Reggie working on new book, talks about his close relationship with Iwata, E3, Nintendo Directs, Mario ROM hacks, more
Last month, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stopped by Cornell for a special interview and Q&A with people in attendance. Reggie touched on several topics during the event, and also revealed that he’s working on a new book. As for what was discussed, he spoke about his close relationship with the late Satoru Iwata, his feelings concerning E3, Nintendo Directs, Mario ROM hacks, and more.
Theorymon attended the event and was kind enough to share a summary. We’ve rounded up those tidbits regarding the significant topics below.
Reggie’s background and more
– Reggie’s parents were Haitian immigrants that came to the US in the 1950s
– His parents had backgrounds in complete opposites of Haitian politics; on his mother’s side, Reggie’s grandfather was a proponent for Democracy in Haiti while on his father’s side, Reggie’s grandfather was the #2 in the Haitian army
– Reggie described his parents as being a sort of “Romeo and Juliet” situation in this sense
– Reggie’s earliest memory was being a 3 year-old living in a single bedroom apartment in the Bronx
– He used to hear his parents talking a lot about Haitian politics, specifically about Duvalier, also known as Papa Doc
– That’s his earliest memory, which was important to him because it made him realize his connection to Haiti
– He also mentioned that Iwata passing made him painfully realize how short life is, and that he thinks that you should live your life to the fullest every day
Reggie joining Nintendo
– Reggie’s love for growing businesses is what led him to joining Nintendo in the first place
– Reggie discussed how the PS2 was dominating the video game marketplace, with the Xbox being a distant second place, and Nintendo doing slightly worse than that with the GameCube
– He saw that the GameCube wasn’t doing too hot, and that’s what actually got him to join Nintendo, he saw major growth opportunity for Nintendo as a company
More on Nintendo
– Reggie mentioned that he also started to develop a preference for “fast, youthful markets”, using the beer and spirits business, and Nintendo as good examples of this
– He loved their fast pace
– Reggie mentioned wanting to call up some old pals at Guinness while they were making poor decisions in the late 2000s, but it turned out none of them even worked there anymore
– According to Nintendo’s data starting in 2002, software was starting to stagnate, and this is what led Nintendo to stop focusing on the graphics arms race that Sony and Microsoft were continuing to do
– Reggie said there tends to be strong executive leadership at places of innovation
– Reggie mentioned he wants to tell parents that their kids should play Animal Crossing, so they can learn about mortgages
– He feels patches are a great way to re-engage the audience, and how video game companies like Nintendo would look at data on how players would get stuck in games and quit at them too early
New book
– Reggie mentioned that the book is in the proposal stages
– His first proposal actually got rejected, with pretty much every publisher saying “that’s a nice speech, but it’s not really a book”
– For his second proposal, it will focus on his life principles, and partially be a memoir about his life
– It won’t be a full memoir of his life, as he values being a private individual
– Wants to focus a major part of the book on his many mistakes and failures in business
Delays and unions
– Reggie brought up the famous Miyamoto quote about delays, you know “A delayed game is eventually good, a rushed game is forever bad”
– He said that Nintendo deliberately avoided this kind of culture in particular
– On unions, Reggie argued that ideally, if a workplace is effectively managed and pro-employee, they shouldn’t need unions
– Reggie is absolutely not anti-union, especially since his father was in a union for around 30 years too
Crunch time and layoffs, more on corporate culture
– Reggie mentioned that Nintendo executives across the board (and implying that this included himself) took pay cuts over mass layoffs during the Wii U era
– This wasn’t even because of some higher mandate, but the decision to cut executive pay rather than start mass layoffs was due to Nintendo’s deeply ingrained corporate culture, which felt that laying off employees would deal a serious blow to company morale, and lead to far worse video games being made
– Reggie and Iwata bonded because they both had a similar backgrounds of being “outsiders” of Nintendo that quickly rose through the ranks, with Iwata and him both joining in the early 2000s
– Reggie and Iwata seem to have talked with each other a lot
– A common topic was they’d talk about the core reasons they loved Nintendo as a company
– They seemed to have had a close relationship
– Reggie credits Iwata for being the mastermind behind Wii’s huge success and for being the mastermind behind the Switch’s success as well
– Reggie attributes 3DS’ turnaround to great software leading to people to purchase the system
– The 3DS’s life story is actually being used in a business class at Cornell as a case study due to its turn around
