Nobody was in danger of being laid off at Nintendo. The paycut that the board of directors took was a means to regain at least some goodwill from investors.

This is a difficult one cuz they are all surprisingly good for what they are. |

Yamauchi is obviously the most important one. Without him, Nintendo wouldn't be where we know it today. I also want to rate him for passing the torch to Iwata instead of his kids. This is a big brain move, especially when there are so many Japanese company that went downhill due to the president's incompetent kid taking over. Not saying the children of the Yamauchi family are incompetent by any means, but I think it was crucial that Nintendo got someone that was best for Nintendo and not for the sake of continuing the Yamauchi bloodline. Much more to be said, but keeping it short.

Iwata the fan favorite. His blue ocean strategy made Nintendo stood out and claim the top spot in the industry again. Although it quickly faded away and resulted in Nintendo's first financial loss in history. Great reputation and indefinitely changed the gaming market for good. There's so many legends and stories of Iwata that makes him the GOAT. Not only was he a great CEO, he was also a great developer. I think Iwata gave the biggest impact even more than Yamauchi, however he also lead to one of the worst times for Nintendo.

Kimishima is the most underrated one. It ain't no easy task to take over and deliver perfectly. It's hard to say because he was only in that position for a short amount of time. Obviously it's also not like the Switch was his doing, as Iwata was heavily involved in it prior to. However, we can't deny the fact that it was Kimishima's era that completely revived Nintendo to it's former self.

Furukawa is the current CEO, and so far he's been great. However, he hasn't really been challenged much as he's only riding the success of the Switch. I see him as someone that takes the solid, efficient choices. Doesn't seem to take many risks, chooses the most logical options. Although I like the creative minds with the likes of Iwata, I do think consistency is what Nintendo lacked and Furukawa seems to understand that well. I do feel like Furukawa doesn't have that charm Iwata had, he's more of a business man. After all that's what a CEO is supposed to be, as long as their developers remains creative I don't mind. I think it really depends on what they do with their next console to rate Furukawa properly, but so far Furukawa has been solid.

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

I’ll second this with a few changes/additions:

1. I don’t think the “no price cuts” thing is a con, I like knowing that I didn’t get ripped by being an early adopter, and buying multiple Switches at full price. It gives me more confidence in purchasing the products while other companies don’t give me that confidence.

2. Yamauchi’s arrogance sometimes manifested as genuine disdain for gamers. He struck me as an Elon Musk/Mr Burns style billionaire - opportunist and out of touch with overstated merits (as is often the case with billionaires).

3. The other three leaders on the list seem to be in their positions due to merit rather than nepotism.

Iwata said this about layoffs back in 2013: "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world. 

I know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo's business in the long run."

So while they wouldn't announce that the pay cut was to avoid layoffs in general, it was clear that, at that point, to please investors it was an either/or scenario and they chose to reduce their pay. 

Not to mention, Iwata did this twice. Once in 2011 and again in 2014. 

Iwata and Yamauchi seemed like almost polar opposites in terms of personality, the elder hard-nosed and ruthless, the latter much more mellow and benign.

This mainfested in both positives and negatives for both; Yamauchi's tough attitude helped the NES dominate the competition and the SNES vanquish a formidle opponent in the Megadrive, but it also alienated third parties in the N64 generation.

Iwata on the other hand has the vision and open mindedness to pursue new approaches which led to the boom times of the Wii/DS and the seeds of the Switch, but during the Wii U/3DS days, his Nintendo was a little too passive and out of touch.

Furukawa's make or break will be the Switch's successor; it's easy to inherit success, but much harder to carry it across from one generation to the next. If he can make the Switch 2 a hit, then he'll be a contender. 

 In this case you should love Sony, as PS5 had a price hike instead of a price cut I advice you to rush to get a PS6 soon for the pleasure of not being an early adopter who didn't get "ripped off"

I think what he means has more to do with the fluctuation in prices we saw throughout the last year where the PS5/Series went up in price due to "inflation reasons", then only two months later, Sony went with a "promotional price" which was basically back to the original price, back and forth.

In the meantime, Nintendo never axed the MRSP price themselves, only introducing two other tiers with the Lite and OLED model, which haven't fluctuated in price either. Which means people knows, they don't have to wait for an eventual price drop since it won't happen, therefore the feeling of not being "ripped off".

Well if we really want to be technical, the only reason to feel ripped off is to pay the same price for something old. It's a very well known fact technology products manufacturing prices mostly go down with time. I don't feel ripped off when paying more for a console when it launches because it's clear manufacting costs are way up in the start of production line hence the company is often having loses for selling the hardware that cheap

Paying for the same price 6 years later however is definitely a steal. Even moreso when the specific hardware is bounded to stop getting supported soon...

I will always support companies who make price cuts and I don't see how could it be possibly a negative thing in anyway but alas, this discussion looks so pointless I don't see reasons to keep engaging on it

I feel like were still seeing a lot of stuff Iwata put in place/ greenlight so going with him. A legend.

I'll say this for Iwata, he definitely came across as a nicer, more charming and likeable person than Yamauchi.
I miss the days when he'd address us in a Direct, in spite of it ultimately being advertising, he managed to make it feel personable.