Is this good or bad?

Iwata's statement from the financial briefing:

"At the financial announcement of yesterday, we also announced the changes in the members of our board of directors. More specifically, our plans are for the four directors, including Mr. Mori and Mr. Hatano who are currently the representative directors, to retire when their term of office expires at the end of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders this year, and for the five new directors to take office, as well as the promotion of one existing director.

We are not changing our overall business strategy, but already 11 years have passed since the current management structure was established in 2002. The planned changes this time aim to realize a generational change of our management structure. When these changes become effective, the average age of the board of directors will become 6.7 years younger than today.

For your information, as recovering the momentum in the overseas markets tops our priority list, we are planning to place our overseas operations under the direct control of the company president after this year’s Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. Under this new management structure, the company will make its utmost efforts to achieve the 100 billion yen operating profit in the current fiscal year."

--END

FYI the age of the retiring members:

Yoshihiro Mori is 67 and  Masaharu Matsumoto is 70.  Also Shinji Hatano is 70.

Hopefully Reggie and Iwata working directly with each other will help to sort things out in the West.  Tatsumi Kimishima having worked so long in the US might also help in this new global aproach. 

You don't discuss things rationally though. You go into Nintendo threads with an snide and antagonistic attitude.

@soundwave

You're joking right? Howard Lincoln was a decent guy, but seriously, Nintendo third party support disappeared with the N64, mainly because companies wanted to move on to cheaper CDs, and do FMV, etc. Gamecube, while a great system, fell way behind PS2 in sales. Iwata came onboard, and within a short timeframe, BAM, megahit DS, BAM megahit Wii. Now, granted, no one could forsee that the DS and Wii would be successful as they were. But no one could have forseen that the Wii U would get the slow start it has after that success either. Iwata couldnt' have forseen it. The only think I'll lay at Nintendo's feet, is that they've been supporting the 3DS TOO MUCH lately, and the Wii U is currently suffering because the development cylces haven't provided anything to release FROM Nintendo in a several-month span. That was a foolish move, considering that games like Luigi's Mansion 2 and Paper Mario 4 could have and should have been Wii U titles instead, and instead of having Monster Games waste time porting over DKCR to 3DS, which it absolutely doesn't need, they could have had Monster developing some actual new game for Wii U. BUT, games are coming, big ones, and that's all that matters in the end.

Overall, the Wii U as a console is fine. The GamePad is a stroke of genius. The Miiverse concept is a neat enough feature to draw some people in. They are currently setting themselves up to very likely be THE home console safe haven for a majority of indie games. Iwata said that in a short time after their GDC conference about indie game development, they now have over a hundred indie developers who want to put games on eShop, and Nintendo has even given several of these small studios dev kits instead of charging for them. They are REALLY going after the small indie games, and pushing the eShop as result. I think that alone is going to pay off for them very well. And I, personally, would far rather have a bunch of fun downlodable games to play, than a glut of overrated, overpriced "AAA" titles that even as a PS3 owner, I've mostly never cared about.

People need to stop with this "Nintendo is in trouble" crap. Wait till the system has been out 2 years or so, not 6 months, and THEN we'll see whether it's a "failure" or not. People getting hysterical and shitting their pants over a slow console start is laughable, considering I dont' remember people saying "That's it, Sony is FINISHED" just because the PS3 got a slow start as well. In fact, the PS3 really didn't pick up for YEARS. The Wii U will not suffer that problem, if nothing else, because people buy Nintendo consoles for 3D Mario, for Mario Kart, for Zelda, for Smash Bros., etc.

Shit'll be fine. People seriously need to chill. And Iwata isn't going anywhere. I'd much rather have the guy who helped make Earthbound, Kirby and Smash Bros. in charge of things, than a shrewd businessman and a lawyer.

I sadly no longer remember WHERE I read it, because it was years ago when the Wii was still new, but yes, I have heard for a long time that one of Iwata's priorities when becoming president, was that he wanted Nintendo to have a big RPG franchise, and to make more rpg's in general. Considering he was the main man behind Mother 2 (Earthbound), that's not surprising. Yes, Mother 3 didn't come to the US and that's BS, but that wasn't really on him, that was NOA's call. However it has always been my understanding that it WAS he who pushed for Fire Emblem to finally start getting localized, as part of his desire for Nintendo rpgs. Similar deal with the Mario & Luigi series starting, as well as the Paper Mario series continuing.

As a matter of fact, it's my understanding that he courted Sakaguchi and directly helped make The Last Blade happen on Wii as well.

@animegaming

Yeah that would be pretty cool. Especially seeing as how "Square-Enix" has been trash for a long, long time. But at the very least, I hope Mystwalker sticks around and is secretly working on a new rpg for Wii U. That would be swell.

Gamecube had alot of things going against it back in the day

1) it was late to the party, PS2 had a year head start and had a huge install base by the time GC released.

2) It had an image problem, was purple and looked like a toy while PS2 looked like a typical DVD player and Xbox resembled a PC.

3) Most of its major games werent what people wanted/expected. At Spaceworld 2000 Nintendo showed off a realistic Zelda and Mario 128 and instead released a cartoon Zelda and Mario on vacation, also Donkey Kong became a music game, Star Fox left the cockpit to fight dinosaurs

If GC came out in 2000, looked more sleek (similar to Wii and controller like Wii U pro controller), replace Wind Waker with Twilight Princeas, Sunshine with Galaxy, instead of SF Adventures release Dinosaur Planet and Assault, replace Donkey Konga/Jungle Beat with DKC Returns, add in NSMB it easily could have sold 40+ million and 3rd party/mature games could have sold better due to not having such a kiddy image.

Dont get me wrong I love gamecube and ia my favorite console but it definitely messed up in some areas that hurt it sales alot.

Agreed. The Gamecube isn't proof that Nintendo franchises can't save a system, it's proof that if you push away fans of a series with poor creative decisions, console sales will suffer.

Its like if Halo 3 played like Halo Wars, Gears changed to a cartoon and COD required Kinect to play. 360 sales probably would have taken a big hit

Please find where my argument is not rational. I will happily change it so that it is as I detest inane arguments.