What happened 2015AD in Japan

On January 1, 2015, Sony announced that users would be compensated for the downtime with a 5-day extension to PlayStation Plus memberships.

On March 9, 2015, the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Tokyo unveiled a bronze statue depicting Ueno returning to meet Hachikō at the University of Tokyo, Japan to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Hachikō's death. The statue was sculpted by Tsutomu Ueda from Nagoya and depicts a very excited Hachikō jumping up to greet his master at the end of a workday. Ueno is dressed in a hat, suit, and trench coat, with his briefcase placed on the ground. Hachikō wears a studded harness as seen in his last photos.

On 17 March 2015, Nintendo announced a partnership with Japanese mobile developer DeNA to produce games for smart devices. The first of these, Miitomo, was released in March 2016.

On 17 March 2015, Nintendo announced a new "dedicated games platform with a brand new concept" with the codename "NX" that would be further revealed in 2016. Reggie Fils-Aimé, president of Nintendo of America, referred to NX as "our next home console" in a June 2015 interview with The Wall Street Journal. In a later article from October 2015, The Wall Street Journal relayed speculation from unnamed inside sources that the NX was intended to feature "industry-leading" hardware specifications and be usable as both a home and portable console. It was also reported that Nintendo had begun distributing software development kits (SDKs) for it to third-party developers, with the unnamed source further speculating that these moves suggested that the company was on track to introduce it as early as 2016.

On 11 July 2015, Iwata died from a bile duct tumor at the age of 55. Following his death, representative directors Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto jointly led the company on an interim basis until the appointment of Tatsumi Kimishima as Iwata's successor on 16 September 2015. In addition to Kimishima's appointment, the company's management organization was also restructured—Miyamoto was named "Creative Fellow" and Takeda was named "Technology Fellow".

On 9 November 2015, Sony announced that they are going to stop producing Betamax Tapes in March 2016.