Despite recent financial woes and dropping popularity among investors, Nintendo will retain Satoru Iwata as company president.
Eight other key executives, including Genyo Takeda, Shigeru Miyamoto, Tatsumi Kimishima, Shigeyuki Takahashi, Satoshi Yamato, Susumu Tanaka, Shinya Takahashi and Hirokazu Shinshi, were also re-elected at the publisher’s annual shareholder meeting in Kyoto.
Iwata, still recovering from surgery to remove a growth from his bile duct, did not attend the meeting. Iwata is the Japanese publisher’s fourth president, assuming the position in 2002 from long time Nintendo chief executive from Hiroshi Yamauchi. Prior to taking over as company president, Iwata managed Nintendo development partner HAL Laboratory.
In May Nintendo reported a worse than expected, third consecutive operating loss of 46.4 billion JPY (US$457 million) on revenues of US$5.63 billion, as well as a net loss of 23.2 billion JPY (US$229 million) for the fiscal year ending 31 March.
Iwata took responsibility for the poor results and a subsequent five-month, 50 per cent pay cut, but has declined to resign.
