@@M64bros It's still kind of a fact though. Iwata did so much for Nintendo and saying that his death didn't negatively impact the company is just not true. Sure, pointing this out won't make a difference in a comment section, but if people realized that they could get someone like Iwata to be in charge then things might improve. Not saying that this is likely to happen... but at least it has a bigger chance of getting something done rather than If people just didn't talk about what the current people in charge are doing. If we just let Bowser do what he does then nothing will happen.
This man was a one of a kind for Nintendo, I don't think someone else is or will be like him, I used to read a lot about what he did there, and frankly Reggie, and late Iwata, were the blood of Nintendo for years, fun fact: "Fils-Aimé" means in French "Beloved Son".
Chill out there with the worshipping fanboy. Both of them had a very “us versus them” mentality about the company where they pretty much almost lost third party support forever.
Back when I worked in the Nintendo headquarters, I overlapped a few months with Reggie before he left in April and about 4 months later I left due to moving. It's sad but all my friends after I moved said the place spiraled downhill quick and became so profit oriented to the point where they cut almost all of their customer service staff to move their positions to Mexico, and some of them had been there for 10 years.
@@Axxidous I worked on a team that did customer service representative work. Basically, we took calls and emails that involved issues with broken Nintendo products. More or less a calling center on Campus. It wasn't a passion career but I took it because they were really flexible with college schedules and I thought it be nice to work at Nintendo (ironically before this I worked at the Microsoft campus literally next door doing Xbox One software inspection)
@@Blaze6432 Dude, that’s awesome. At least you were able to work there during the good times and just barely made it out of its downhill times. Sad that Nintendo has heavily gone downhill after Iwata passed away, and went even more downhill after Reggie left. Did you have a chance to go to E3 2019 by any chance? I went to E3 2019, was in line for the Luigi’s Mansion 3 demo, and saw Doug Bowser walk like 12 feet from the line with a bunch of corporate dudes following him... I wish that was Reggie instead of Doug, maybe Reggie would’ve at least waved or said hi to us... unfortunately, Doug didn’t say anything and he and the corporate dudes looked like they were in a hurry to go to a meeting or something. Charles Martinet was also there and said hi to a majority of us and took pictures with a lot of people... unfortunately, I was in line for 3 hours and didn’t want to lose my spot in line, so I didn’t get to take a picture with Charles. :(
Reggie was a team player at Nintendo, he cared about everyone there and the quality of not only their products but their relationship with their employees and customers. it showed whenever he would go up on stage at E3. i guess it could be said that he learned this from his Mentor and good friend Mr. Iwata. sad to see this happening now that he is gone from Nintendo.
It's incredibly naive to believe this just started happening as soon as he retired, he is just covering his ass. People really would take someone that speaks well of crypto and tried to work at GameStop because of freaking memes.
From what I hear, Reggie fought most of Nintendo Japan's BS over his tenure there, he was quite the thorn in their side. So they were probably quite happy when he left and someone they could control more took over. But as with Sega, The Japanese and US divisions of these companies should have operated independently, (even the European divisions) internal bickering cost them a lot of potential profits.
@@SkywalkerSam64 Well True But If they harm Everyone then It harms their profits Japan is still catching up Yes i do say keep the culture but help Learn modern times
All I know is Reggie worked hard to get to where he's at, he's got a great family and everytime he got up on stage, he had the biggest smile on his face. You can't fake that.
Union busting is disgusting, it's very rare to find a CEO who doesn't annihilate the most crucial aspect of securing workers rights. Good stuff Reggie, and shame on Nintendo!
In some cases, it's justified to avoid unions as some have become very corrupt, so long as the company takes care of treating their employees fairly that is.
@@zereimu You're full of it. Unions are consistently among the least corrupt institutions in the world. And there's a difference between "I'm going to join a different union, this one isn't doing enough" and union busting. Union busting is *never* justified.
I remember working at this factory that had two brothers operating the shipping and receiving end of things. One week we were all talking at lunch about how unfair certain things were and one of the brothers mentioned “we should start a union.” Unfortunately the lunch room was also under constant surveillance by the owner, who obviously hated the very word union, because a week later both the brothers were fired. The entire factory had no shipping and receiving on a moments notice, because apparently “one of them said something that really hurt him.” The next day I never went back, never called them, never answered their calls, never thought about it.
I'll never understand people's mentalities. 3 years ago, most people absolutely worshipped Reggie, even while at the same time bashing the company as a whole. Most people realized that he was a pretty good human being, and was genuinely passionate about gaming. But now, those very same people are bashing him to shreds and blaming him for things that are going on NOW in a company he left years ago. I'm not naive, I've been in the corporate world long enough to know that some of the issues running through the company now were likely there under his command as well. But if that's true now, it always was, and ultimately, no one knows for certain, people are just jumping to conclusions as always. But the hypocrisy of you all is amazing to me, that's the main thing. You can go from kissing the ground someone walks on to stabbing them in the back at a moment's notice, which I'm not necessarily judging, I'm just baffled by.
The more you watch petty arguments between Nintendo defenders and detractors the less motivated you’ll feel to even play Nintendo games, at least to me
Human nature never baffles me. I've seen it all. And hell I'm not even the most social or worldly person. But human behaviour transcends race, country, culture or religion. People are strange. Someone who can seem like an angel, can twist a knife in your back at the drop of a hat.
@@luisdiaz1980 There are so many people in the gaming community and Nintendo in general is a large topic to us due to the millions in Nintendo’s audience as well as the effect the Big N has in the industry. Thus explaining all the individual perspectives out there about it, plus the occasional unexplained change of heart since we know we got some numbskull smooth-brains out here
That's a fallacy. It's not the same exact people. It's not even the same group of people. "The internet" isn't a person. Many opinions may seem like the main train of thought "the internet has, but you see the replies saying the opposite. It just takes some time for "the internet"'s opinion to change, meaning it takes time for people to get together and share a thought in a loud voice. It's never the same people
Back in 2006 through 2010 when I worked at Nintendo, we were working on the game super smash brothers brawl for the Nintendo Wii at the time. We all had the opportunity to meet him in person on one of our lunch breaks and let me tell you, we were all starstruck and didn’t know what to say because we were so humbled by his presence. He is a father first, A kind hearted person second, and an individual who truly cares about the gamers and those who are truly dedicated. It was so great to meet him and I wish I could do it again. Nintendo really could use his help right now.
