Jumpin said:
Soundwave said:
DevilRising said:
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. |
He's a nice guy, but I'm not sure he can turn this mess around or even knows exactly what he's doing.
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He's the most successful CEO in the history of videogames, he knows what he's doing. His critics just generally don't know what they're talking about. most of his critics have never been fans of Nintendo. Their general advice is "Nintendo should make the system more like an Xbox or Playstation," or "Nintendo should just quit competing with my favourite console. Instead Nintendo should quit supporting their own hardware and instead support the console I am a fan of."
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Ken Kutaragi was also amazingly successful, and quite honestly for a period longer than Iwata has been and he was fired flat out. What you've done 4 years ago is nice, but it's all about today and tomorrow.
I don't mind this move, BUT I think Nintendo actually needs new voices. Not the same people being moved around. That's just shuffling life boats on the Titanic ... it doesn't actually give you more life boats.
I was never in favor of firing Iwata, but I think it would've done Nintendo a world of good to hire someone who knows the Western market and let them head up NOA, much in the same way that Hiroshi Yamauchi trusted Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa in the 1990s and that led to a lot of good work on NOA's part.
This move ... honestly, I'm not sure if it signals that much of a change. Nintendo's problems generally lie IMO with the Japanese side (despite all the flak Reggie takes, he's just a PR puppet) and importing more of that to the NOA side ... well lets see how it pans out.
Maybe Iwata will now be forced to look at things with a stronger eye on the US/Canada markets because I think too many of Nintendo's decisions these past 4-5 years have been made with Japan in mind.
Nintendo can roll out the red carpet to ink a deal for Monster Hunter to gift wrap the 3DS' success in Japan ... but where's the same attention to detail on the US side? Why isn't Nintendo as engaged in making sure the Wii U or 3DS have that kind of big Western franchise here? Hopefully this forces Nintendo to engage moreso now.
