He comes accross quite well on Nintendo Direct and seems to have a genuine love for the company. I think a lot of people are willing to ignore his incompetence based on that.

He also says some truly hilarious things. Some of them ignorant, some of them criminally misleading. My personal favourite was "the virtual console is the iTunes of gaming." You know, if iTunes only released one Backstreet Boys single every month for $9.99.

*sigh* Iwata, I want my $350 dollars back, I'm starting feel ripped off. All the money I spent on this console could have gone to better used. Iwata...its time to go, go back to being a developer, I don't think CEO is your thing.

Why the hell do people believe that Iwata is some sort of criminal that holds back the company?

I don't think anyone thinks that, lol. 

I do think there's a spreading sense that he (and or his board of directors) are borderline incompetent though mainly because of the woefully mismanaged end of Wii lifecycle, the disastrous 3DS launch, the even more disasterous Wii U launch (after promising it wouldn't happen again after the 3DS) and first year, marketing seemingly becoming worse everywhere.

That and Nintendo taking their first annual loss in company history, losing about 80% of their stock value from the peak days of the Wii, and seemingly having huge problems getting the 3DS OS and Wii U OS issues ironed out have kind of compounded the issue. 

There have been some bright spots for sure, like the Pokemon X/Y launch, but by and large, there's a growing sense of Iwata as the bumbling "Please Understand" guy who has a new line of excuses/apologies to make every 6 months or so. He's still likable for sure, but the "he's got the golden touch!" repuation has definitely gone down the toilet since about 2010 or so. 

If I told you in 2010 that Nintendo would incur a giant annual loss for the first time in the near future, that the 3DS would have a horrible launch and would need an $80 price drop in less than 5 months from US launch, that the Wii U would be even more of a disaster selling at about Dreamcast levels for its first year ... I would likely bet that you'd probably laugh out loud at how absurd such a future sounded like. 

I'm not sure of what to think.

Iwata was also responsible for the GC, DS, Wii and 3DS. That makes 3 big rights out of 4, with GC being a fail, but profitable nevertheless.

Wii U is having a hard time, but shouldn't we wait until the mid/end of the gen to talk about resign?

Nobody's perfect.

but it just seems wierd that people are talking shit on Iwata so much yet they worship the likes of other company CEOs despite them making bigger mistakes.

Pretty sure Yamauchi launched the GC and the thing became profitable when Iwata took the big seat.

I think people would've let the weak Wii lifecycle finish and the really bad 3DS launch slide ... but the Wii U being so bad is like that three strikes and you're out type thing. 

Iwata never said he would resign.

He never said anything even close.

He said that his first goal was to achieve Nintendo´s XXX-million profit forecast. Someone asked what he would do if they miss it, he aanswered with "We will try really hard"!

The "journalists" ran with "Iwata implies to step down at Nintendo if they  won´t reach their profit forecast".

And some poeple still believe it.