@@carefulman3673 umm yeah they published it, gore didn’t say Nintendo made it, gore said they were making it for Nintendo and that they had a chance to meet him. You know as an associate.
Nintendo were looking at bad times when the Wii-U failled to get good sales, and might not be around if the Switch hadn't worked. I didn't know who Reggie was, which is the same amount I knew about the Wii-U. So maybe he took some blame for that not-so-great launch. Either way my timeline blew up yesterday with new Nintendo titles, so at least they seem to be doing OK. As to what is happening inside the company I couldn't say, but I hope it's not bad stuff as I still like the company.
I'm very interested in a lot of the conversations people are currently having about Nintendo before and after Iwata's passing. As much as we romanticize the Iwata era, I think we all agree that it still had a ton of severe problems. Nintendo's anti-consumer practices, cutthroat business strategies, and increasingly irrational fear of imitators managed to heavily persist into Iwata's tenure as Nintendo's head. Heck, many of these problems only BECAME problems during Iwata's time. That said, for as many problems as Nintendo had, those problems always seemed to be offset by their superhuman proficiency as a game developer. Mainline titles in established Nintendo franchises were just outright expected to be flawless upon release, and even in Nintendo's worst moments, they never abandoned that philosophy. Not only that, but during the company's lowest times, Iwata insisted in taking full responsibility for those decisions personally by taking pay cuts and appearing publicly whenever possible. For Nintendo during Iwata's time, long-term stability within the company itself and consumer trust were more valuable than anything else, and prioritizing those things gave Nintendo an immensely loyal fanbase. When Iwata passed, the company's focus shifted far more towards short-term profits, which is ultimately the goal of almost every operating business. Nintendo's past business model was unique and transitioning to a more-traditional model meant that they would need to walk back a lot of what the company had been about in the past. Reselling Wii U titles for elevated prices was one example, but, to me, a greater sign of Nintendo's transition was how they started to sell their IPs to the highest bidder. Lego Mario, the Mario Movie, Nintendo World, and plenty other examples would never have happened during Iwata's time (not that I necessarily think utilizing their brand like this is a bad idea). The real problem in all this is that by chasing short-term profits, Nintendo has a chance to jeopardize the very foundation of their company: their long-term stability. Like a lot of people, I don't feel like I have enough information to comment on Nintendo's attempts to union-bust, but I agree with Reggie that this never would have happened in the past. Iwata Era Nintendo wanted happy employees because happy employees create better products. Maybe Reggie's point is that happy employees won't seek to form unions (which isn't necessarily the best argument), but I'd be inclined to believe that even if they DID try to form unions, past Nintendo wouldn't try to stop them, because that would destabilize the company. It's for this reason that I'm kinda concerned about modern-day Nintendo. If they're willing to sacrifice long-term stability for success with the Switch, I'm starting to worry about how their first-party games will fare during the process. Nintendo hasn't launched a major internally-developed game since before COVID. That's a long time, and the delays facing BotW2 (which is supposed to be re-using assets from the original) is doing very little that calm that concern. I'm hoping that a lot of this is transitional stuff and that a lot of these concerns are unfounded. All that I'll say is this: Nintendo has a lot riding on their first-party lineup come 2023. BotW2, Metroid Prime 4, potentially a new mainline Mario game, and maybe even a new console all have the potential to either restore flagging confidence in their brand or permanently destroy the trust they worked so hard to build with customers since they entered the video game space. Like many of us, I have a long history with Nintendo products that goes far past the normal relationship between a company and a consumer. I want Nintendo to succeed because their products have defined entire gaming generations and have provided me with thousands of hours of entertainment. But, if they don't succeed and instead demonstrate that they are willing to completely destroy consumer trust for the sake of profit, the Switch may be their last console I support for a long time.
I think that this comment deserves some attention since it is the most well-presented argument I've read so far in the comments section of this video. I agree with the fact that most of the copyright claims and takedowns happened during Iwata's time, but he wouldn't be doing the things that current Nintendo is doing right now. I don't think that he would agree with the current NSO right now considering you have to pay a full-on 80 bucks a year just to play games online, NES, SNES, N64, Genisis, and a handful of DLC (which you don't keep if you cancel BTW). They have refused VC services on Switch and decided to take away the only means of having it (Wii U and 3DS) while still striking down "pirates" who get at least a good 12 miles away from touching their games. A famous and recent example is the copyright issue with the fully scanned rare Super Mario 64 Guide that was only printed in Japanese and (as far as we know) they have no intention to reprint/redistribute at any time. This can also lead to the argument that Nintendo's current business practices make no sense as well. They have turned more Anti-Consumer when Reggie left, and have done very little to redeem that aspect. This is something that we all can agree that Iwata managed to stick the landing well when it came to being as consumer-friendly as possible. Because of him, we got an online service that was free and didn't experience any downtime, updates came with games so people without internet can have fully updated Wiis, gave us a way to experience older games on our newer hardware via the Virtual Console, and has always admitted to mistakes that the company made. He always had the gamers' best intentions at heart when he jumped into a development of a game, which is why we've seen some really phenomenal games come out during his time. I do think that another path for redemption for Nintendo would be to stop busting labor unions, make some massive overhauls to the manufacturing of the Switch so things like Joy-Con drift will no longer be a thing, offering a service where people can still play online with there friends (even if for a limited timeframe), bring back Nintendo Selects (it is about time), and bringing back the VC so people can have an active choice. While having a solid lineup of games may help with the reputation I would say that Nintendo would have to do way more than that to get people actively fired up (and in a good way) about their products again. Sorry for going on a tangent there, I hope you don't get too mad for adding something else to the argument as well...
One thing I'll say about Furukawa is that he claimed awhile back that he's paying attention to what the market wants, as he doesn't want more failures like the reputation of the Wii from 2009 onwards and the Wii U as a whole where Nintendo got complacent with the former's success, and he probably knows exactly why they turned out the way they did. Now actually listening to customer feedback is a different story, but he is doing some things right that Nintendo should've been doing a LONG time ago.
