Iwata: Compared to Minoru Arakawa, he really loves games, and it is precisely because of this that he can think from the perspective of players, if you make a more fun game, how can you make the game more attractive to players......

These are all questions that he has been working on for a long time.

Under his leadership, Ren Tiantian not only got out of the predicament, but also developed and grew step by step.

It's a pity that Iwata's life was too short, and he died of bile duct tumor proliferation in 2015. He was 55 years old.

It can be said that God is jealous of talent.

……

But this is no longer the case.

In this timeline, Ren Heaven did not get the Pokémon IP, so Iwata Satoshi did not participate in the development of Ren Heaven's "Pokémon Gold and Silver" as a collaborator before this, so naturally there is no talk of the so-called deep feelings, and the establishment of revolutionary friendship with the employees of Ren Tendo.

Satoshi Iwata's main focus is on HAL, and he has led the development of the Kirby of the Star and Earth Adventure series......

Therefore, even if he knew that Yamauchi Pu was kind to him in supporting him to become the president of the research institute, Qing Zhiyuan still wanted to give it a try.

Whether you can dig it depends on sincerity, but also on what you can give.

……

Boiling a pot of sake, Qing Zhiyuan looked very happy.

Back then, Boss Cao pulled Xuande Gong to cook wine and talk about heroes, and today he and Satoshi Iwata are here to discuss the future together, which is really a great joy in life.

The two of them sat down to eat for a while, chatted briefly, and knew each other for a while, Qing Zhiyuan said straight to the point:

"Iwata-san, I'm a straightforward person, so I'm not going to beat around the bush, I invited you over today to invite Iwata-san to come to our company."

"Huh?"

In fact, before coming to the appointment, Satoshi Iwata already had some premonitions in his heart, but he didn't really want to understand it-

Why dig him?

Thinking about it, there seems to be no intersection between him and Qing Zhiyuan, at most, they have attended some events together, but they haven't spoken.

It's not even a nodding acquaintance.

Seriously, this is their first meeting.

However, in such a relationship, Qing Zhiyuan actually wants to invite him to Pokeni, why is this?

"President Yamauchi is kind to me, in fact, I shouldn't have come here today, if I knew that President Yamauchi was going to poach me......

I just considered that everyone is a game maker, not to mention that pokeni is a company that I like very much, so I came to the appointment, if it is poaching......"

"You listen to me first, and then consider whether to come to our company."

Qing Zhiyuan quickly interrupted him, and then explained with a smile:

"That's right."

"We at Pokeni are not small anymore. Mr. Iwata, guess what, what were our game sales last year? ”

Satoshi Iwata lowered his head and thought for a moment, then hesitated and said, "30 million copies?" The Pokémon series has always been doing well. ”

Qing Zhiyuan smiled and stretched out a slap, "50 million copies." ”

Sizzle......

Satoshi Iwata gasped, a figure that was much more exaggerated than he had imagined.

You must know that last year, the sales volume of Ren Heaven's game was only 26 million copies.

That is, the pokeni is almost twice as much.

"From the game level alone, we must be the number one in the world now, and the sales volume of games will definitely crush other companies."

"In the past, I would never have invited you, but now Pokeni is no longer what it used to be, Pokeni has matured and become a big game company that can be compared to Rentendo.

Although I am suspected of boasting when I say this, I beg you to believe me, Mr. Iwata, that what I say is true. ”

Satoshi Iwata lowered his eyelids and shook his head, "I believe what President Qing said. ”

"Now we are involved in the field, not only in the field of games, but also in film and television, the Internet, light and comic publishing...... Around the game, we have dabbled in all of this.

It may not be obvious what they are worth right now, but I promise that in a few years, five years, when these seeds take root, you will see a vast Pokeni Empire. ”

When Satoshi Iwata heard this, although he was silent and calm on the surface, he was extremely shocked in his heart.

The content that Qing Zhiyuan said was actually reported in the news, but just like President Qing said, because they have not yet produced value, they are only in the seed stage, so they have not been shown.

And Pokeni is not a listed company until now, so without disclosing the financial report, what assets does this company have, and what is the revenue status, has always been a fan in the eyes of the outside world.

