Nintendo has had 4 presidents since they got into video games. How would you rank them? You are free to use any and all criteria you want: their financial results, innovations, personality, or even morality. 

For obvious reasons, I'm not including the first two presidents. If you really want to include them in your ranking, go ahead.

So as a reminder, here are the options to rank.

3. Hiroshi Yamauchi (1949-2002): The Titan

4. Satoru Iwata (2002-2015): The Gamer

5. Tatsumi Kimishima (2015-2018):  The Planner

6. Shuntaro Furukawa (2018-present): The Incumbent

For me Yamauchi and Iwata are super close for first.  I think Iwata was awesome, but I have to give it to Yamauchi.  He had the vision to get Nintendo into video games in the first place.  I also think he had an exceptional eye for spotting talent.  He hired both Yokoi and Miyamoto, both geniuses that did amazing things for Nintendo.  But on top of that Yamauchi is the one who picked Iwata, who was the best possible person for him to pick.

I'd probably rank them like this:

1. Yamauchi
2. Iwata
3. Furukawa
4. Kimishima

1. Yamauchi
2. Iwata
3. Kimishima
4. Furukawa


I like Iwata the most, but Yamauchi is the guy who got Nintendo into gaming, so I have to give it to him.
Kimishima seemed like a good guy and was great during the launch of the Switch. Furukawa seems cool, but hes not been in the position for very long. Great so far though.

I would rank them as such, and here come some unpopular opinions.

1. Iwata
Pros
Gamer, programmer, nice guy, halved his pay when Nintendo had a bad year.
GBA's continued success, DS, Wii
Approved of the Switch before his passing
Cons
Couldn't turn the GameCube around to surpass lifetime Xbox sales or even touch N64 sales.
3DS Launch
Wii U
Nintendo Creators Program: This is one of the worst things during Iwata's tenure. I don't know if he ever commented on it, but as Nintendo's leader he shares at least some blame.
2. Kimishima
Pros
Steady leadership after Iwata's death
Switch is a massive hit.
Cons
Paid Online: He announced this, and it did come to pass a few months after he was replaced.
3. Furukawa
Pros
Switch is the most profitable video game platform ever. And while that mostly benefits shareholders, Switch is still a banger platform.
Pay Raises
End of the Nintendo Creators Program
Cons
No Switch price cuts
No Nintendo Selects
Trickling of Legacy Content
4. Yamauchi
Pros
Transformed Nintendo into video game hardware and software.
Oversaw some of the greatest games and hardware of all-time.
Cons
Very arrogant
Greedy
Draconian third-party policies
Cartridges for N64 and miniDVDs for GCN. These greatly hurt these platforms.

First and foremost as a human being, Iwata is far and away the best and most out standing.
That said as far as running a company. I would need to rank them in the order they were there:

1. Yamauchi
2. Iwata
3. Kimishima
4. Furukawa

Furukawa has devoid the company of much of it's personality and charm imo. Sure the Switch is selling like hot cakes, but he comes off as a faceless CEO and isn't as fun as Iwata and Reggie. Though at least he isn't an asshole like Yamauchi. Then again without Yamauchi, Nintendo would not be what it is today. Though perhaps I'm being unfair to Furukawa and this could all change easily once the Switch successor rolls out and Furukawa undergoes a new generation of hardware. These are always defining moments of a Nintendo president. Time will tell, but perhaps we are all a bit early on ranking him.

Iwata is why Nintendo had charm and personality. It was different before him and its different after him.

This is tricky.

Yamauchi and Iwata both led Nintendo through good times, (NES/SNES/Gameboy/Wii/DS) and bad times. (N64, Gamecube, Wii U) Their highs were magnificent, their lows disastrous.

Kimishima wasn't really around low enough to be as noteworthy, though he definitely deserves props for managing the very successful launch of the Switch. Furukawa has presided over the most successful period in the company's history, but the real test of his leadership will how he manages the transition to the next generation; if Switch 2 is another smash hit, his position as one of the greats will be cemented.

It's worth noting that a lot of what Kimishima and Furukawa achieved with the Switch was set in motion by Iwata before his death, so he deserves a lot of the credit for it as well.

#1. Iwata. Responsible for Pokemon Gold/Silver being the greatest Pokemon games. That alone makes him #1.

#2 Kimishima. Given the time frame, I'm assuming he's responsible for the Switch? Helped Nintendo into a huge success right there.

#3 Furukawa. I literally didn't know his name (or that he'd replaced Kimishima) until this thread.

#4 Yamauchi. By all accounts sounds like he was a massive cunt.

1. Yamauchi

He wasn't a gamer himself, but he understood the entertainment business very well. He also wasn't soft like Iwata and he didn't mince words. Nintendo's down era in the home console business under his watch was first and foremost caused by Sony's behind-the-doors deals with third parties and that's something no Nintendo president could have done anything about.

2. Iwata

The most likeable for sure, but this was also a double-edged sword. After leading Nintendo to their most successful era at the time, he followed it up with Nintendo's darkest era and this happened for two reasons: For one, he was too nice to his own developers and allowed them to do what they wanted regardless of expected sales, and two, he was very gullible when it came to third party relations. His most memorable tough-guy-statement was that "third parties who don't support the Wii U now will regret it", but that was more the frustrating realisation that third parties got him pretty good than anything else. Before his unfortunate passing, he managed to plant the seeds of the Nintendo of today, including the creation of a console that third parties were bound to hate and shun. This showed tremendous courage on his part and was very much like the Wii and DS era where Nintendo was declared dead by analysts and major third parties before their systems even launched.

3. Furukawa

He came from Nintendo's financial side, so his approach will be closer to Yamauchi than Iwata. But he has yet to be responsible for a console launch himself, so by default he cannot be in the same tier as Yamauchi and Iwata. He's a distant third with the only credit being given to him so far that he managed to make Nintendo stay on course and remain committed to a successful platform throughout a generation. My personal opinion is that Nintendo is better off with a president who is focused on the business side of gaming, because great sales and great games aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

4. Kimishima

His appointment was always the one of an interim president, so he merely served as the head of Nintendo until the next big president was determined. There's really not anything you can say for or against him, he simply fulfilled his role as he was supposed to without making any major decisions on his own.

Yamauchi, and it's not even close. He was the only Nintendo boss who looked at the competition, took them head-on, and won. The rest has either side-stepped and won, or side-stepped and lost. Yamauchi was a gunslinger. He put the boss in boss.

Also, humor aside, he was the man who made Nintendo a household name. Without him, there is no Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Iwata... there's nothing.