@@SUCHMISH Uh, no he didn't have gamers best interests at heart. If he did, the creator's program would've never been made, and franchises like Mario Party, Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and more wouldn't have been at their absolute worst, often more than once.
To be fair I don't even know what next "big hit" would or could succeed the Switch. VR seems a little too obvious of a step for them, and they have sort of attempted that in the past. If there's something I know Nintendo likes is innovation, and I personally can't see what the Switch's successor could even be, if they even want to go for it
I miss Reggie at Nintendo he was so expressive and excited every time he came on. I really felt the energy when he ran the America division. I've never even seen this bowser President at all like he hides in a dark castle.
You say you never saw him, but I can tell you you're not missing much. I just saw a picture of Bowser on a wiki page, he looks like a generic man in his 50's. I do not mean any disrespect in saying that, but that's what he looks like.
@@LexLucario7922 from my knowledge, a bald white man with glasses right? Yeah. If you can think of what that person would look like you got Doug bowser
Nintendo had a lot more character in my opinion back during the Wii U and 3DS Era, alongside the early Switch Era. Now they just feel like any regular video game company, but being more targeted towards families
I agree. The only company that seems to be showing any life in the 2020 decade is SEGA. I'm not saying SEGA's games this decade have been perfect but when I look at SEGA and I look at the games they've given us, SEGA doesn't feel lifeless too me. Sure Sonic Colors Ultimate blew up in their face but I think Blind Squirrel Games is more to blame than SEGA in general. It doesn't help SEGA has a fan base that'll point out....well....any flaw especially with Sonic. "This Sonic model is slightly blue-er than he's supposed to be.....worst game EVER!!!!" lol. But compared to everyone not named SEGA, Nintendo still has more life and character than Ubisoft, 2K, and I like EA but EA.. Then again that's not exactly hard to do. The only games Ubisoft has that has any personality whatsoever is Rayman which too be honest they haven't done much with since well Legends other than creating mobile games, and Immortals Fynx Rising. That's about it.
@@flamingrubys11 Nah I'd say their closer to Ubisoft. EA will make a game with microtransaction. Ubisoft still makes fun games sometimes. Sure they miss more often but they come out with a good game every now and then. Nintendo's not quite at Ubisoft levels of soul less, because they still have some pretty fun and interesting games, I don't even like Golf and Super Mario Golf looked like it was fun to play. But I have a feeling after Miyomoto dies that's when they'll be the new 2K. 2K is worse than EA and Ubisoft in my opinion. Sure EA does microtransaction too but at least EA's game works when it does it. I'd rather have a game with microtransaction that works than a glitchy mess, and I'm still salty about WWE 2K18 on the Switch and WWE 2K20.
I think current day Nintendo has really lost sight of what their original ideals were. If they can find in themselves to recapture those ideals, maybe they can restabilize their image, their games, and their community. EDIT: who knew the most open-ended comment about wanting Nintendo to do better would spark the most angry, fervent replies.
@sk I dont necessarily disagree that a lot of games during the 90's and early 2000's have aged in certain area's but I do think many of the highly regarded classics still hold up today and Id even go as far as to say quite a few of them do certain things better than a lot of the modern games of today. For example one of the big issues i have with many games of today is that many of them hold your hand rather than letting you figure it out. Now are there examples of games that dont hold your hand? Yeah ofc there is but there's also plenty of examples of games in the past era's that have aged very well. I think the only era you can really make that argument for is the NES era but even some NES games still hold up very well (Mario 3 and Ninja Gaiden are two examples). Also Gamecube is amazing and I would argue one of the best consoles the company came out with.
I worked at nintendo as a tester when he was around although the pay was crap for contractors the company was amazing to work for and would even let you have days off even if you just felt mentally off they would never give you crap. He would walk through from time to time and greet everyone and everyone seemed very happy. The only no no was no falling asleep at the desk. lol Which when your testing the same thing every day can be easy to do lol.
As much as I love Nintendo, I do get disappointed with how they’re handling business. “You love the soundtrack from Mario 64? Go play the game again and don’t you dare download mp3 file from it or we are hunting your ass down!”
I think this is kind of BS considering the amount of RUclips videos I see using Mario 64 music. Even if they were DCMA, people clever enough to edit in Mario music tastefully tend to be doing well on RUclips through their audience, rather than RUclips itself.
I don’t think we should blame anyone rn Maybe Reggie is covering up shady stuff or maybe he’s right and things have changed Until there’s evidence of what’s going on and since when those problems began
The company has been going downhill since Reggie and Iwata (rip) are gone. Plain and simple! I can't even recognize Nintendo anymore, so much so that, I sold my switch and all my games. I don't even want to support them anymore and very few games in the past 3 years have picked my interest. When lots of PS2 games and GameCube games are better looking and way more fun and complete than some of the recent games they've been putting out...it begs the question...wtf are they doing?!
That's the fun part in the US, they fire you before you get the ball rolling. Once you've actually done the petition and officially asked they can't fire you but til that point it's fair game.
Just keep in mind, Nintendo has never been good. It's always had issues, mismanagement & negligence, consumer disrespect, poor response to backlash, and horrible anticompetitive practices. But its lowest lows have never looked so bad that even employees within the company were complaining to this degree. I do wonder what the future holds for them as a company. Not actually invested coz I was never a nintendo fan, but still morbidly curious.
There is one word that changed gaming for me from reggie "If it's no fun, why bother ?" That simple line change how i play game, i used to be so hardcore, buying every game released, spending hours grinding, pulling out review like a psycho, and playing hours and hours completing game not because i want to but the feeling of i have to keep up, and one day i see reggie say that line and i look at myself and all game I've played, i am miserable, i stopped having fun and joking around with my friends, it just mindless activity, then i started unfollowing gamin channel, stop visiting game review website, stop watching game 'rant' videos, now i just play what i like to play, it has been better Thanks reggie, you helped me bring back the game experience i love, filled with curiousity, wonder, most especially happiness
The Nintendo Reggie left had charm, had a soul, cared about making the user happy and giving them experiences, and I’m totally sure working there was a complete joy.
Yep. And yet they have the most mindlessly loyal braindead simps for fans who will defend every corrupt, anti-consumer move they ever make. The rest of this comment section is filled with simps who have deified the likes of Reggie and Iwata.
