Price cut to previous original price point, while in the meantime, increasing their online/premium subscription fees.

Truly magnanimous of them these "price cuts". 

But hey, you be right in saying this digression is pointless so let's get back to the subject at hand 👍

I was actually ironizing Sony for their price hiking at first. Surprised you actually thought it was a compliment for them 

Huh. I guess that weirdly didn't register with me when I read your reply. 

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I think it’s too early to judge Furukawa at this point. He’s just steering the ship that is the Switch and is preparing Nintendo for the future. From rumors on the specs of Switch 2 and what was supposedly said behind closed door at Gamescom, it should be at least interesting. Also, I think those who judge him based on what Iwata did in regards to charming consumers and being more open about Nintendo is a bit disingenuous. Furukawa is not Iwata, nobody is. If that’s not Furukawa’s forte, then he shouldn’t have to force it. Let Takahashi and Koizumi lead the way in directs. Let Miyamoto promote the movies and theme parks. Let the developers continue the Ask Developers interviews as they’re doing. Furukawa will stay within his strengths as CEO.

My ranking would probably go like this:
1) Yamauchi. He made it possible for Nintendo to not only make NES successful in Japan, but also in the US, where it was suffering a video game crash at the time. Franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, etc., were established. NES dominated the market and became synonymous with gaming. SNES, Game Boy, and GBA continued the great successes. Unfortunately his policies, which were warranted at the time of the NES due to so many bad games releasing before (and even after) the NES, backfired on him when PlayStation took over the home console market and third parties fled Nintendo consoles for a time. He was strict and stern, for better or worse. It was fine when Nintendo was dominating, but when they were losing market share, he struggled to adapt. Fortunately, he was also willing to step aside for someone like Iwata.

2) Iwata. He did a great job getting Nintendo back on its feet and focused on the blue ocean market. While doubted, he was able to great extraordinary success that even Sony hasn’t even managed to reach. To have both DS and Wii sell over 100 million each lifetime is something we may not see ever again. Unfortunately, it backfired on him with Wii U and the 3DS, while successful, failed to reach the heights of the DS. Also, the YouTube program was under his watch. Not to mention, even during his tenure, Nintendo struggled to get with the times of online gaming. Still, he started Nintendo Directs, which are now a standard for online presentations. He was approachable and charming, which can be for better or worse depending on how you look at his track record. He was a developer before being president so he sympathized with the devs he worked with while as president. He left a great legacy, but it had his flaws that I think some tend to overlook whenever they talk about Nintendo being a@&holes nowadays.

3) Kimishima. Brief tenure, but did his job. Like Furukawa, it’s hard to really judge him because his tenure was so short. Nevertheless, he was the leader Nintendo needed during a time of transition. He oversaw the launch of the Switch and its eventual success. Otherwise, he didn’t really say much publicly like Iwata did. That’s fine though, because that wasn’t really his thing.

For me it's Furukawa, simply because he seems to be the most rational one (Kimishima was the same but he was only an interim CEO anymway). I think this stability is very important for the modern Nintendo. I think he still lets his teams experiment (which is important) but I think he has clear redlines how far these experiments should go and he would never greenlight something that's too risky. This lack of rational thinking is what made Yamauchi and Iwata somehow vulnerable to wrong decisions.

Actually, it's a custom in Japan that the CEO takes a paycut when the company is doing worse. It had nothing to do with layoffs or lack of them. What Iwata is talking about to investors is that Nintendo isn't planning to downscale but to invest in the future - layoffs are out of the question.

When you're a CEO of a publicly traded company, in most parts of the world, sharing information is what you're legally required to do 

There are plenty of Japanese companies that have laid off staff without taking a pay cut. While it may be customary to take a pay cut, the option for laying off staff is always there. This suggestion of it was never a possibility is a near sighted one. Maybe it wasn't likely that they would based on the culture of Nintendo, but it was absolutely a possibility with how much money they were losing. 

If you are a publicly traded company and you are losing money the best way to please investors is to reduce spending. The quickest ways to reduce spending are laying off staff or cutting salaries. Even if one is chosen over the other they are both options. 

Ok. First you need to understand that Nintedo has and had quite a lot of assets, and in order to make investors happy by giving out dividents, they can use their money in the bank instead of cutting costs by layoffs and downsizing and make better  short term profit at the cost of long term gains. They have money they can keep investing in future products so they don''t need to lay anyone off.

Downsizing and layoffs are made if future prospects look bad or you're running out of money. If a company share loses value, what investors expect is that the company invests to something that makes money. Investors who bought the expensive stock because of good dividents and expectations for it to keep it's value, surely expect the company to return to high profit and high value, and this can be done by investing. If you just buy and sell on short term that benefits from quick change of share value and you bought the cheap stock, then yes, you might want to hear about downsizing, but if you bought the expensive stock and plan to keep it for longer period and make money by dividents, then you gain the most from investing. 

If I use my own investments as an example, I have lots of Nokian tyres in my portfolio. I started buying it after the value crashed when Russia attacked Ukraine and sanctions were raised against Russia which caused Nokian tyres having to shut down it's Russian factory - where most of their tyres were made and they also needed to mark down The whole factory due to sanctions. At the moment the company's value is less than a quarter of the value it was before Russian invasion. What the investors are waiting at the moment, is for Nokian tyres new facilities to start (investments to start paying off) and The company starting to make money again. Nokian tyres have also been pretty good with dividents, so you might get good dividents for fairly cheap share price. 

I liked Iwata more than Yamauchi in many ways. However, I think the best president is still Yamauchi mainly because he literally made Nintendo big from the ground up. Nintendo went from being a small local Japanese card company to a massive iconic global entity that it is today thanks to Yamauchi.

Iwata did a lot of good for Nintendo too but he already had the luxury of Nintendo already being a big name.

The key to Furukawa's legacy could be consistency; for all the great things both Yamauchi and Iwata achieved, neither were able to maintain a consistent level of performance, with Nintendo under their stewardship varying from thriving to struggling.

There's a place for a steady, competent leader to bring some much needed long term stability.