Ask Iwata Book Review

Over the years Nintendo has made some names second nature including Mario, Luigi, and Bowser but on the other side of the screen there have been some names that have risen above the rest including Miyamoto and Iwata.

Iwata became the fourth president of Nintendo in May 2002 and played a pivotal role in establishing the position that Nintendo is in today. This was a time when Nintendo was losing market share to Sony and even Microsoft due to their attempt to have the most cutting edge visuals and technology. This change moved Nintendo from usually having the least powered console on the market and moving to the company to open areas of the market, allowing Nintendo to provide gamers with innovative hardware and unique experiences that didn’t compete on power.

Iwata was President and spearheaded some of the companies greatest succeses including the DS, which would go on to be the second best selling system of all time with 154.02 million, after pivoting away from the Game Boy Advance and the whole Game Boy moniker. It was also Iwata that pushed for something completely revolutionary in the gaming field that would become the Wii, a system that would also go on to be one of the best selling systems for Nintendo, ranking third all time behind only the DS and the Game Boy with 101 million units sold and an additional 921 million software units sold.

Sadly, it wasn’t all success with Iwata as he was also behind less successful systems like the 3DS, which sold well in its own right but didn’t sell nearly as well as the DS but mainly it was the WiiU that really damaged the company during his tenure. During the final years of his life he was also instrumental to the creation the Nintendo Switch which has gone on to revitalize Nintendo and put them at the forefront of console success. There is a very likely chance that the Nintendo Switch will go on to become the best selling console of all time as with just four years on the market it has sold almost 85 million units.

Iwata was a very open book compared to the relatively secret and mysterious Nintendo that we have come to know. Iwata Asks was a series of interviews that featured openness between the President of Nintendo and key creators and developers behind some of Nintendo’s biggest franchises. These are all still available online if you search Iwata Asks.

Do you need to read?

Hundreds of interviews are translated in English ranging from topics on the Game and Watch, Wii, WiiU, DS and 3DS. If are a fan of Nintendo and their history then these are a nice deep dive into the other side of Nintendo that fans don’t rarely see. A big question you may ask before buying this book is if the milk is free then why buy the cow? Obviously there is something nice about having that tactile feel of holding a book and being able to take it with you anywhere. As we are just entering summer, it could be a great book to take hiking, camping or to the cottage where you are either trying to disconnect from the world or won’t be able to get service.

However, Ask Iwata is more than just taking what’s on the internet and putting it into a book. These pages are taking words of wisdom from the fourth president and former CEO of Nintendo and compilation them into themes that are universal and can resonate with anyone who has any interest in humans. These come from years of experience with starting to work at HAL Laboratories during his college years, becoming President of the company at 32 when they were at their lowest point with over 1.5 billion Yen of debt, to eventually becoming the President and CEO of Nintendo, which had many highs and lows.

Iwata seems to be of the more rare species of high management who is more interested in the human aspect of a company rather than just charging towards arbitrary goals. In fact during his first month as President of HAL, Iwata sat down with every single employee of the company and acted as a sounded board by trying to figure out if people were happy and if they weren’t then trying to figure out why.

These interviews lasted anywhere from 20 minutes and as long as three hours, which would be considered by many CEO’s and Presidents as a waste of time but in his words “leading the company in a direction that helps everyones strengths flourish and keeps their weaknesses in check” was the basis of this time spent.

Its very clear that this human aspect that Iwata pursued was the key to the turnaround of not only HAL Laboratories but also one of the pivotal moments in his career that showed his knowledge beyond his years. When HAL was close to getting its first big break shipping Twinkle Popo on the Game Boy, Miyamoto told them that the game needs more attention.

With already twenty six thousand pre orders for the game and with a reputation of being a company that has been in large debt, the easy thing would have been to ship Twinkle Popo but the team spent more time fixing and tweaking the game and then releasing Kirbys Dream Land on the Game Boy.

Not only by making the tough decisions but by giving everyone a voice, Iwata was able to be behind one of Nintendos biggest games as it initially went on to sell over five million copies and would go on to birth a very popular Nintendo IP in the process. According to Iwata, Kirby series sales have easily exceeded thirty million sold.

Closing

There is plenty to takeaway from this book for everyone, if you are just looking into some deeper Nintendo lore, or if you are looking for advice from a very successful CEO and President or you are just trying to be a better human. The way in which the book is laid out makes it much more digestible than trying to read all of these different interviews and columns on the internet.

Ask Iwata is a short book that features information that has been readily available to everyone with access to the internet before but the way in which the book compiled all of this information makes it a breeze to read as it is only around 150 pages. There are sections about business, about Nintendo icons such as Miyamoto, about some of the games he has been around including famously saving EarthBound and the development of the Wii and DS.

Ask Iwata isn’t unearthing new content from the beloved former CEO and President of Nintendo and as we know, its just compiling all the information from the Iwata Asks online series as well as a few other columns. However, the book feels like much more than a simple translation and rewrite, rather than focusing on specific games or specific hardware, the book breaks all of these interviews into global topics that every person can relate to. Ask Iwata is an enjoyable read for almost anyone.

I’ll end the review with one of my favourite quotes from the book. “Depending on how you approach it, work can feel dull. But, if you’re able to find the fun in discovering new things, almost everything you do can become interesting. This realization can be a major turning point in enjoying your job”