@@SubjectiveObserver Sony are noticeably different, not necessarily for better or worse, but Nintendo's practices don't seem to be a national or cultural issue.
This man was the best thing about Nintendo. Such a great factor to why I loved my time using Nintendo came down to my trust in them thanks to this guy. I currently have a Switch sitting doing nothing and I even forget it's there at all so who knows maybe that says something
The BEST thing about Nintendo? Most of the good things happening at Nintendo during his tenure came down from Satoru Iwata and Iwata’s very distinct vision for running the company, domestically and internationally. Reggie’s a great marketing guy, but for enthusiast consumers his time at Nintendo was a pretty mixed bag: that was the period when Nintendo’s relationship with third-party and Western developers hit rock bottom, and under his direction Nintendo of America outright refused to localize many creative, original titles from its Japanese and European branches that didn’t fall into a narrow box of big franchise IPs or “accessible” games for young children or Wii Sports/Wii Fit casual players. (To name some critically lauded examples: Mother 3 was infamously never localized, allegedly due to fears that its adult themes would stain NoA’s Disneyesque brand image; Xenoblade, a gamer darling that kicked off a major franchise, was almost canceled in the US because of a false belief that Japanese RPGs aimed at the 12-and-up demographic, or any game on a Nintendo system without simplified gameplay and an old recognizable brand, were unmarketable.) His branding savvy also couldn’t save the Wii U from historic disaster, or even the Gamecube and Wii’s steep falloffs in their later years after their new game releases dried up (due in part to poor relationship with third-party devs and refusal to localize Japanese titles). Infamously, NoA under Reggie’s watch also fired an employee who was targeted by Gamergaters due to private information about her they made public. So, Reggie wasn’t this flawless champion of the people; he was a businessman. It’s easy for him to get sanctimonious in hindsight, but how would he have handled things differently if NoA employees tried to unionize when he was in charge? Curiously, the interviewer doesn’t ask. (Considering how most big Japanese consumer electronics corps feel about unions, I’d put my money on “Reggie would’ve handled things exactly the same”.)
I still think the Switch is an amazing console with great games. I have had a blast playing Mario and Minecraft with my gf. It's a shame they aren't caring for their employees and seem to be slumbering in the last couple years though.
Being in my 40s I can say that Nintendo really is a shadow of its former self.. but so are all the big corporations I grew up with like Konami, Capcom, Blizzard.. Disney.. It's sad.
Nintendo hasn't exactly ever had the best standards for things like workers' rights and environmentalism. Most people have selective memories and do not remember the many occasions where gaming magazines and websites had them scored lower than both Sony and Microsoft in those criteria before, during and after Reggie was part of the company.
I've said it once, I'll say it again, and I will say it a hundred times if I have to; ever since Reggie left and Iwata's passing away Nintendo have gotten worse and worse ever since.
DO NOT use a persons death for why something/ones bad, thats disrespectful to the dead person. Dangit, Im stinkin sick and tired of ppl using someones death for a reason like this, Ns definitely made crap mistakes but this isnt gonna solve everything, its just disrespecting Iwata
@@skullerclawerbandicoot7966 How exactly am I disrespecting Iwata? If anything my comment gave him high praise along with Reggie. I don't think you understand what you're even talking about.
@@Aaaa-g6u8e Using his death for why Ns not the same. (I may have read it wrong so I apologize if thats the case) I can get how during his time, it was great compared to now, I just had an issue with the "Iwatas passing part"
@@otakuthegreat Im not stalking ppl, Im just saying dont use someones death is the reason for why someone/thing got bad, thats disrespectful to the dead person. I just got overboard with that
There are two Nintendo right now, the Iwata Nintendo and the post Iwata Nintendo, i have a feeling Nintendo is desperately trying to rediscover itself. And sometimes it's not easy to start over, takes generations sometimes
I mean u can consider the same thing with Apple and Steve Jobs, in which they kept on trying with new designs, albeit people considering them inferior to Steve's
Nintendo was always an aggressive company, during the reign of the Super Nintendo they were rough on retailers to push their products and snuff out competition. Nintendo of Japan doesn't trust Nintendo of America to entertain their western audience, whereas Sega always gave their American division more freedom on how to market the company in the west.
@@millabasset1710 Yeah. And I think Reggie and Iwata made a good combo, and I feel like during that tenor there was more trust in NoA (or Reggie specifically) but what's being described now seems very Nintendo of Japan. But I agree Nintendo is struggling to find itself again. We needed a strong business man when the Switch launched but now they're lacking that face for Nintendo. Furukawa stated he didn't like being on camera. Doug Bowser doesn't seem interested in putting himself out there a lot outside of some social media posts. People just need that personality to latch unto
Even in just juxtaposing the current Nintendo directs and the presentations of the past before Bowser taking over, a big change can be seen. The playfulness, albeit somewhat cheesy, really felt family friendly and you could tell it seemed like you were a part of the presentation. It seemed genuine and was enjoyable to watch. In fact, I sometimes even find myself rewatching Reggie presentations and clips every now and then. Now it just seems like they’ve gone all ‘professional,’ afraid to show almost any personality for fear of whatever. Whenever they do try to crack a joke today, it’ll come off as awkward a lot of the time. Iwata passing away didn’t help either: ever since then Nintendo hasn’t seemed to be the same. But this makes sense considering two of the biggest figures of Nintendo had just left. Perhaps some like this change. Though one thing for sure is that this new atmosphere doesn’t seem to be good for the employees, which is truly unfortunate.
Is Reggie saying "we had much more open communication, so the employees wouldn't have needed a union"? Or is he saying "if workers tried to unionize, I wouldn't have tried to bust them"? I would hope he meant the second, but if it's the first then he's missing the point.
According to the fairly lengthy IGN article on the matter, both employees and contractors noticed a cultural shift following 2015, the year Iwata died. This change became more pronounced following the success of the Switch.
