Reggie’s retirement and Nintendo’s future
Spencer Hunt staff writer Recently, the president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime announced he…
Spencer Hunt
staff writer
Recently, the president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime announced he will be retiring April 15. He has been with Nintendo for 15 years, and is known by Nintendo’s fans as a fun-loving gamer. He could be seen bringing something new to the table and coming up with new ways to entertain fans, all while announcing new titles. His announcement of his retirement raised multiple questions of the future of Nintendo.
For starters, who will succeed him? We already know the answer to that question.
He will be succeeded by Doug Bowser, the senior vice president of sales and marketing. But what does this mean? You see, Nintendo’s presidents have a long-standing tradition of getting to know their employees and are known to see them as colleagues instead of workers. It is what allowed Nintendo to flourish for so long.
Bowser taking up the position of president is a little concerning due to the current environment of the gaming community. It’s strained and people are prepared to boycott any game at the drop of a hat due to an overabundance of DLC or micro-transactions. These are genuine concerns many people have for Nintendo going forward.
The sphere of video games has been in turmoil for some time, and for some, Nintendo has been seen as a last bastion of integrity not found anywhere else in years. Once respected companies have tanked any goodwill they had in one foul swoop.
Activision, EA, Blizzard and even Bethesda of all companies are looked at with disgust for terrible business practices in the pursuit of the myth of infinite growth that Capitalism, unfortunately perpetuates in companies. That’s not to say that Capitalism is inherently bad, just that it can result in companies that only want to please shareholders and not the consumer. This is a problem Nintendo has, for the most part, managed to avoid. But many fear with Bowser’s introduction as president, that might change.
The fears Fils-Aime’s departure creates are very reasonable, but, blown out of proportion. What people forget is Nintendo of America doesn’t have the final say in decisions made; its home base in Japan does. Furthermore, the president of Japan is going to stay the same for some time and they seem to remember the words of the late Satoru Iwata, the previous president of Nintendo Japan: “Above all; video games are meant to be just one thing: fun. Fun for everyone.”
It won’t change its policies because Bowser is the one in charge, not for years to come. And I can’t help but think Nintendo has a bright future ahead of itself, even beyond the inevitable gaming market crash. Because thanks to companies like Bethesda, Ubisoft and EA, it WILL crash. And there’s not much we can do about that.
That’s fine, because in the end, Nintendo will still be here and they will still be making fun video games.
In the end, Nintendo has a bright future ahead of it, and while I’ll miss Reggie “My Body is Ready” Fils-Aime, I look forward to seeing what the future holds under Bowser’s leadership. For crying out loud, his last name is Bowser.
How can we not have faith in the man who has the same last name as Mario’s arch-nemesis?
