Reggie Fils-Aimé says Nintendo Switch success made retirement ‘easy’

Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé said he instinctively knew the Nintendo Switch would be a success, and that his confidence in the hybrid console made his retirement easier. knew the Switch would capture the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. It was this feeling, said Fils-Aimé, that allowed him to look back on his 16-year career at Nintendo, which he had seriously reflected on since the death of Satoru Iwata in 2015.

“It’s no surprise,” Fils-Aimé said. “And, frankly, knowing it was going to be successful is what helped me make my decision to retire more easily, because I knew the company was going to be in great shape for at least a few years.”

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Have you played Nintendo Switch?

YESNO

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Nintendo recently revealed that the Switch has exceeded lifetime sales of its portable 3DS device, with 79.87 million units sold worldwide. Discussing why he thought the Nintendo Switch was so popular among gamers, Fils-Aimé explained that the hybrid system “fulfills a basic consumer desire” that game companies have been trying to crack for years.

“The system was resolving a complaint from a key player,” Fils-Aimé said. And that complaint is, ‘I’m having fun, I’m playing my game, and now I have to stop because I have to go to work or school, and I can’t take my game with me. I can’t keep playing this game. So Switch, with the ability to play on that big screen TV and then pull it out of the dock and play in portable mode, it has fulfilled a basic consumer desire. was the trigger. “

Explaining why he thought the Nintendo Switch would be such a special console, Fils-Aimé described the moment the late Iwata-san presented him with a prototype and compared the experience to two other Nintendo projects that have thrilled him. the future of the company.

“The first time I saw the Nintendo DS, the hair on the back of my neck came up,” he said. “The team was demonstrating a first prototype of what would become Nintendogs. I immediately saw the potential. The first time I bought a Wii Remote and played a rudimentary experiment that would become Wii Sports, I knew it was going to be magic. The day I sat down with Mr. Iwata and held a prototype Switch and we talked about the concept, I knew it was going to be magic. “

Son-Aimé retired as president of Nintendo of America in 2019, and left a transformative legacy for the company. We spoke to him before receiving the Andrew Yoon Legend Award from the New York Game Awards about a career of making people smile.

In other Nintendo news, a new 50-minute direct presentation was announced for February 17, which will focus on upcoming and already released titles.

Tom Power is a UK based freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter.

Photo credit: Neilson Barnard / Getty Images