Literally nothing would change. Nintendo of America has always been nothing more than a marketing branch for the USA. Not a single person at NOA has ever had a drop of influence of Nintendo (Japan) - and they never will. What NOA does is what NOJ tells them to do. Nobody at NOA makes games. Nobody at NOA knows how to make games. And very few of them actually play games (especially if we're talking about the 'executives'). This includes Reggie just as much as it includes Doug Bowser. Literally the only thing Reggie had was charisma. He had presence at E3 and other public presentations. That's it. If he were still at Nintendo, nothing would be different than it is now. Even this very topic covered in the video is being misunderstood by 99% of the Nintendo loyalists here. When Reggie says "This isn't the Nintendo I left", he isn't even talking about their modern garbage business practices or anything like that - he's strictly talking about Nintendo's anti-union practices, which really only concerns those working at the company - not their products. And even that is kind of a lie because Nintendo has ALWAYS been anti-union. The whole interview is just an excuse for Reggie to try and make himself look better by throwing his old employer under the bus. And he knows he can get away with it because he has had far more exposure and popularity than say, Doug Bowser, who isn't even allowed to be any kind of figurehead at all because NOJ's Furukawa care even less about worldwide public image than Iwata did (and that's saying A LOT). (Although that initial E3 with Bowser 'King Koopa' thinking he has going to be president was admittedly the cutest thing they probably will ever do again)
I am often watching the Japanese division of Nintendo as a Translator myself, I am not entirely sure exactly what is going on in detail, but I can say for translation tools, there are plenty of tools out there, unless it's Nintendo proprietary as Bill Trinen mentioned long ago having to transcribe on a Notepad while playing the Game, which is what I mostly do, there needs to be more innovation in tools, practices and to give employees a better way to do things. Unless the translation methods have improved or stayed the same, it's better to be an independent translator. Slowly, I am even adapting to newer tools, methods and ways to do it better, Nintendo of America could learn a thing or two.
Oh please. This was 100% going on when he was at Nintendo and there's no way he didn't know. He's only been gone a couple years. These employment policies didn't change overnight as soon as he left. "Associates" claim this has been how it is for years
I think we should focus on the scandal of them artificially inflating used retro game prices by purposely excluding them or making them hard to play on their own products and being overly struct on copyright policy to take down peoples only way to play them in relation with Wata Games and Heritage Auctions...
As an associate tester, I never got an invite, nor did any other associate get an invite to anything. Every year though, they would have a garage sale where all the permanents would go through everything and buy what they wanted, and then the associates could get what was left over, which wasn’t ever really anything good. One year they treated us to a bunch of packaged food, snacks, and candy. Literally all of it was expired. Associates weren’t treated well. And this was under Reggie.
Reggie's just drifting now that he's fucked from every angle, he squandered his time at nintendo so now he's letting any bitter doommongering leech talk like he wasn't just as bad, if not worse, during his tenure at the company.
A shame Nintendo has lost such a powerful force. Although even when reggie was there, the company as t perfect and it was still orbital striking fan projects, I can tell things definitely changed when he left.
What are the circumstances of Reggie leaving? For him to essentially throw the new CEO under the bus, I have to wonder at his motives even if what he is saying is true. I think we could all benefit from more context.
I wonder what his motives are too. Nintendo of America have been using contractors even when Reggie was in office, like any other major corporation. We know contractors are not the same as actual in-house employees. It is highly unlikely contractors were treated equally as NoA employees when Reggie was there. Also, to add I know a few contract workers, despite the "poor working conditions" they have turned down being offered to convert to full-time within said company they did work for and continue to choose to remain as a contractor for tax reasons.
@@MisakiP-1 ever since Iwata's death you could see Nintendo turning more corporate. It's missing so much of the magic they had before during the wii and wiiu era
@@metroidcypher I agree. People always bring up the striking down of fan projects or online videos whenever people are nostalgic for the Iwata era, but it is clear that Nintendo has developed far more soulless business practices. The fact that they got away with removing $20 DK: Tropic Freeze from the Wii U eshop to incentivize the purchase of the $60 Switch port is something that has long bothered me.
Reggie makes a good point. “This isn’t the Nintendo I left”. Meaning that, if what those reports say is true, then it’s not the same as the Nintendo he oversaw. Therefore, it could be that the reports are vastly over exaggerated. We just don’t know yet. No one should be jumping to any conclusions.
I hate this attitude of worrying about a megacorp's reputation more than the potential suffering of the working class people it's riding on. Believe these stories until proven otherwise, because this is how capitalism works, especially in places where a union doesn't exist. That's not going to be for any corporation's lack of effort
@@likability6288 They have recently made some really bad company desicions recently since the switch released. Things like, Nintendo Switch Online, the microtransactions in newer Nintendo mobile apps, shutting down Miitomo and who could forget, Mario 3D All-Stars.
“This isn’t the nintendo I left” nintendo has literally been openly anti union for decades??? Did you all just assume that Nintendo’s refusal to hire union voice actors was the ONLY anti-union activity the company would engage in?
Judging by the majority of the comments here, nobody actually watched the video and /or understands what 'the union' even is. Just a bunch of Nintendo-simping kids and manchildren who have no jobs and deify Reggie and Iwata as if the company was some bastion of openness, love, and perfection when they were still in charge.
I'd do some extra research on this (take it with a ton of salt) but isnt there some shenaniganny stuff surrounding va unions where they can't work with non union members?
I like the man and I'm not making any accusations, wouldn't have proof of it either way, but I would like to point out that at no point would Reggie ever paint himself poorly when referring to the company during his time running it, or rather its North American branch. That being said, he's spot on about Nintendo's decline. I hope they pick themselves back up and get back to a healthy work culture, because capitalism is a deadly disease and it will fester until the company's foot falls off and it can't stand on its own anymore. I hope Nintendo's current management recognizes this and doesn't drag Iwata's legacy to the ground. He worked so hard to elevate Nintendo, and so did Reggie, naturally, it would be a shame to see all of that hard work get pulled back down into the ground with something as nasty as union-busting.
@@citavalo naturally. it is not in the interest of the employer for their employees to have bargaining power. so if I were a head of a publicly traded company with the purpose of appeasing investors, then yes, unionization is something I'd be incentivized to work against. but what does that change? without unionization, a tiny minority has way too much power over a large majority. so of course it would still be the right thing, even if it doesn't make everyone happy.
@@jockson7574 union busting is when a company prevents & destroys the employees efforts to start or join an union. they do this as employee unionization is not in the company's (stakeholders) financial interest (employees would be in a position to demand higher wages, for instance).
