Wow, he was responsible for the 3DS's comeback?!? Damn that must make him such a great CEO!!

Seriously he made the thing cheaper and released Nintendo games on it, you could literally have appointed anyone as Nintendos CEO and they'd have done the same thing, the only smart thing was getting MH4 exclusive on the system and even then pretty much anyone could have figured out that getting one of the biggest games in Japan exclusive to your platform is going to help it over there, so yeah the amount of credit I'd give Iwata for turning around the 3DS is very limited.

Nintendo literally is bleeding cash right now.  The fact that the 3DS needed a comeback is what started the bleeding.  There is also the question of long term viability for their business.  The 3DS has seen a steep decline from the DS, and potentially a decline from the GBA as well (though it might get more years before a successor, allowing it to sell more).  The Wii U is on track to be their lowest selling console ever.  Considering some of his comments, it seems that Iwata was just hoping for a miracle with the Wii U over the holidays.  That isn't a very sound business strategy.

You'd be holding on to the stock for a long time.

We can go back and forth with this. Even in an era where smartphones dominate the market he has managed to make the handheld sell some very very respectable numbers, Kaz hasn't been able to do this with the Vita.

Again, I'm not saying he's doing a good job (he is doing a bad job actually), but without his past successes Nintendo could even be in bankruptcy right now.

Because Sony fans don't live in the past...PS2 success *cough* 

Without counting the stupid forecasts, he has done an incredible job with the 3DS, securing the MH franchise, steady flow of games, making the fanbase happy, etc. Iwata knows how the handheld market works, Kaz however doesn't seem to have a clue. Just turn things viceversa for consoles. even if 2013 was the 3DS peak, it warranty a good future for the system, with dozens of amazing games. If that's isn't a good job right now I don't know what is.

Let's take a look at a very simple example: Iwata saw the 3DS was struggling, what did he do? cut his own salary and reduce the price of the 3DS, secure the MH exclusivity, push developers to make games for it. 

What has Kaz done for the Vita? lower the price...and that's about it

Out of the 2, who made the the best business decisions that pushed the hardware forward? Who do you think is the better CEO in the handheld department?

I don't agree with the current Iwata's strategies, I thought that was clear. 

I'm just saying he has made good decisions as of recent, not everything he has done is bad.

Lol..."plummet". Talk about being overly dramatic.

15% is hardly plummeting especially considering the last 3 month trend. Now is a good time to buy some Nintendo stock. and make a quick 20-30% margin in a few months.

Not really. Some of our more stock-savvy posters have pointed out that Nintendo is actually criminally undervalued right now, that their current market cap is only about 20% more than the value of Nintendo's cash-on-hand, meaning that the stock price does not at all reflect the value of Nintendo's capital or (the far more important one) intellectual property.

If it was announced tomorrow that Nintendo was going to be auctioned off piece by piece, the stock value would double overnight because the market cap is not reflective of the company's actual value, and in the case of total dissolution of the company, it would be.

They will need some re-structuring and change some approaches to their business model....

Everything points out  that we will have a smaller Nintendo in the future, it just depends of how they will hold this situation.

I think it´s kind of interesting..... even with the 3DS huge success (heck, that little thing sold way better than any other console last year), it wasn´t enough to compensate the losses with the low sales of the WiiU....... can this be some sort of hint for the future of this market?

Thanks for clarifying that. You know, many videogame fans don´t understand how business, market and economy work.