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In what could be be described as sudden and profoundly saddening, Nintendo has announced that its current president, Satoru Iwata, has passed away. They explain in a very short message that his death was due to a bile duct growth. He had surgery to remove this growth last year, which concerned many since it meant that he would skip out on last year’s E3. Upon his return, it seemed like everything was fine and that the surgery was a success. That is until today when Nintendo told us the news. According to their “Notification of Death and Personnel Change of a Representative Director (President)” (PDF) document, Iwata had actually died last Saturday, July 11th, and waited until today to fully confirm the news and relay the message to the public.

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In the middle of developing the next Smash Bros. game for Wii U and 3DS, Masahiro Sakurai is reported to be suffering from repetitive strain injury for a lot of hard work. According to Polygon, the Smash Bros. creator has to now use a trackball to work. Sakurai states that his inability to use his arm is getting to “the point where it’s starting to restrict my work and lifestyle.” Along with using a trackball, he’s trying to see if he can issue vocal commands for those he’s supervising. He’s also attempting to use his left arm to work, but it’s not going so well.

Working with mouse and keyboard for extended periods of time can become quite a strain on your arm/wrist. I should know. Twice my left wrist went out of whack, making me unable to do much on work The Wired Fish both late last year and in late 2011. Both times were the result of mice that didn’t conform well to my hand and as a result screwed up my wrist. This never happened to me before 2011, but my time on a computer (which is a lot) probably contributed to my wrist being unfriendly to certain kinds of mice. With a bad wrist (or a bad arm in Sakurai’s case), all you can do is either use your other arm, or just take a break to keep it steady until it’s more functional.

Take a break if you must Sakurai. Last thing we need is someone getting ill from overwork.

Kirby creator gets bad RSI, extols the virtues of trackballs [Polygon, via Siliconera]