I don’t believe him. This is not something that happens over night. It has probably been something that has been festering for years, even under Reggie’s leadership and only blew up now. Likely because of the Activision Blizzard case that launched a lot of other companies to look at their own.
"Associates" "Contract employees" "Involved in some quarterly meetings" This is how he talks about people. I get that some like Reggie because he said some memes on Directs, but 3 years is a short time in business. He talks like every CEO does, if there's union busting now, there was union busting then.
I'd rather be called a contract employee than "family." Least it's honest. More suspicious of when the boss says you're friends, because at the end of the day they're still your boss. I don't want to get fired by my friend or family member.
@@Hemostat When Reggie talks, he talks like only the full timers count. And by "count", he means had a quarterly meeting. Sorry, but Reggie was Pizza Hut's CEO before he was Nintendo of America's. Both have bad reputations for how they treat their employees. People give Reggie a break because the marketing department feeds him some memes to say and the fanboys clap, but he's a ruthless CEO like any other.
@@Hemostat Contract employee means that it is so much easier for them to fire you, deny benefits and raises, and just mistreat you. The gaming industry needs to unionize.
@@HemostatSo they do that on top of calling them a "family", read the Axios report that just came, Reggie is avoiding a real answer because he directly contributed to it.
I was an associate at Nintendo for a very long time and we never got invited to these "lunches." Dude... what. If we were invited, it was in some corner of the company website we couldn't find.
inb4 the Nintendo simps jump in and start calling you a liar for daring to speak ill of their god, the almighty Nintendo (especially under the great Reggie-Fils-Aime).
Bad corporate culture takes years to manifest. I'm a little surprised he feels zero accountability. Surely if he put more programs into place to protect "associates", prior to leaving, Nintendo wouldn't be facing the bad press they are today.
I liked how Reggie was always there to present the latest Nintendo Directs. You’ll still see Doug Bowser, I guess, but not nearly as much. A good leader should be leading from the front, not bringing up the rear like Bowser seemingly does much of the time-and Furukawa-san? You never see him in a Direct lol
Yeah, I call bullshit on this. We all love Reggie, but he was a corporate boss. This is not a Nintendo issue. Literally every company does this. He never specified that he was PRO union, because as a corporate leader you obviously wont be.
It dosnt take long for a company's ethics to change, once leadership does. We may never know what Reggie truly feels about unions during his time at Nintendo. But certainly in 3 years, things could be drastically different.
Also worth mentioning that this is coming from _Washington Post_ Gaming, a paper owned by Jeff Bezos, even as Amazon's union busting is in the news cycle. I don't want to blame people for having to eat under capitalist bullshit, but damn, this is strange and even a little suspicious. Eat the rich or something if you're gonna posture like this under such ownership
Absolutely, the sheer naivety or wilful ignorance in this comment section is insane. Reggie is incredibly charismatic, but you don't become a corporate boss without stepping on people, and it's incredibly hard to believe this began after he left, when it hasn't even been that long since he parted ways.
i honestly don't trust anything Reggie says about this cause he was president of NOA WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING. Reggie's is skilled at giving out vague non-answers to the press, notice that he doesn't actually address any specific parts of the article.
When an Ex CEO makes a statement like this, it's to get ahead of the inevitable. Do not look at Reggie's time at Nintendo romantically. Take this all with a shaker of salt. And the way some of you are coming to defend Reggie's honor is honestly disgusting. Also: WaPo is owned by one of the most notorious union busters alive. The first movement for IT workers to unionize...was at Amazon.
Forgive me for being skeptical but any former company head is gonna try and downplay or deny the problems at the company they used to work at. It'd be a lot better to get a opinion from a former worker, who has a lot less to lose from exposing nintendo's wrongdoings. Let's also remember that he was the CEO of nintendo of america and any issues nintendo of japan had he'd have no knowledge of (that is if they go into the issues of Nintendo of Japan in the full interview). No hate towards Reggie I don't know for sure if he's a bad CEO but any CEO is pretty much the worst person to talk about a companies wrongdoings.
Finally a real person that knows the truth, I also don't hate Reggie too. Do not give me wrong but I absolutely know for a fact that not everything was beautiful and pretty when him and Iwata were still around.
But this is the Nintendo you left! Most of this stuff happened when you were at the helm! There's no way none of this trickled up at all, especially on the American side. I love Reggie, but this really feels like save-my-ass PR
God damn I miss Reggie. I was a 3DS Wii U kid so I wasn’t really there during his peak but I still miss him so badly. He just seemed like the kinda guy who walked into the office and everyone smiled. Along with Iwata. Iwata was always putting in the extra mile, taking his pay loss instead of deducting others pay, he spoke in English in the directs, while he primarily spoke Japanese. I miss them both, and I really hope no others like Miyamoto, or Itoi ever have to leave us :(
Yes it is. Their culture finally just to light. Nintendo always does shady business practices. An example are the product shortages specifically to keep demand high, even months after a products release.
Sony and MS are not above shady business practices either. The shortages are kinda small beans by comparison. At least until this labor issue popped up, which brings them more up to Sonys level at least.
@@lyianx Sony developers have "employment holidays" written into their contract. Within a 12 month period you have to take two weeks "employment holiday" which effectively is terminating your employment with the guarantee of being rehired in two weeks time. This is simply to ensure nobody will ever be eligible for redundancy payments and can basically just be sacked on short notice whenever they like. Oh and the two weeks they make you take you can't take up or look for other employment else you are breaching your contract and thus are not eligible for being rehired. Also 50 hour weeks (illegal here in the UK) are commonplace.
it is the job of a ceo to crack down on employee organizing. maybe he was your mythical pro-union ceo, but considering nintendo's long history of anti-union practices, i doubt it. remember everyone, your boss's interests are not your own.
You can be anti-union in the sense that you look out for your employees and contractors best interests. Reducing crunch. Making sure the benefits are good. Personal development. If the labor is organized under your leadership, you've failed as a manager, and in time, your ability to retain talent will falter. And I remain fully unconvinced that this didn't happen under Reggie. I am not looking at anyone's past in this industry with rose tinted glasses. Let's wait and see what happens.
