What's next for Nintendo? Industry analysts weigh in

We reached out to several games industry analysts after the death of Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata was announced. Many noted that it would be extremely hard to replace his warm personality as well as his singular achievements. "During his career, the company recovered from the disaster of the GameCube and grew its handheld business by four fold," notes Michael Pachter, a research analyst with Wedbush Securities. "He also presided over the launch of the Wii, which had a phenomenal run and attracted millions of people to gaming."

We asked analysts for their take on how Iwata's death will affect the company that he leaves behind, and what moves his successor might make.

"Mr. Iwata never lost sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, entertaining and surprising gamers is what matters most of all. He didn’t just run a hardware company or a software company, he had a deep love of gaming, and that shined through throughout his career. I think the new CEO has to strike a similar, albeit unique, balance between corporate management and industry visionary." - Lewis Ward, research director for gaming at IDC

"Given the tight and close-knit culture of Nintendo, my guess is that Iwata-san’s successor will come from inside the company." - Colin Sebastian, analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated

"My advice to the next CEO of Nintendo is to consider exploiting Nintendo IP following the Disney example, with movies, toys, toys to life, pajamas, theme parks, etc. Nintendo has already begun to do this, but the successor should redouble their efforts. I also think that the strategy of proprietary IP for proprietary devices is dying, and think that Nintendo would be far more successful if it supported all consoles." - Michael Pachter

"Think what you like about mobile, but smartphones and tablets have created the biggest gaming market that ever existed. In no other time have more people played games than right now. It's the right target group, and it offers a huge potential for Nintendo, the only video game company left that doesn't produce mobile content. I think the reality is Nintendo must become a big player on mobile as well in order to thrive going forward, and Iwata-san's successor should be following the path that he had already put Nintendo." - Serkan Toto, consultant with Kantan games

Read the whole article on Gamasutra.