NINTENDO CO., LTD. ANNOUNCES PROMOTION OF NOA CHAIRMAN TATSUMI KIMISHIMA TO NCL MANAGING DIRECTOR
Led Nintendo of America Since 2002
REDMOND, Wash., April 24, 2013 – Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL) today announced a planned promotion for Tatsumi Kimishima, current chairman and CEO of Nintendo of America (NOA) and a director of its parent Nintendo Co., Ltd. Subject to shareholder approval, he will become NCL managing director, and transfer from NOA in Redmond, Wash., to NCL headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. In his new position, he will assume the roles of general manager of Corporate Analysis and Administration, and general manager of the General Affairs Division. These titles are currently held by Yoshihiro Mori and Masaharu Matsumoto respectively, both of whom are retiring. Kimishima will assume his new duties in Kyoto later this summer.
Kimishima was named to his current position at NOA in 2006. He first joined Nintendo in Japan in 2000, and was subsequently named president of Pokémon USA in 2001, before moving on to become president of the Nintendo of America subsidiary in 2002. Previously, he spent 27 years at Sanwa Bank of Japan, with multiple postings in North America and Central America.
Many of his current responsibilities, including the CEO title, will be assumed by Global President Satoru Iwata. The move will support the company’s unified global strategy, allow streamlined decision making and enhance Nintendo's organizational agility in the current competitive environment. Reggie Fils-Aime will continue in his role as president and COO of NOA, reporting to Iwata.
So conflicted. More Iwata and less Reggie is always a good thing, but less Iwata in Japan sounds iffy to me. I've really appreciated Iwata's background and ideas.
Kind of odd with some people expecting Iwata to step down from his position and now he takes on more. I guess things will look really bad for him if expectations are still not met.
Dude, what? Hiroshi Yamauchi was the man! He's basically the reason why we're playing Nintendo games (and I guess by association, video games) at all today.
Will this affect Nintendo's interest (or lack thereof?) of getting some western development teams going? That's the one thing I'd really like to see moving forward.
Why would you think that? I don't see how someone pulling double duty in Japan and at NOA is going to make that better. If anything, I'd assume it would make things "worse."
Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too fast because he's the one who announced it, but I think it was Iwata's decision to finance the localization of third party Japanese RPGs on 3DS and I think Bravely Default being brought over here is thanks to him. And it was his decision to commission a Sin & Punishment sequel from Treasure and give it a North American release.
I wish I had more tangible sources here. Am I making stuff up or just spreading message board conjecture?
Yamauchi was a cold, callous businessman... but he was fucking brilliant. Everybody here should seriously read Game Over by David Sheff. You'll respect him after that!
The book is apparently out of circulation, but I have a digital copy of it if anybody wants to read it and not spend $70 on a used copy.
@Guillaume There might be something to all of those things, I don't know. Found this little tidbit in an old IGN article from the Cube years:
"Iwata is largely credited as being the man who spearheaded Nintendo's pursuit of specific third party developers (such as Sega, Namco and Capcom), who continue to play an ever-increasing role in GameCube's software development."
I've gotten the impression that Iwata's been trying to better Nintendo's third party relations in Japan overall, so one can hope those efforts will continue with US devs and publishers now.