While this could be taken as "things have changed since I left Nintendo," I think it's important to point out that his statement can also be taken as "the reports can't be true because when I was there, we treated contract employees so equally that they never felt the need to unionize" which is... certainly something I could see a corporate executive saying, even one as beloved as Reggie
It's exactly the Nintendo that you left, it's just being more open about it now. I've talked to many a people that worked for Nintendo and they always told me, it was extremely better to work for Nintendo as a real employee comparatively to that of a contract worker. You're no better than Microsoft, nor have you even been.
Jesus, finally a sane person. Rarely do you see such pathetic excuses be so warmly received by people because of freaking skits and memes. Nintendo branding is scary, people are willing to criticize Nintendo for both good and incredibly stupid reasons, but they never aim those criticisms at the people that actually held positions of power withing the company because their image has completely convinced people they are just fun people making games. It's ghastly.
Omg how dare you try and tell the truth! Seriously, people think Nintendo is special, but they're not. The CEO may think their company's employees are being treated fairly based on what management tells them, but completely ignore lower level employees in that equation (or are willfully ignorant like Reggie is)
@@PoorStargazer bro, I'm getting my comments shadowbanned and shadow deleted left and right all over youtube, so you don't even know how true this comment hits.
He was president when these predatory contract policies began. His Nintendo was the same one that requires associates to take two months off to prevent their access to health benefits. This has been bubbling for over a decade and just because it’s getting publicity now doesn’t mean that it hasn’t always been there
Idk man. A lot of Blizzard employees were saying "this isn't the Blizzard I left" and it turned out they were causing those very issues. I like Reggie but I don't trust him very much either
Note that the alligations against Nintendo of America is said that the era that was the worst was 2015, which was then Reggie was president of Nintendo of America.
Look I like Reggie but saying "I know I was able to achieve that" feels like a little bit of a red flag. Good bosses are usually aware and open to the idea that there are ways in which they are able to improve . Granted he doesn't say a massive amount but it kind of feels like he was saying that things were basically perfect with him in charge, and he doesn't know what happened. I wonder if they employees would agree with that sentiment.
Company culture is corporate slang for keeping employees full of coffee and pizza long enough for them to not notice their pay getting outpaced by their bills lol
Actually it literally is. These systems have reportedly been around since like the Wii. So Reggie just didn't pay attention to the problem. Having lunch with the team was not the issue.
A comment like this will get 4 likes, but a comment dick-riding Reggie and going "can't believe people who criticize him" gets over 3k. People are so easily deluded it's impressive
Its not like that was the only thing he did for his staff. Besides, it’s about the bigger idea of treating his workers as equals, as friends or even a family in a sense. Rather than now where most probably feel like slaves, an expendable resource to a greedy impersonal business conglomerate
@@Martinroadsguy Why not? I think the relationship between an employee and their boss should aim to be about partnership, not ownership. Otherwise you’re likely to create a toxic environment built on selfish impersonal totalitarian values that’s only going to lead to problems down the line (like Nintendo right now)
@@WhatTheFrogDoing I don’t doubt that certainly happens, but they’re not invariable. If a boss/business genuinely respected and treated their staff fairly, they would also be willing to at least attempt to meet their requests and rights or reach some compromise. A trade union only serves useful against a stubborn impersonal company who refuses to supply it’s staff with what it almost undoubtably could. I have had multiple jobs which were awful jobs but the staff and boss were so close and cooperative that it made the experiences amazing regardless
It makes me wonder if the new leadership is trying to cut down on money at the cost of humans. It could also be that the new NA leadership is just less respected by the JP headquarters so they're getting pushed harder.
Walmart calls their employees associates as well, this is because they classify them as OWNERS so they get a small profit sharing cheque once a year if their store performs well which they use to cut down on union busting. Aka Reggie is full of crap.
also alot of leaders in company tend to put blame under other department and workers and the work culture of nintendo was probably happening slowly for this to happen and he could have not paid attention if he was doing his own work
I get the feeling that Reggie's a good guy. He just has that feeling, the aura of niceness and kindness that surrounds him. Whether or not that really is true behind the scenes, I like to believe it's true and Reggie is a good hearted person.
This is what happens when you let Bowser run Nintendo.
TRUUUEEE
i get its a joke but frankly reggie could be to blame as well or the stories simply are not true
This comment is spot on 😅😢
Nintendo has felt a little soulless since Iwata passed away and Reggie left. Even miyamoto feels distant now
Bowser is union busting, and taking advantage of contractors :(
I thought seeing Reggie leave would be one of the saddest things. Then I saw him sad.
😔
That’s a big sad
@Bloop sus
The Saddiest Sad in the Sadverse.
😭
Mr. Iwata and Reggie were the heart and soul of Nintendo. Things haven’t been the same since Furukawa and Bowser took over
Using Iwata and Reggie as an excuse isn't going to make a difference
@@M64bros It's still kind of a fact though. Iwata did so much for Nintendo and saying that his death didn't negatively impact the company is just not true. Sure, pointing this out won't make a difference in a comment section, but if people realized that they could get someone like Iwata to be in charge then things might improve. Not saying that this is likely to happen... but at least it has a bigger chance of getting something done rather than If people just didn't talk about what the current people in charge are doing. If we just let Bowser do what he does then nothing will happen.
@@isskull7272 I know.....😞
Nintendo has always been this way though
@@ninjafrog6966 true. It's really frustrating when people bring both of them up because they were also around during the Dark age of Nintendo
This man was a one of a kind for Nintendo, I don't think someone else is or will be like him, I used to read a lot about what he did there, and frankly Reggie, and late Iwata, were the blood of Nintendo for years, fun fact: "Fils-Aimé" means in French "Beloved Son".
Small correction: it means "beloved son".
@@robinmattheussen2395 Yes, you're right, my mistake ! Corrected, thank you
Chill out there with the worshipping fanboy. Both of them had a very “us versus them” mentality about the company where they pretty much almost lost third party support forever.
Bowser is union busting :/
@@robinmattheussen2395 further correction: it means “one whose body is ready”
I miss Reggie particularly his presentations.
IKR same here
his body was ready
whats wrong with you
@@johnxina7496 what’s wrong with you?
@@johnxina7496 what? That question should be directed toward you.
