Iwata Satoru, Japanese businessman and programmer who served as the CEO of Nintendo, died on July 11 at the age of 55.

A brief statement issued form the Japanese game giant said Iwata passed away due to a bile duct growth.

Iwata joined the company in the 1980s as a programmer, became a board director and then went on to become president of Nintendo in 2002. In 2013 he was appointed as the CEO of Nintendo of America Inc.

Under his watch Nintendo produced some of its more popular and innovative products including the Wii, the DS, as well as the GameCube and the Wii U.

As reported by Variety, Iwata voluntarily took pay cuts two times when the company reported losses. Recently he attempted to move the company away from its dependence on consoles. Due to this strategy and to smartphone gaming, Nintendo expects a major jump in its profits.

Sam Byford, the Asia news editor for The Verge, lauded the accomplishments of the late CEO, writing, “His vision upended and expanded the video game market, bringing years of astonishing profit to Nintendo with the DS and Wii. But more importantly, he made countless people happy.”

Writing about how he had gone to the company’s headquarters after news of Iwata's death, Byford detailed seeing a grieving employee wiping a tear from her cheek and witnessing the Nintendo flag flying at half-mast whereupon he felt overcome by sorrow.

“For any other company, for any other president or CEO, I wouldn’t have felt this way,” Byford wrote. “But Satoru Iwata was more than just a CEO to many. He was an architect and steward of memories; I’ll be forever thankful.”