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Soundwave on 21 January 2015
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fleischr said:
forest-spirit said:

And that's why I never supported the "Fire Iwata!" movement. Getting rid of one guy won't solve anything when you have that kind of corporate structure. It's harsh perhaps but someone at Nintendo needs to take one for the team and "get rid of" murder all of the senile old farts who are holding the company back.


I've often felt that while Iwata isn't the worst CEO -- he's not the best either.

At certain point of years of losing money, Nintendo needs to shake up the management structure. Put some Western and BRIC-based executives on the board and across the company. Get a CEO who with a lot of ambition who insists on this and who doesn't care if everyone is happy, but rather puts Nintendo in a direction in which it's not atrophying itself.

They need an epic dealmaker in the head office with a global vision for gaming. Bayo 2, Devils Third, MH exclusivity are all interesting deals but they're all Japan based and focused. It's sort of predictable. They need someone who can take the charge of ideas like "We're going to revive the Turok IP and make it just as big as Halo" "We're going to Disney to lock down exclusive Star Wars games" "We're going to launch a portable handheld system in BRIC countries that will be the de facto mobile computing device". 


A Western person high up on Nintendo's board will never happen. Not in the next 10-15 years anyway, the old guard will basically have to die off first. 

Howard Lincoln is the only foreigner ever allowed on Nintendo's board and that was likely only because Yamauchi oked it and no one at Nintendo dared to question Yamauchi. And even then as I recall Lincoln was always kept fairly far down the ladder. 

The politics and red tape of Japanese business culture is pretty interesting. Unfortunately though it seems that so many Japanese businesses are having big problems adjusting to the modern age. I remember in the 90s when Sony, Nintendo, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, etc. etc. were all huge brands, today really its only the Japanese carmakers (who are far more flexible) who are anywhere near as relevant as they were in the 80s/90s.