Japanese company Hobonichi has revealed that Nintendo's "Iwata Asks" series of interviews will be collected as a single book. "Iwata Ask" began as a series of interviews between then-Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata and various developers from within Nintendo proper. These segments, which cover a range of diverse Nintendo-related topics as Pokemon, Fire Emblem, and The Super Mario series, were originally posted on Hobonichi and Nintendo's websites. An archive of some of these interviews translated into English can be found here.
Satoru Iwata served as the fourth president and CEO of Nintendo and is well known for such feats as helping to program Pokemon Gold and Silver and taking a pay cut to keep Nintendo afloat when the Wii U proved to be less successful than its predecessor, the Wii. He was also good friends with Hobonichi's founder, Shigesato Itoi, a man best known as the creator of the Mother/Earthbound series of games. Iwata also had a hand in developing the second Mother title, which was renamed Earthbound in the west, in the series, coming on board as a programming 'wizard' to help fix problems with the game as he occasionally did for troubled projects.
Iwata passed in 2015 and was lauded following the event for being one of the nicest people the video game industry and won a number of awards for his achievements after his death. These include a lifetime achievement award from the Golden Joystick award in 2015 and another from the Dice Awards in 2016. He was replaced by Tatsumi Kimishima following his death, who later stepped down in 2018.
Hobonichi's Twitter account posted a picture of the book's cover, which can be viewed here. According to Tiny Cartridge, as of writing, publisher Hobonichi has made no mention of releasing the book in English, but they have translated some of their work in the past. More information is expected on July 1st.
