He was born on October 26, 1966 in Tokyo, Japan. He grew up with music, but when he tried it out for the first time, he was not good at it. During his junior high school days, he became a fan of the band Yellow Magic Orchestra, so he bought a synthesizer and joined a cover band with his friends. Later, video games became very popular in Japan, and Iwata loved video games, so he decided he wanted to try and compose music for them; he applied for a job at Bothtec as a composer and sound designer and he got the job. He remained at the company when their name changed to Quest. He also worked for Pixel as their main composer during their NES development.