http://www.n-sider.com/contentview.php?contentid=224       April 16, 2001

One year before the takeover Iwata was not talked about as a successor, in fact he was not talked about at all.

"While Yamauchi does not intend to announce his successor until next year at the earliest, there are a couple of possible contenders for his position. One of them is Atusho Asada, the former vice president of Sharp and now NCL's executive vice president. Another candidate is Yamauchi's right-hand man Hiroshi Imanishi, though Imanishi himself admits he is better to serve the president."

"Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo of America, is another likely successor."

"Katsuhito Yamauchi, the son of the NCL chairman, had entered Nintendo in Canada, but lasted only a year, mainly because of language barriers and limited experience in the business. When it didn't work out, Arakawa helped him form a company in Vancouver that would sell Nintendo products. He has since joined his father's company and recently worked on the Pokmon movies as an associate producer. Now in his early forties, Katsuhito Yamauchi should have the sufficient experience to assume his father's hot seat."

EDIT: More historical sites - First DICE Summit  February 28 - March 1, 2002.  http://www.dicesummit.org/dice_summits/2002-dice-archive.asp

Speakers: Satoru Iwata (Director & General Manager of Corporate Planning), Shigeru Miyamoto (Did not even need a title), Jason Rubin, Larry Probst, Cliff Bleszinski, Mark Cerny.

Why should Yamauchi publicly announce who he's considering for the president position? The press was just assuming it would be either Arakawa or Katsuhito Yamauchi based on them being related to Yamauchi. 

What people should have been paying attention to was Nintendo's Board of Directors -- Satoru Iwata was quietly moved onto Nintendo's Board of Director's in June 2000 as a Director. I think Yamauchi from that point on began grooming Iwata to be the next president if he hadn't already been doing so. 

Arakawa wanted to retire for a long time, he and his wife (Yamauchi's daughter) were planning to build a big home in Hawaii for their retirement for a while so I doubt he was ever really considered for the position. Arakawa retired from Nintendo's board of directors in June 1999, that should've been a pretty huge tip off that he didn't want the job. 

Asada was also like 70+ years old himself, I think it should have been fairly obvious he there as a transitionary board member, I doubt Yamuachi seriously would consider replacing himself with someone almost as old as himself. 

Interesting, where did you get all that info?

This is what I found on june 2000:http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/4768/nintendo-re-shuffling

Nintendo re-shuffling

The board of directors play musical chairs.

President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, has stepped down from his position amongst the board of directors at NCL. Arakawa is to remain head of NOA where he will now continue to base all of his operations. Yet who will fill his shoes amongst the borad of directors at NCL? Well non-other than Miyamoto himself. Serious about the upcoming financial year, where Nintendo plans to release both the Dolphin and GBA, Nintendo brings a man with experience both in the board room and as that of a game maker to the table.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=699964

Arakawa retires from the board in June 1999. Iwata is made a new board member in June 2000 with a rather broad title of "General Manager, Management Planning Division", along with Miyamoto and Takeda who I think are part of Iwata's inner circle. 

I think Iwata was being groomed quietly behind the scenes by Yamauchi from this point on if he hadn't already been. 

Another pretty huge tip off was that Iwata was the only other person on the board of directors other than Yamauchi that had any experience being president of a game company before (he was made president of HAL in 1993). Miyamoto was just head of EAD, Takeda was head of the hardware department, neither knew the first thing about actually running a game company as a business though. 

I think honestly if you're getting to that level of "grammar police" to pick at an arguement, maybe some people need to chill out. 

Iwata is falliable and isn't some god-like figure that can't be criticized. He shouldn't be given a pass for Nintendo's current state of Western development, which has become abysmal under his leadership. 

He is a likeable personality, I get that, but that doesn't make his above criticism. 

I don't really see how they've "distanced themselves from the west", especially when they continue to push franchises that are bigger here than they are in Japan, such as Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros., etc.

I DO think they should encourage companies like Next Level and Retro Studios to develop some original IPs. But I do not for an instant think that implies those new IPs should be "Western style" games, at least in the sense that they should automatically be dark, brooding, starring a generic main hero with plenty of guns and explosions. If I wanted that, I'd buy more of the "AAA" franchises the West mostly develops these days. I'd like to see Retro especially make something fresh and original.....but I do mean FRESH and ORIGINAL. Not just a copy-paste of what other big developers have done, like Uncharted/GTA/AC/etc.

It's fair comment, even other posters in this same thread have commented that people are trying to nit pick at the arguement in silly ways when the fundamental basis of the arguements laid out are fairly solid. 

That's part of the problem. None of that happens under Nintendo anymore with Iwata. Fact is we have a pretty specific 12 year old track record here. 

Pretty sure Metroid, Zelda, and Smash Brothers were popular in the West before Iwata came along too, lol, so I'm not really even sure what point you're making there. This thread is about Nintendo's engagement with Western *development*.

To further illustrate my point, lets look at Western-developed Nintendo games (published or secured through some type of direct deal) from the N64 vs. the Wii U and Wii.
We'll leave the GameCube out because there may be some debate as to how much of GCN's Western support came from games greenlit prior to Iwata's presidency (ie: Eternal Darkness, Wave Race: Blue Storm, and NBA Courtside 2002).

N64 (1996-end of 1999)

Killer Instinct Gold
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
GoldenEye
Diddy Kong Racing
Tetrisphere
Banjo-Kazooie
NBA Courtside starring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside '98
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Jet Force Gemini
Ken Griffey Jr. MLB Slugfest
Cruis’n’ USA
Pilotwings 64
Waiale Country Club Golf
Command & Conquer
Jet Force Gemini
Donkey Kong 64
Blast Corps
Star Wars Episode I Racer

Wii U (2012-end of 2015 projected)

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
LEGO City Undercover

Wii (2006-end of 2009)

Excitetruck
Excitebots
Punch-Out!
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption


The N64 has triple (18) the number of Nintendo games from Western devs as the Wii and Wii U combined.

To be fair, we don't know exactly what Iwata has planned for the next five years though.

I think he has enough sense to realise Nintendo has to get out of hardware as soon as possible and forging relations with new studios doesn't make so much sense when you're looking to move away from being a platform holder.