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Before becoming president of Nintendo of America, Reggie was an avid Nintendo fan: he had quite the SNES collection, counted The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past among his all-time favorite games and owned an N64. He also had a PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but the one console he didn’t own? The GameCube.
When Reggie originally interviewed with Nintendo before joining the company in 2003, the big three’s competing consoles were the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, yet Reggie didn’t have a GameCube himself. However, according to an interview he recently gave on the Present Value podcast, he felt that this gave him a strategic advantage and a unique perspective upon joining the ranks at Nintendo:
Interviewer: “You arrived at Nintendo in 2003. What did the company landscape look like, and what was the first thing you did?”
Reggie: “So in 2003, the marketplace on the home console side was comprised of Nintendo’s GameCube, Xbox had just entered the market during that generation, and Sony had their PlayStation 2. And on a global marketplace, PlayStation 2 was dominating the market. GameCube and Microsoft Xbox (were) about the same stuff, so for a company used to dominating the home console space, Nintendo was in an uncomfortable position. …
I knew Nintendo; I knew its franchises. I owned not only a Super NES but a Nintendo 64. I’d owned a PlayStation 2; I owned an Xbox – they were all in my house. Interestingly, at the time I was interviewing with Nintendo, I did not own a GameCube. So, as a consumer, I could see issues and opportunities. I could have a sense of where the needs were not only from a sales and marketing perspective, which was the role I was being hired into, but just from an overall perspective.”
An interesting confession from the former President, but one which is nonetheless surprising considering the position that he would go on to hold.
Source: Nintendo Everything
