Former Nintendo staffer shares insight into Reggie’s famous 3DS line from first Nintendo Direct

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime generated plenty of memes during his time with the company, including a line from the very first US Nintendo Direct. For those who hadn’t already owned a 3DS or weren’t thinking about picking one up, he had a simple question to those consumers: “What’s wrong with you?” You can check out that clip here.

Former Nintendo staffer Krysta Yang shared some insight into that moment during an episode of the Kit & Krysta podcast. It wasn’t just a throwaway line as the team working on the Nintendo Direct had some discussions about it. However, they felt that the envelope needed to be pushed a bit and wouldn’t be out of character for Reggie to say, so it was ultimately approved.

Yang shared the following:

“I do remember there was a discussion about that line, and Reggie was in the room when that discussion was happening. Golin was the agency, they did a lot of scriptwriting in the very beginning when we were experimenting with Nintendo Directs. That line was in there. It was written by the person that writes all of Reggie’s presentations and knows Reggie really well, knows Reggie’s voice really well.

I remember there was a discussion about that line, and that exact same conversation about like, ‘Is this too mean? Is this insulting?’ Ultimately the decision was like, ‘No, we need to be like a little shock and awe’ kind of thing. And Reggie’s no stranger to the shock and awe – he had the famous of course taking names line that’s a little bit hardcore for Nintendo’s standards, so it didn’t feel out of character for him to be sort of saying something like that. Not in a super mean way, but just kind of in a tough love kind of way. That was how they convinced themselves into it I think, but I remember there was a discussion about that line.”

Krysta as well as Kit Ellis, another former staffer with a long career at Nintendo, also shared some stories about what it was like working on Nintendo Directs during the early days. The full podcast is available here.