Satoru Iwata

Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru, December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese game programmer and businessman who served as the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo. He is widely regarded as a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games to a wider audience by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.

Born in Sapporo, Japan, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He later majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. During his early years at HAL Laboratory he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Notable titles to which he contributed at HAL include EarthBound and the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL Laboratory in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability to the company. In the following years, he assisted in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate-planning division in 2000.

Pokémon X and Y

Pokémon X and Pokémon Y (ポケットモンスター X・Y, Poketto Monsutā Ekkusu & Wai) are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. They are the first installments in the sixth generation of the Pokémon series of role-playing games. First announced on January 8, 2013, by Satoru Iwata through a special Nintendo Direct, both X and Y were released worldwide on October 12, 2013, making them the first Nintendo-published retail games to have such a global simultaneous release in all key regions.

As with previous installments, each game follows the journey of a young Pokémon trainer (and the trainer's friends) as they train Pokémon. This time, the game takes place in the Kalos region—based on France—with the object of the game being to thwart the schemes of the nefarious criminal organization Team Flare, all while attempting to challenge the Pokémon League Champion. X and Y introduced 70 new Pokémon species, and includes new features such as the new Fairy type, character customization, updated battle and training mechanics, and completely rendered polygonal 3D graphics (as opposed to the sprites used in previous generations). A new form of Pokémon evolution, known as "Mega Evolution," allows players to further evolve many species of fully evolved Pokémon, with 30 evolutions currently available. Both titles are independent of each other, but feature largely the same plot, and while either can be played separately, trading Pokémon between the two games is, as with past titles, necessary in order for a player to obtain every Pokémon species.

X&Y

X&Y is the third studio album by British alternative rock band Coldplay, released 6 June 2005 in the United Kingdom via the record label Parlophone. The album, which features influences of electronic music, was produced by the band and British record producer Danton Supple. Development of the album was often troubled; the album's original producer, British record producer Ken Nelson, was supposed to produce much of the album, however, many songs written during their sessions were ditched due to the band's dissatisfaction. The album's cover art is a combination of colours and blocks, which is a representation of the Baudot code.

The album contains twelve tracks and an additional hidden track, "Til Kingdom Come". It is omitted from the track listing on the album sleeve, but listed as "+" on the disc label and inside the album booklet. It was originally planned for American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash to record it with lead singer Chris Martin, but Cash died before he was able to do so. The song "Talk" appeared on the main track listing, although it was thought to have been downgraded to a B-side for the album's subsequent single releases, after it leaked online in early 2005.

X Andromedae

X Andromedae is a variable star in the constellation of Andromeda. It is classified as a Mira variable, and varies from an apparent visual magnitude of 15.2 at minimum brightness to a magnitude of 8.5 at maximum brightness, with a period of approximately 343.4 days.

References

Nintendo 3DS

The Nintendo 3DS (Japanese: ニンテンドー3DS, Hepburn: Nintendō Surī Dī Esu, abbreviated to 3DS) is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. It is capable of displaying stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or additional accessories. Nintendo announced the device in March 2010 and officially unveiled it at E3 2010 on June 15, 2010. The console succeeds the Nintendo DS, featuring backward compatibility with older Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi video games, and competes with the Sony's PlayStation Vita handheld console.

The handheld offers new features such as the StreetPass and SpotPass tag modes, powered by Nintendo Network; augmented reality, using its 3D cameras; and Virtual Console, which allows owners to download and play games originally released on older video game systems. It is also pre-loaded with various applications including these: an online distribution store called Nintendo eShop, a social networking service called Miiverse; an Internet Browser; the Netflix, Hulu Plus and YouTube streaming video services; Nintendo Video; a messaging application called Swapnote (known as Nintendo Letter Box in Europe and Australia); and Mii Maker.