Reggie – NWC and Smash Bros., knows fans want Samus Aran Metroid, Mother 3, amiibo supply, RPGs
Kotaku is the latest outlet to have published an extenstive interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. Topics include the Nintendo World Championships, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Mother 3, amiibo, and more.
You can find the full Q&A rundown below. Kotaku’s original piece can be read here.
On Nintendo’s E3 presence this year…
Fils-Aime: “I’m feeling good. The booth is full of smiling people. They’re excited.”
On the Nintendo World Championships…
Fils-Aime: “This year’s World Championships was a phenomenal success. We are certainly going to go back to [Nintendo of America HQ in] Redmond, look at what we achieved and challenge ourselves what else can we do. Not only in terms of how broader do we potentially make it geographically, but what’s the right frequency? Probably not waiting another 25 years would make some sense. But we’re going to talk about it and see. No commitments, but certainly we know the fans were excited and from a business perspective it was an unqualified success.”
On his Smash Bros. match with Hungrybox at the NWC…
Fils-Aime: “You’ve seen my Nintendo 3DS. You know I play our content.”
Fils-Aime: “You saw my progress in New Super Mario Bros. 2. I can show you my Animal Crossing house. I can show you the progress I’ve made on every single Zelda title. I play our content. The fact of the matter is I’ve never been a good Smash player. Never. Never.”
Fils-Aime: “And so in a momentary loss of control last year, I made a bombastic statement that came back to haunt me. Hungrybox is actually right here in our booth right now. Great guy. But yeah he kicked my butt.”
On whether Reggie did any training beforehand…
Fils-Aime: “No. No. I picked up the controller once leading up, because I played a new character. And so… no. I had not done any training. Maybe that was my problem.”
On the negative reaction to Metroid Prime: Federation Force…
Fils-Aime: “Here’s what I would state: we know what our fans want. We will also push the envelope in developing something that we know is high-quality and that we know will deliver in the marketplace. The best example I can give you of this, and I think you will appreciate it, is Legend of Zelda Wind Waker. Remember when that art style was first shown. The uproar from the Zelda community was intensely negative. If there had been social media then, there probably would have been a petition to make that game go away.”
Fils-Aime: “So, the game is developed, becomes one of the most beloved games of all time, one of the most highly-rated games of all time, so I use that example to say: ‘We know what we’re doing, trust us, play the game and then we can have a conversation.’”
On whether Nintendo knows people still want a Samus Aran adventure…
Fils-Aime: “Absolutely.”
On how Kotaku was surprised there was no messaging saying ‘Don’t worry, we know you’re interested in this as well….’”
Fils-Aime: “Look, we know that the fans want a straight Samus Aran game. We also know that the best way to launch a game like that is to surprise and delight them, to give them a launch date, in an environment like this let them play it vs. what other companies do which is to announce a project that you may not see for five, six years. It’s just not the way we do things. We know the community wants to see a straight-up Metroid game. We know it.”
On Mother 3…
Fils-Aime: “My laser eyes will blow you away. [Note: He’s referencing a joke about responding to Mother 3 questions from last year’s Nintendo E3 video.] Look, again, I think this is an example that demonstrates we’re constantly listening. We’re hearing what the fans say. And we thought it was great to bring back the very first Mother, Earthbound Beginnings here in the market. It’s been out for sale and doing quite well in the eShop. Again, we’ll never say never, but there’s nothing to announce right now.”
Fils-Aime: “The Mother/Earthbound series is quite niche. And so for us it’s constantly thinking about the investment and then return for a game like that. There is quite a bit of localization to be done and we just need to make sure that volumetrically there’s enough volume to offset that investment.”
On whether how EarthBound was received last year helped motivate to get Mother 1 out…
Fils-Aime: “That’s exactly right. “
On how amiibo are doing…
Fils-Aime: “We just launched wave 4, and over roughly the past 30 days we’ve sold over a million amiibo in just the United States. What does that suggest? It suggests we’ve made dramatic improvements in the supply chain, that we’re putting significant amounts of Amiibo into the marketplace. We’ve done replenishments on Marth. We’ve done replenishments on the Wii Fit Trainer, some of the more rare Amiibo. So, our strategy is to satisfy as much of that demand as we can and that’s what we’re working hard to do.”
On those who say Nintendo intentionally constrains supply…
Fils-Aime: “That’s why I shared the million-unit number. You don’t sell through a million units by constraining supply. And, honestly, there is no business in disappointing your consumer. The mentality that suggests we are somehow constricting supply is rubbish. We want every consumer to be satisfied. We want every Amiibo player out there to be a completionist and have every single one. We’re working hard to get the supply into stores.”
Fils-Aime: “I think you have to put the auction person off to the side. Right. The flipper, you have to put them off to the side. This is a consumer who thinks these are like gold. We’re focused on the everyday consumer, and we want that consumer to be completely satisifed. In the end, though, the retailer manages how they execute a pre-sale or how they make the product available. We certainly give suggestions and guidance. The retailer is making that call. And, again, to separate, when there’s a supply issue, that’s Nintendo’s fault. but in terms of managing a pre-sale process, that’s something that each individual retailer controls.”
On the Majora’s Mask New 3DS XL…
Fils-Aime: “And we brought that back a second time as well. That’s another case where we saw that the pre-sales were going extremely strong, the production cycles on that is quite long, so we made an immediate decision to make more to get that into retail about a month after the first grouping had sold through.”
On RPGs…
Fils-Aime: “I hope your readers are excited about the 3DS line-up, which is quite strong… I hope that your readers are excited about games like Xenoblade Chronicles X, big massive game. We’ve created quite a series of hits in the RPG area on our 3DS business. We think we can replicate that on the Wii U business. That’s something we’re looking aggressively at.”
