GDC 2009 Keynotes

Keynote Announced: Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo

Discovering New Development Opportunities
Wednesday, March 25th 9-10am

2009 marks Iwata’s return to the GDC stage since 2006 when he spoke about “disruptive development,” and introduced to the Western development community the philosophies on engaging new players and surprising existing players. In his 2005 keynote, Iwata discussed the next-generation console then codenamed “Revolution,” which has since become known as the Wii. Stay tuned for updates on what he will say in 2009!

Biography:
In 2002, Satoru Iwata was named president of Nintendo Co., Ltd. He joined Nintendo in 2000, when was responsible for Nintendo’s global corporate planning as the head of the Corporate Planning Division.

Iwata was born in 1959 in the Hokkaido Prefecture of Japan. He studied at and graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology University, where he majored in computer science. Shortly after graduating, Iwata joined HAL Laboratory, Inc. and in 1983 began coordinating the software production and development of Nintendo titles, such as the Kirby series. By 1993, he had become president of that company.

GDC Mobile Keynote

Neil Young,
CEO & Founder, ngmoco

Why the iPhone just changed everything
Description:
Neil Young, CEO and founder, ngmoco, will bring the classic game makers perspective to the GDC Mobile keynote and talk about why, to his own surprise, he left his role at Electronic Arts to build a new class of mobile games. He will share with the audience his learnings and draw a vision for the not-so-distant future, and the opportunities the new mobile devices present, to inspire developers to leave their day jobs too... Read more here.

To read Neil Young's bio, click here.