Satoru Iwata wanted to tell Reggie face to face that his cancer had sadly returned ~ Amazing News 2020

Satoru Iwata wanted to tell Reggie face to face that his cancer had sadly returned

By Sickr on May 2, 2026

There have been a lot of interesting Nintendo tidbits revealed by former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime in a recent NYU Game Centre Lecture Series. Reggie shared that the legendary Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, asked to personally meet with Reggie Fils-Aime face to face to inform his that sadly his cancer had unfortunately returned. While it was a sad event, Reggie recalls that once that had been said they then discussed the all-important launch planning for the Nintendo Switch which inevitably proved to be a big success, as we all know how it turned out.

“I’m called to Japan for a meeting and I argued with Mr. Iwata because I had lined up activities for my birthday and he was adamant on the days he wanted me in Kyoto. I celebrated my birthday in Kyoto. In the end there were two reasons for this meeting. The first is, that’s when he told me his cancer was back. We all believe he had beaten his cancer, but he wanted to tell me face to face his cancer was back. We talked about that for an hour and then he flipped the switch, now we need to talk about the future. It was in that meeting we did the launch planning for the Switch. The software that would come out, the pricing and how we would launch it.”