Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Dies Of Cancer Just Ahead Of The Company's First Foray Into Mobile Gaming; He Was 55

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has died of a bile duct growth at the age of 55, the company said in a brief statement.

The statement reads, "Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth."

Iwata's death shocked the technology and game communities.

This has put Nintendo's leadership in question just months before it launches its first foray into mobile gaming. Iwata, who has been president since 2002, led the introduction of successful products including the Wii console. However, Nintendo's share price and market presence lagged behind in recent years citing the rise of games on smartphones.

Iwata was not sure about joining this trend, The Wall Street Journal noted.

In March of this year, Mr. Iwata made his final major move as president when he appeared at a news conference to announce that Nintendo would develop videogames for smartphones based on its classic characters including Super Mario.

Nintendo collaborated with DeNA Co., a Japanese game provider, under which the companies will exchange ownership stakes and set up a new mobile game platform.

Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based videogame consultant said, "Nintendo is undergoing one of its biggest shifts ever."

"Iwata-san's passing away will make things a little problematic, but it is not unsolvable."

Nintendo shares were down less than 1% in Monday morning trading.

Iwata was forced to skip last year's E3 citing poor health, and shortly after that he underwent surgery to remove the bile duct growth. To address concerns over his health, Iwata took to his Twitter a few months later saying, "I'm progressing well."

Iwata, an accomplished programmer first joined Nintendo's HAL Laboratory back in the 1980s, where he worked on games such as Balloon Fight and EarthBound. According to records from Kotaku, he became a Director of the company in 2000, and he succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi to be appointed as only the fourth president of Nintendo in 2000.

Iwata was a notable face for Nintendo for several years, frequently interacting with gaming communities as well as hosting a regular column called Iwata Asks on Nintendo's site, where he interviewed game developers about their latest products.

Iwata's most recent post about the latest game in the Fire Emblem series was posted just a few weeks ago.