Wii Fit and Music were not the only big releases for the entire year, 2008 also saw Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl, and Animal Crossing City Folk.

Iwata deserves more credit for having the genius idea of not following trends and choosing the blue ocean. Nintendo at around 2003 when the PSP was announced was seen as a company that was on the verge of becoming irrelevant. Iwata changed that with the DS, Wii, 3DS, WiiU(Despite its failure, and he was the one who envisioned the Switch.

Furukawa is making a hell of a job. The Switch 2 launch was a masterclass on to how to have a great launch. But he is not as important as Iwata.

Yamauchi ends up being the most important president just due to how long he was there and where Nintendo was before and after him.

Again Iwata did not come up with the idea of the DS. Yamauchi did. Iwata actually thought the idea of a dual screen portable was stupid initially. 

As a CEO, Satoru Iwata was pretty terrible. I think a lot of the things I didn't like about Nintendo came from him, especially the way they withheld features and advancements from their customers. It was not rare to see them implement industry standard improvements one or two generations behind other companies. Now, they're much more competitive on that front. Yes, there were Nintendo fans who praised anything they released but there were always people asking for this or that advancement that would have unquestionably improved the user experience. It was a very arrogant way of dealing with customers and it turned me completely off the company. I feel a lot more favorable to Nintendo now than before and I think others feel the same.

As much as I liked Iwata, I'd still say Yamauchi was the number one CEO of Nintendo so far.

I think Iwata's problem was giving too much creative freedom for the devevopers with too little market in mind, whereas Furukawa seems to do the opposite being a corporate shill. Iwata's Nintendo had lots of heart, whereas Furukawa's Nintendo feels soulless. Wii, Wii U and Switch were Iwata's childs, Switch 2 made under Furukawa.

The difference is, that the development pipeline is focused on one system, instead of two. Prior to that, Nintendo was basically creating new IP's to the old popular system and based on their reception, they made a game for the new one. 

Hmm, I don't know. So far Furukawa inherited a console preparation (Switch) and followed it with a somewhat safe and predictable predecessor (Switch 2, is it the first numbered console in Nintendo history?). I am all for making a successor console, to a successful console, that doesn't shake up too much but fixes and improves the design. Intel had once a tick-tock plan, where one generation they shrinked the die-size, and the other the redesigned the architecture. I wish something like this for Nintendo. So I am not averse to Switch 2, it is the refinement step of an successful console. But I fear Furukawa will go on to Switch 3, Switch 4 and so on. I think the next step should be an innovative design with new ideas.

I also don't know how Furukawa handles failures. As I said, Switch was practically ready when he took over and it was successful. He has not shown how he persists throughout a failed generation like WiiU. Handling failures may be the more important job of a CEO than handling success. Because no matter what you do, some things will go wayside.

Also I don't see much in regards to new IPs. Don't get me wrong, I love that we see now revisiting old IPs: Tomodachi Life, Kirby Air Riders, Donkey Kong, Wii/Switch Sports, Starfox. But what really came about in regards to new IPs? Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour was fine as an interactive tour, but I feel PS5s Astro's Playroom was a better introduction to the hardware. We have (and I have to look up the name now because I already forgot) DragxDrive — which got mixed reception and as I see no update on sales which probably means low sales. And Pokopia, which is a big success — but the design is derived from Dragon Quest Builders 2 (with the team of DQB working on Pokopia) with Pokemon IP and elements of Animal Crossing sprinkled in. This is a great game and I hope Nintendo will follow it up someday, but I also feel like this kinda fell into Nintendo's laps, as Square abandoned the DQB series and the team was available.

So I don't know. Furukawa had nothing done to prove himself as an outstanding CEO. If in his leadership we see a new innovative console design, if we see him handling a crisis, a big failure well, or if we see new ideas in form of game IPs, when my opinion might solidify. But so far he is a fair weather captain that doesn't stray from the well known route. He does this well, no question, but without a challenge we don't know his capabilities.

Iwata set the ground work for what's happening now so I disagree even the Switch was something he was already working on when he passed, the current leadership inherited a good position they've not been tested the same way Iwata and even Yamauchi were.

Why draw your conclusion from a single accomplishment? My argument is that Iwata didn’t manage the software pipeline all too well, and his handling of generational transitions was not good. He failed to keep Nintendo relevant during transition years, which is what led to Nintendo hitting such low lows during the Wii U. Wii was his only shining achievement, and even that is something I’d more attribute to Yamauchi who had set Iwata up with a plan going in: To decision to abandon power and enforce the Blue Ocean vision of Yokoi.

With all that’s gone on with the economy, it’s quite incredible that Nintendo has remainednas strong as it has— Furukawa has gone the trouble waters with flying colors in that regard. Under Iwata, we saw two poor console transitions that led Nintendo into dark times. And had Iwata been around for Switch, I question whether the system would’ve been as successful as it was. Launch year would have likely been more of the same from what we saw from the unimpressive (from the perspective of software) Wii/Wii U/3DS debut years— Wii was 100% carried by its innovative “fad” factor, a factor which didn’t translate into software successful for any non-Wii series titles (e.g. Star Fox and Metroid sold no better on Wii than they did on the much smaller install base GCN).

Iwata oversaw the software pipeline during the time when gamers felt abandoned by Nintendo. Iwata inherited a successful DS, wasn’t around to manage the entirety of the Switch debut, and fumbled the heavenly highs hit during the Wii/DS generation so terribly that we got Wii U and a 3DS was a massive price cut needing to save it. Iwata fumbled left and right, Furukawa has handled everything perfect.

Not strictly true, Wii's success also translated into strong sales for non Wii-series software like Mario Kart, Twilight Princess, Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy, Donkey Kong Country, etc.