Satoru Iwata, the late president of Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co., has won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 19th annual Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Awards, according to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

The awards are seen as the Oscars of the gaming world.

Iwata, who died last July at 55, will be honored at a D.I.C.E. awards ceremony in Las Vegas on Feb. 18, the body said.

He led the development of the Nintendo DS and Wii game consoles, bringing the company's sales to a record-high ¥1.84 trillion in fiscal 2008.

After working as a game programmer at a company that developed software for Nintendo, Iwata joined Nintendo as director in 2000 and became president in 2002 at 42.

Iwata's cause of death was a tumor of the bile duct.