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Nintendo announced this morning that Tatsumi Kimishima has been named as the new president of Nintendo Co., Ltd. Kimishima will take the place of former president Satoru Iwata, who passed away in July.
Kimishima has served with Nintendo for some time, and in many different roles within the company. Kimishima joined Nintendo in 2000, serving as the chief financial officer for The Pokémon Company until 2001 and then as the head of Pokémon USA until 2002, when he was named president of Nintendo of America. Kimishima served in that role until 2006 when he was succeeded by current president, Reggie Fils-Aime. He then became the CEO and chairman of Nintendo of America’s board of directors until 2013, when he was promoted to Managing Director of Nintendo Co., Ltd. He’s certainly served in a number of diverse roles!
One area in which Kimishima has not served in is game development. Satoru Iwata’s former role as a developer granted him a very unique perspective for the company, and helped endear him to fans and pundits alike. That said, Kimishima has been given special thanks in games like Metroid Prime and Metroid Zero Mission, both of which are highly regarded by fans of that particular franchise. It’s hard to know exactly what role Kimishima may have had in those games arriving on shelves, but this should come as some positive news for fans of the beleaguered franchise. Either way, it will be very interesting to see the direction that Kimishima takes the company in. He’ll certainly have big shoes to fill!
How do you feel about the promotion of Tatsumi Kimishima? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: IGN
Really optimistic about this choice. Hopefully the fact that Kimishima served as Nintendo President of America means good things for localization in the future.
Maybe we’ll get to see him host a Nintendo Direct soon? I’d hate to think Nintendo would stop doing those.
Read an article about him, seems like a solid guy to lead Nintendo. Also, there was this tidbit: “Kimishima-san is an excellent choice, and could be seen by the markets as a clear statement of intent to continue Iwata-san’s strategy,” Digi-Capital advisory firm managing director Tim Merel told GamesBeat. [That means] leveraging the installed base of Wii U and 3DS users to generate software sales, pushing into mobile with DeNA and Niantic, and launching Nintendo’s new console system NX in 2016.” Well…wonder if indeed the NX is actually next year after all. A lot of commentators seem to think it’s most likely 2017, but this would seem to refute that. Interesting.
Oh, and this: “Kimishima has come right out and said that he’s only slated to hold his president position for one year.” Even more interesting. Nintendo hopefully will come back strong and dominate.