It still seems like yesterday. It's amazing how his idea of being |DIRECT| to us, really did connect us to him in unimaginable ways, for so many to have felt his death personally. Were it the leader of Sony or Microsoft, or Activision, or Nestle, or Walmart even the most ardent of fans would neither know nor care. He managed to connect with all his customers, personally. That's an exceptionally rare talent.

@Not_Soos All very well said, and very well related. Indeed I think I almost dislike Nintendo Directs now. They're just PR messages and announcements. With Iwata, they were events and personal messages. Everything he made them to be seems to have faded into being a commercial now...drowned in corporate planning and focus groups. Koizumi indeed embodies the same spirit, and I feel heartened when those closest to him, Sakurai, Ishihara, Masuda, flash a quick |DIRECT| hand gesture in their segments....an acknowledgement that his ideas are still part of it. But so few acknowledge it today. E3 was missing Koizumi which I think hurt it (and Takahashi just doesn't have it), and I was hoping he would become more influential than the bean counter now moving into Iwata's office. There are a few people at Nintendo, the above mentioned, Miyamoto, of course, some others that embody the spirit of Nintendo, but I do at times fear that what made Nintendo will become more steadily lost without him, and will blend into becoming just another corporation.

@MegaTen "lacked the skill of a businessman" his errors in the late Wii and through the WiiU era are known, and he acknowledged the error of the late Wii era directly, but it's hard to look at the guy responsible for the success of the Wii, DS, and 3DS, and the development of the Switch and acquisition of DeNA as "lacking business skills." Yes, he was unwilling to succomb to ruthlessness in business. Which is both a credit to his character, and merely an indication that the lessons of Yamauchi's ruthless business failures and the cost to the company were learned, both by himself and by Yamauchi (the man with mob-like business skills.) People all seem to forget that Yamauchi was still a controlling member of the board through early WiiU era. The old business shark also signed off on the WiiU. It wasn't purely an Iwata failing but a company-wide one. It's sad and bizzarre that BOTH of the legendary leaders of the company died within years of each other during the lowest years of the company.

@Mario500 An article on a Nintendo site for the anniversary of the passing of the well known, well loved leader of Nintendo who influenced both the games, company, was the executive producer of many of the games on Switch (such as today's other article, Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker), and lead the product concept design for generations of hardware, including the Switch and 3DS, the two current hardware models we're here talking about, is the co-creator of Super Smash Bros. the game this E3 was dedicated to which will become the #1 discussion on this site by December, and who influenced not just Nintendo but many generations of games, game design, and the industry at large, even among competitors and enemies. Yes, that really deserves an article. In an industry were everyone's a rock star these days, it takes someone truly amazing to become a legend. Rest assured, we are unlikely to see anyone of his influence and stature in the industry again in our lifetimes, short of, of course, Miyamoto.

@Shiryu That clip remains both heartwarming and difficult to watch still. It's this little snapshot of the perfect moment of Iwata being Iwata.

@ThanosReXXX Dictionary meanings aside, technically anniversary never really suggests a celebration in English but just a marker of time per annum. It's fairly neutral in positive/negative connotation, at least colloquially.