Reggie and E3
– Reggie loved the E3 experience
– He loved making people’s jaws drop with surprising, exciting announcements
– He had two moments in particular that were his favorite: E3 2004 and E3 2006
– For E3 2004, he really loved people’s reactions to the famous “I’m here to kick ass and take names” speech, and the DS’s reveal in general
– For E3 2006, it was the fan reaction to the Wii at E3
– The best moment in all of E3 history for him was the famous Wii stampede
– On day three of E3 2006, a lot of fans got into the expo, and in Reggie’s words “thousands of them” ran past the Sony and Microsoft booths, just to play Wii Sports
– Seeing Wii Sports resonate with people that much was the most “magical” E3 moment for him
Nintendo Directs
– Reggie did have input onto Directs, being a Nintendo exec
– It was Nintendo’s developers that were mostly responsible for them (he may be referring to the game’s themselves)
– He loved the skits in particular though, especially Fils-A-Mech
– He didn’t have much creative input on the games themselves, since that wasn’t his role
– Reggie did give input on games, and he was influential enough that there are several Nintendo projects that put Reggie in their special thanks, which he was touched by
– He knows how crazy the internet is getting over waiting for a new Nintendo Direct, referring it to “eagerness on the internet for a new Direct”
Cutscenes and storytelling in some games
– Reggie feels that while not every video game needs to tell a story, when a video game actually does a story well, it usually becomes an instant classic
– Reggie thinks that there isn’t really an approach that’s better than the other
– It shouldn’t be a forced choice
– He thinks that often, the best games actually nail both aspects
– At the same time though, even something like Zelda, which has a bigger storyline focus than Mario, still has a fairly simplistic story
– Reggie likes games on all platforms, whether it be Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, etc.
– Reggie has praise for indies for advancing the medium
– In the end, video games are like all mediums in that there are many different ways to be quality
Favorite Mario game
– Super Mario World is his favorite Mario game
– Super Mario Odyssey is his runner up
Moving on from industries
– Reggie usually he felt like it was time to move on when he felt like he had helped grow the company enough
– With Nintendo, he felt like NoA had grown enough that Doug Bowser would be able to take the reigns, and that the team at NoA was ready for it
– That’s when Reggie decided to retire, and focus on his next “growth” project: Helping students grow in their potential
Mario ROM hacks and Mario Maker
– The main influence behind the creation of Mario Maker comes from Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto
– Also how much fun those two had with making 2D Mario games
– They felt like they wanted to see how customers would approach the level design process
– ROM hacks weren’t the main reason for Mario Maker’s existence, but he did mention that the dev team (and Nintendo people in general) were very aware of the popularity of them
– Nintendo does aggressively protect their intellectual property
– He said this in a wink and nudge way
Cultural divide between Japanese and American business at Nintendo
– Nintendo wasn’t really a traditional Japanese business, and this had roots in their Kyoto location
– Nintendo had a philosophy of “Kyoto craftsmanship” in the company
– He mentioned that this “Kyoto craftsmanship” has its roots in porcelain and other forms of art
– Nintendo corporate culture placed a big emphasis on “making people smile”
– Aside from Iwata, what he misses most about his time at Nintendo was his frequent travels to Japan
– He felt like he fit in very well at Nintendo’s corporate culture, but doesn’t think it was a particularly traditional Japanese company either
Video game IPs multimedia potential
– Reggie seems to think video game IP have massive, untapped multimedia potential
– Brought up The Witcher as a recent example from how it went from a book, to a game, to a huge Netflix hit
– He thinks The Witcher is an example of how video game IP will start crossing over with other media more in the future
– He also brings up how Nintendo is dealing with Universal Studios theme parks
– Reggie hopes said crossovers into other media still retain the “essence” of said IPs
– He humorously brought up the infamous Super Mario Bros. movie as an example of how it can go very wrong, and how it took Nintendo around 30 years to give the idea of a Mario movie another shot
Reggie’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate main
– Reggie laughed, and said that to be clear, he’s awful at Smash
– After the tournament thrashing a few years ago, people actually offered to tutor Reggie at Smash
– He turned it down because he said it was pretty hopeless
– Reggie’s main is Zelda due to her floatiness and recovery
– Reggie has a very hard time keeping track of characters in Smash, which tends to lead to him falling off the stage
Thanks to Jake for the tip.
