Iwata Laughs, Becomes CEO of Nintendo of America

[DevilRising]

Anyone hoping for Iwata's downfall are just, quite frankly, horrible horrible people.

Whether you are a huge supporter of Nintendo or not, there is literally ZERO reason to dislike the guy. Saturo Iwata is the very very RARE case, in this day and age, of a major game company being headed by someone that *gasp* not only used to create games, but is a gamer himself. So unlike 99% of big company head presidents out there, he actually understands not only the product, but the consumer as well. He doesn't need yes-men and focus group analysts to come kiss his butt and tell him what recent trends show consumers allegedly want.

We're talking about the man who helped make Lolo, Kirby, Earthbound, and Smash Bros. for fuck's sake.

But, sadly, much like pro sports, when a team has a spot of trouble, the coach usually gets blamed, even if he has zero control over what's going down. And while I do absolutely think Nintendo as a whole should have had at least a few of those 3DS projects as Wii U projects, as 3DS almost has too many first party games coming recently while Wii U (which needs them) in the last few months has none (namely Luigi's Mansion 2, Paper Mario 4, having Monster Games make a pointless port of DKCR when they should be working on a new Wii U title). I don't however think that he exactly PLANNED for what looked on paper like a fantastic Wii U launch lineup, to have not done as well as expected.

One of the primary things that hurt Nintendo in NA, I believe, is that the original round of commercials for Wii U were atrocious, with craptacular "dubstep" soundtracks, and nonsensical imagery that showed or told nothing to the average consumer about what Wii U really is, and why they should buy one. Whoever was responsible for that commercial in the NOA marketing department should step down, not Iwata. On the same token, I think Reggie has been a good thing for Nintendo overall as well, as while he has a corporate/advertising background, he is also a self-admitted avid gamer, and while he certainly comes off a bit as a "corporate PR guy", which....well, he is, it's also undeniable that when he talks at least about certain games, you can tell that he has genuine enthusiasm for them.

So yup. Iwata's fine. Personally I hope he sticks around as Prez. for a long time to come. He was personally responsible for the mega-success of DS and Wii, and people seem to forget that. He gave himself a pay cut when 3DS initially sold under-par (when he really didn't need to), something I don't seem to remember the presidents of Sony or MS doing at any point. Just saying. The dude just seems like a hell of a guy. Not really sure how you could root against that.