Reggie Fils-Aime Not Surprised by Switch Success At All
YouTuber Danny Peña scored himself an excellent opportunity with the former President of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, and it is a phenomenal interview where we learn an incredible amount from one of Nintendo’s former faces.
In the interview, Reggie talks about lots of topics, but one of the more interesting ones had to be his lack of surprise for the Switch’s success and how it made his retirement decision much easier. With the Nintendo Switch nearing its fourth anniversary, it has already outsold the 3DS and is now currently Nintendo’s fifth best-selling platform of all time. Total sales for the console are at around 80 million units worldwide, and with the release of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, it doesn’t look like that momentum is slowing down any time soon.
In the interview with Danny Peña, he mentioned how he believed “it was going to be magical” after seeing a prototype version many years ago, and he also talked about the hybrid ability and how that eliminated certain complaints from the community.
He even said that the console’s success guarantees that Nintendo will be in great shape for at least a few more years, so that also helped with his decision to walk away.
No, it was not a surprise to me. And I say this because the first time I saw the Nintendo DS, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The team was demoing an early, early prototype of what would become Nintendogs. Immediately I saw the potential. The first time I picked up a Wii Remote and played, again, a rudimentary experience that would become Wii Sports, I knew it was gonna be magical. The day that I sat with Mr. Iwata and held a prototype Switch and we talked about the concept, I knew it was going to be magical.
And I say this because the system was solving for a key player complaint, and that complaint is, I’m having fun, I’m playing my game, and now I need to stop because I got to go to work, or I gotta go to school, and I can’t take my game with me. I can’t continue playing that game. So Switch, with the opportunity to play on that big screen TV, then take it out of the dock and go play in handheld mode, it met a fundamental consumer desire. That was the triggering moment. There were so many other smart things the company did – the support for Unity and Unreal, which allowed all of the great independent content to come. A number of other key decisions.
But no, it’s not a surprise, and candidly, knowing that it was going to be successful is what helped make my retirement decision easy because I knew the company was going to be in great shape for at least a few years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpzM3oIZOQE
If you have 45 minutes to spare and want to learn more about Reggie Fils-Aime, then I highly recommend checking out the entire interview. You will not only learn a lot about Nintendo itself, but you will learn a tremendous amount about one of the most iconic figures in video games from the past 20 years.
Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link for all of your Nintendo news and interesting interviews! What did you think of this news about Reggie Fils-Aime and his interview with Danny Peña? Did you learn something? Let us know in the comments below! Happy gaming, everyone.
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