Evo starts this Friday, the day of Iwata's funeral. Bill won't be able to participate in Evo because he'll be in Japan paying his respects.

Personally I don't think any of the options presented in the poll are likely other than Takeda. There are probably a half-dozen executives in Kyoto more likely to land the job than Bill, Reggie, or Sakurai (who doesn't even work at Nintendo).

Whoever it will be, I'm sure it will be someone who's been with Nintendo for a long time, and who is Japanese. Also, I don't think it will be anyone mentioned in the poll here. Genyo Takeda would seem the most likely candidate, however he's 66 years old. I very much doubt they'd make him the new president. 

Whoever it is, I want someone who's as respectful, likeable, inclusive and classy as Iwata-san.

Also: What Cheebee said. But I will add that Miyamoto isn't going to be the president. He recently stepped down from his executive roles so he could concentrate the final years of his career into working on smaller scale projects. He's old now, like Takeda is, and it wouldn't make sense to appoint someone President for what could be only for 3-5 years (before he finally retires). They'll be looking for the best candidate to fill the role for at least over a decade.

He is a PR nightmare at times though.... there is like zero trust in him, when he says things.

Im pretty sure Reggie could just as well run the company into the ground as he could make it flurish.... Not sure if thats a good thing or not.

Id much rather a good "idea" guy got put in charge of the company.

Any way you slice it, there is a major crossroads in the VERY near future. Anyone can tank or save Nintendo, but you have to look at who can take control of the ship that is spinning wildly out of control and the captain is overboard. Changes can be made to where they need them at a later date, they need a figure head. They are supposed to be releasing the first pieces of information on their next home console next year. It's not the time for everyone to be looking at each other thinking "what are we going to do". All the CEO really needs to do is have a direction for the company, and then let their teams take responsibility for their actions. If Reggie says we are going to continue unchanged in the course that Iwata had laid out for the next few years, then that's what they should do. If he says he wants the NX to be a powerhouse, then they'd go that course. These "idea" guys are what going to get Nintendo into trouble. Iwata had an insane ability to see gaming as a whole. Motion controls and the gamepad weren't just good for specific games, they had the ability to reach most games (granted some more than others). If they are going to get another "idea" guy in, he better have a firm freaking grasp of the gaming industry and games as a whole as well as a really good way to convey that his idea is a game changer or the whole ship goes down with him. Hell, the Wii U is a perfect example of a great idea that didn't catch on and wound up completely floundering. 

Wow, looking at the poll, a lot of people want Sakurai. The poor man would never sleep again. He already works himself into exhaustion with every smash game, if he had to lead the company he'd probably burn out in about two years. :P
That being said, I get why Sakurai is the popular choice, he's still young and one of the most imaginative and superb developers they have. I see him more like Miyamoto though, I don't think he'd be happy without making games.

That's not really true, though. Yamauchi was President for over half a century, and Iwata had only been a full Nintendo (as opposed to HAL) employee for two years when Yamauchi picked him as his successor. Iwata even remarked that during the meeting in which Yamauchi was handing over the reigns to Iwata, he thought Yamauchi was actually preparing to fire him. It was an out of the blue decision to hand over the reigns to Iwata, and was particularly astonishing for a conservative, Kyoto based company. A 43 year old whose primary experience was in programming and game design, with no formal management training, who had spent most of his career several hundred miles from Kyoto working at HAL. There's no tradition of CEO's being groomed within Nintendo, the company was Hiroshi Yamauchi's personal fiefdom for decades, and then Iwata was chosen because Yamauchi believed Iwata was the best person for the job.

It's not known yet whether Iwata chose his own successor as Yamauchi was able to. Certainly, there'd be some parallels if Sakurai took control, given that through his work on Smash Bros, he's managed some of Nintendo's most ambitious software projects, and his background is one of game development and development management rather than business management. Miyamoto and Takeda are strong possibilities if Iwata didn't choose a successor, because the board will want minimal disruption as the company moves onto smartphones and NX. Certainly, though, I can't see Miyamoto wanting that role for very long, and Takeda is a decade older than Iwata. I expect at the very least, shareholders will want Takeda or Miyamoto in charge. They might not be a bad choice, given the next few years will see Nintendo stick to the roadplan Iwata had mapped out.

I also think, rechecking statements at the time of Iwata's passing, Iwata had not chosen a successor before he passed away. Miyamoto and Takeda are "interim replacements" until a successor can be found. That suggests there's no obvious long-term candidate in sight, so perhaps Miyamoto and Takeda will steady the ship through the transition onto NX, smartphones and whatever "Quality of Life" is. I certainly don't think we'll see Trinen or Reggie take the helm, though, they've a complete lack of experience in game development. Whoever is in charge of Nintendo in the long-run will have some background in game design, I think.

EDIT: I'm also surprised Katsuya Eguchi isn't on this list. He's 50 years old, has had a senior role at EAD for a decade or so, and in recent years managed the entirety of EAD alongside Miyamoto, before being promoted to having overall charge of EAD. He's got hardware experience too, as the Wii U producer, and was instrumental in some of Nintendo's more successful recent new IP, like Splatoon, Animal Crossing and the Wii series. Certainly he's a stronger candidate than Reggie or Trinen, and perhaps a stronger candidate than Sakurai.

Sakurai is the perfect candidate for CEO of Nintendo.

As most people have been saying we need a younger face who is resposible and understands both Japan and Western gaming audiences, i think Sakurai is really the one that can fix Nintendo's mistakes and flip the company's bad image back to their 80's and 90's reputation.

As for NoA please leave Reggie right where he's at, Trinen won't do shit to improve NoA and we dont need Reggie to come over to Japan and Europe to talk more nonsense, lies and damage controlling.

Diet racism right there.

I strongly suspect that Iwata had been sick for a while. The chances of him recovering from that particular cancer, even with surgery, were always painfully low. Also he would have been having frequent checks for signs of recurrence, so it's unlikely that his recent declining health would have happened unexpectedly. With that in mind, I'm confident plans for his succession were made some time ago and they are just waiting a 'respectful' amount of time to announce his successor.

I'm confident that it won't be Miyamoto. He's recently said that's he's stepped away from decisions regarding hardware planning and the like, that wouldn't make sense if he was set to take over.

I also can't see it being anyone outside of Japan, even though Trinen could make sense. My hunch is that Genyo Takeda is too old. Nintendo has had their greatest success with their youngest president so I think with the recent realisation that they need to adapt and move forward, they will again opt for younger blood. Who does that leave as the best candidate? I'm not sure......

Totally agree.