However, Iwata Satoshi vaguely feels that Qing Zhiyuan's layout is very remarkable, and these industries are inextricably linked, although they have not yet been reflected, but I am afraid that they will become stars in the sky in the future, shining brightly.

Qing Zhiyuan first showed the strength of the company, mainly to compare it with Ren Heaven, and told Iwata Satoshi -

Our pokeni is no worse than Renten.

Qing Zhiyuan didn't say how much revenue was generated last year, nor did he say how much less Pokeni earned than Ren Heaven, just spread out the industry, and the sales data was taken out, in fact, it already had a strong shock.

Satoshi Iwata is not flustered on the surface, but in fact, he has already been turbulent in his heart.

I guessed that Pokeni was powerful, but I didn't expect it to be so powerful.

"After that, I will establish the Pokeni Group and reorganize the company into a group system."

Qing Zhiyuan smiled and said his plan in front of Satoshi Iwata, "The current Pokeni Game Company will be taken out, and then you will be the CEO of the group." ”

"Huh?!"

Hearing the word CEO, Satoshi Iwata was stunned.

In his previous expectations, he thought that Qing Zhiyuan was just going to recruit him to be the head of a certain department, or to put it mildly, just a supervisor or producer or something.

Satoshi Iwata has developed Kirby of the Stars, and he definitely has this ability.

But—

I never thought that Qing Zhiyuan directly gave me the position of CEO!

"But, two years!" Qing Zhiyuan raised two fingers, "I need two years, and within two years of joining the company, you need to use your achievements to convince the public." ”

Satoshi Iwata didn't become the next president of Rentendo overnight, and after being recruited into Rentendo in 2000, it took him two years to prove his worth.

Otherwise, how could an outsider suppress a group of patriarchs?

However, in addition to Yamauchi's support in the future, Iwata's own talent also played a crucial role in the promotion of the president in two years.

If you can't do it, why should you be the president?

Qing Zhiyuan asked Iwata Satoshi in order to liberate himself from the daily tedious management and the implementation of the company's strategy.

After thinking about it, Satoshi Iwata is actually the most suitable candidate.

After the completion of the group reconstruction, Qingzhiyuan himself will still serve as the chairman, that is, the company's top leader and decision-maker, and lead the board of directors, and then Satoshi Iwata will become the CEO, which is equivalent to the position of general manager.

……

"After you come to Pokeni, after the reorganization of the group is completed, I will set up a strategic planning department, which you can also call the secretariat.

And then let you be the minister.

This department is responsible for all strategic operations of the company.

The strategic planning department can determine the future strategic direction and operation of the company through the analysis report, and at the same time, it has the power to appoint and replace the president of the subsidiary, which is equivalent to the brain of the company.

And you're the brain in this brain department.

Iwata-san, what do you think? ”

The secretariat is actually the operation mode of Samsung Group, and it is precisely because the secretariat has huge power to control the direction and make macro strategic adjustments, so there is no need to worry about resource dumping and infighting between multiple subsidiaries.

As Qing Zhiyuan said, the strategic planning department is equivalent to the brain, responsible for coordinating the operation of all departments, and at the same time controlling the direction.

Otherwise, like Sega and Sony, in fact, it is not a good thing for everyone to generate internal friction in order to grab resources, but it will lead to the company swelling to a certain extent and then go downhill, or even fall apart.

Satoshi Iwata is a smart man, and as soon as he heard what Sei Chi-won said, he immediately understood the value of this strategic planning department.

Seriously, it's very exciting, once the setup is successful, this is the most important core department of POKENI, which holds the company's resource allocation and the power of life and death, which is equivalent to handing over the rudder of the ship POKENI to him.

This sense of trust shocked Satoshi Iwata.

This is the guarantee of strength.

If it were Pokeni a few years ago, it would certainly not have been so attractive.

Therefore, the amount of chips in people's hands also determines how much you can do, and for people with capital and resources, success is easier than ordinary people.

……

"But...... Why me? Satoshi Iwata asked with some confusion, "I'm an outsider, and as you know, HAL is the second partner of Renten, and we have a good relationship with Rentendo and President Yamauchi." ”

……

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There is another chapter in the evening (end of this chapter)