| thekitchensink said: How on Earth could he be blamed for the GameCube? He only became president halfway through its life cycle, at which point it was pretty much too late for anyone to turn it around. You could certainly make the case that he flubbed the Wii U launch and the back end of the Wii's lifecycle, but GameCube cannot be blamed on Iwata whatsoever. |
This is untrue, he officially became president in 2002, which was the first full year of the GameCube on the market, but he was already working heavily on the console before that. Yamauchi honestly started to step back by about 2000.
I don't think Iwata should be fired. But there needs to be big changes and Nintendo needs to understand they are on a slippery slope that's going to lead them to a really, really bad spot if they do not start making changes now.
The buck stops at Iwata's desk and the fact is he and his board of directors have grossly mismanaged both the 3DS and Wii U launches, destroyed almost all of their brand momenteum from 3-4 years ago, lead Nintendo to its first fiscal loss in history, and have absolutely tanked the company's stock price from a high of about $78/share to $13/share today in like 4 years time.
They got lazy and complacent with the success of the Wii and DS and now are getting their clock cleaned as the casual demographic has abandoned them. Thankfully for the 3DS they have managed to regain a position of strength in Japan, but the platform is not really putting up big numbers in the West, which is troublesome as well. Wii U is simply a disaster in every market right now.
What I suggest: Iwata stays on. But the board of directors should be shaken up. Too many old fart Japanese suits on the board trying to dictate to a youth driven market is a big problem. Almost everyone on Nintendo's board is like in their late 50s/early 60s. They are out of touch, there is simply no question about it.
Iwata and his board of directors also made a mistake of neutering Nintendo of America so that they have no real power. Yamauchi was smart enough to delegate to Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa because he knew the Western market was different. That led to Nintendo's investments in Rare, Factor 5, Silicon Knights, the founding of Retro Studios, etc. etc. which led to games like GoldenEye, Donkey Kong Country, Eternal Darkness, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, etc.
It's time for Nintendo to hire someone who is smart, savvy, and understands the Western market and isn't a product of the Japanese side's group think. And Iwata needs to delegate and give that person (or persons) some actual power.
