http://origin.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6093809
Nintendo of America plans to open Silicon Valley office
By Mike Antonucci
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:06/08/2007 09:22:43 AM PDT
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime announced this morning that the Redmond, Wash.-based video-game company is moving about 55 key jobs to a new office in Silicon Valley.
In an exclusive interview with the Mercury News, Fils-Aime said continued success for Nintendo hinges on having its most forward-looking personnel in the valley, where "the heat and the action is going on around new forms of entertainment."
Fils-Aime said a sales and marketing staff will launch an office somewhere in the "Redwood City, Menlo Park, San Carlos" area at the end of September. Another roughly 25 employees will open a similar office in midtown Manhattan at the same time.
The timing of the initiative is closely connected to the company's success with the innovative Wii console and the handheld DS game device. Although the move may disrupt some of Nintendo's momentum through the loss of executives who are unwilling to relocate, "it's much easier to do this right now when we certainly have the wind at our back," noted Fils-Aime.
Fils-Aime would not confirm or deny reports that veteran Nintendo executives including marketing and communications vice presidents George Harrison and Perrin Kaplan would leave the company.
"All of those reports are speculation and rumors," said Fils-Aime. He said moving the sales and marketing team from Redmond to the Bay Area and New York would result in many departures - an estimated 60 percent of the staff will need to be replaced - but he would not comment on specific employees.
"On one hand," said Colin Sebastian, an industry expert at Lazard Capital Markets in San Francisco, "there's a risk of losing long-term, very good employees. But I think there are broader, larger strategic initiatives that Nintendo wants to prioritize ahead of that."
Part of Silicon Valley's appeal, said Fils-Aime, is the presence of major independent game developers, such as industry leaders Electronic Arts in Redwood City and LucasArts in San Francisco.
"In our minds," he noted, "it's essential to spend physical time with people from other companies, to be involved with them as neighbors and do business with them face to face."
He characterized the sales and marketing staff, which represents slightly less than 10 percent of the employees currently in Redmond, as "the forward-facing 10 percent - the group that interacts with retailers, journalists, licensees, reaching out to consumers and emerging trends."
Fils-Aime said Nintendo's ultimate goal is to guarantee its place as a leader in interactive entertainment, no matter how technology evolves.
"That includes things no one has even conceptualized before," he added.
Fils-Aime said Nintendo hoped to develop more software that blends an entertainment experience with an educational or informational use, such as a DS product in Japan that provides food recipe details.
"It's fair to say the Wii and DS are multimedia devices as well as game machines," Sebastian said. "I would expect all sorts of digital media to be playable or used on those platforms over time, and there are lot of potential partners in the Bay Area."
Fils-Aime said he couldn't name an exact location for the valley office because a lease has not been finalized.
The Silicon Valley hotbed, wrote Fils-Aime in a follow-up e-mail to his interview, also "goes beyond technology. It goes to the heart of how companies relate with their customers and consumers.
"Ebay's success is as much (its) global marketplace, sellers and buyers as it is thewonderful infrastructure and technology they employ. The same is true for Apple, Google and the other exceptional companies in the Valley. This is the business culture that fits so well with Nintendo." The New York office would also focus on that region's media and advertising influence.
