Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa is the expression of a younger management at the company, being appointed as the six president after Tatsumi Kimishima held the role a few years from the death of beloved Satoru Iwata.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa is the expression of younger management at the company, being appointed as the six presidents after Tatsumi Kimishima held the role a few years from the death of beloved Satoru Iwata.
Anyway, this doesn’t mean that the company is going to change its DNA, but only that it is facing newer challenges that could bring it to the next level, such as entertainment, mobile business – where monetization depends on the games – and of course the Nintendo Switch.
In an interview with TIME, Furukawa pointed out that he is not willing to do any particular change to the way Nintendo runs its business, in particular to the way it takes risks in the effort to try and innovate the gaming landscape. Under his tenance, it has already done so with the Ring-Con, and last year it happened the very same with Nintendo Labo.
“Above all else, I base my decisions on the development leader’s way of thinking,” said Furukawa, most certainly referring to people who have been in the company for ages such as Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario and Zelda, and the true creative mastermind at Nintendo.
“Nintendo is Nintendo because of our games, characters, and IP. So giving our teams the freedom to experiment with new ideas is something I strongly agree with. Expansion can’t happen without the freedom to try something new, and the courage to step into unfamiliar territory.”
If you ask me, it feels good to hear that, as Nintendo is known even outside of gaming borders for being a company capable of defining ages with new and fresh ideas, while others in the business have always been more interested in approaching the business like it was just a PC gaming segment where you simply add more and more power to your machine.
So, hopefully, that remains like it is no matter who is the current or the next president.