Back when I worked in the Nintendo headquarters, I overlapped a few months with Reggie before he left in April and about 4 months later I left due to moving. It's sad but all my friends after I moved said the place spiraled downhill quick and became so profit oriented to the point where they cut almost all of their customer service staff to move their positions to Mexico, and some of them had been there for 10 years.
Thats sad but cool you worked there
@@train_go_boom2065 It's a lovely campus and people are nice, it was just a shame that they had such poor treatment of lower skilled workers.
What exactly did you do there? I was always curious what people do at video game companies like that. Especially outside of Japan.
@@Axxidous I worked on a team that did customer service representative work. Basically, we took calls and emails that involved issues with broken Nintendo products. More or less a calling center on Campus. It wasn't a passion career but I took it because they were really flexible with college schedules and I thought it be nice to work at Nintendo (ironically before this I worked at the Microsoft campus literally next door doing Xbox One software inspection)
@@Blaze6432 Dude, that’s awesome. At least you were able to work there during the good times and just barely made it out of its downhill times. Sad that Nintendo has heavily gone downhill after Iwata passed away, and went even more downhill after Reggie left.
Did you have a chance to go to E3 2019 by any chance? I went to E3 2019, was in line for the Luigi’s Mansion 3 demo, and saw Doug Bowser walk like 12 feet from the line with a bunch of corporate dudes following him... I wish that was Reggie instead of Doug, maybe Reggie would’ve at least waved or said hi to us... unfortunately, Doug didn’t say anything and he and the corporate dudes looked like they were in a hurry to go to a meeting or something. Charles Martinet was also there and said hi to a majority of us and took pictures with a lot of people... unfortunately, I was in line for 3 hours and didn’t want to lose my spot in line, so I didn’t get to take a picture with Charles. :(
Reggie was a team player at Nintendo, he cared about everyone there and the quality of not only their products but their relationship with their employees and customers. it showed whenever he would go up on stage at E3. i guess it could be said that he learned this from his Mentor and good friend Mr. Iwata. sad to see this happening now that he is gone from Nintendo.
It's incredibly naive to believe this just started happening as soon as he retired, he is just covering his ass.
People really would take someone that speaks well of crypto and tried to work at GameStop because of freaking memes.
E3 is a bunch of 1%ers jacking eachother off
T
Yeah I’m trrrrrr
I’m still yuyy
From what I hear, Reggie fought most of Nintendo Japan's BS over his tenure there, he was quite the thorn in their side. So they were probably quite happy when he left and someone they could control more took over.
But as with Sega, The Japanese and US divisions of these companies should have operated independently, (even the European divisions) internal bickering cost them a lot of potential profits.
No.
Japanese do not have to think like Americans.
They're an own culture and have their own company! We must respect that.
Yeah
@@SkywalkerSam64 Well True
But If they harm Everyone then It harms their profits
Japan is still catching up
Yes i do say keep the culture but help Learn modern times
@@MrFusion 👎🏻👎🏻🖕🏼 🖕🏼envious!!
That is actual BS.
At this point it's not even right to insult them for being boomers, they're just flat out living in the dark ages.
All I know is Reggie worked hard to get to where he's at, he's got a great family and everytime he got up on stage, he had the biggest smile on his face. You can't fake that.
no you can
Union busting is disgusting, it's very rare to find a CEO who doesn't annihilate the most crucial aspect of securing workers rights. Good stuff Reggie, and shame on Nintendo!
In some cases, it's justified to avoid unions as some have become very corrupt, so long as the company takes care of treating their employees fairly that is.
@@zereimu You're full of it. Unions are consistently among the least corrupt institutions in the world. And there's a difference between "I'm going to join a different union, this one isn't doing enough" and union busting. Union busting is *never* justified.
@@zereimu If the company had treated the workers well enough I doubt they would have had reasons to want to unionize in the first place
I remember working at this factory that had two brothers operating the shipping and receiving end of things. One week we were all talking at lunch about how unfair certain things were and one of the brothers mentioned “we should start a union.”
Unfortunately the lunch room was also under constant surveillance by the owner, who obviously hated the very word union, because a week later both the brothers were fired. The entire factory had no shipping and receiving on a moments notice, because apparently “one of them said something that really hurt him.”
The next day I never went back, never called them, never answered their calls, never thought about it.
@@Soundaholic92 I never said this company treated it's employees fairly.
I'll never understand people's mentalities. 3 years ago, most people absolutely worshipped Reggie, even while at the same time bashing the company as a whole. Most people realized that he was a pretty good human being, and was genuinely passionate about gaming. But now, those very same people are bashing him to shreds and blaming him for things that are going on NOW in a company he left years ago. I'm not naive, I've been in the corporate world long enough to know that some of the issues running through the company now were likely there under his command as well. But if that's true now, it always was, and ultimately, no one knows for certain, people are just jumping to conclusions as always. But the hypocrisy of you all is amazing to me, that's the main thing. You can go from kissing the ground someone walks on to stabbing them in the back at a moment's notice, which I'm not necessarily judging, I'm just baffled by.
The more you watch petty arguments between Nintendo defenders and detractors the less motivated you’ll feel to even play Nintendo games, at least to me
Human nature never baffles me. I've seen it all. And hell I'm not even the most social or worldly person. But human behaviour transcends race, country, culture or religion. People are strange.
Someone who can seem like an angel, can twist a knife in your back at the drop of a hat.
@@luisdiaz1980 There are so many people in the gaming community and Nintendo in general is a large topic to us due to the millions in Nintendo’s audience as well as the effect the Big N has in the industry. Thus explaining all the individual perspectives out there about it, plus the occasional unexplained change of heart since we know we got some numbskull smooth-brains out here
That's the internet for you in a nutshell. Fickle.
That's a fallacy. It's not the same exact people. It's not even the same group of people. "The internet" isn't a person. Many opinions may seem like the main train of thought "the internet has, but you see the replies saying the opposite. It just takes some time for "the internet"'s opinion to change, meaning it takes time for people to get together and share a thought in a loud voice. It's never the same people
Back in 2006 through 2010 when I worked at Nintendo, we were working on the game super smash brothers brawl for the Nintendo Wii at the time. We all had the opportunity to meet him in person on one of our lunch breaks and let me tell you, we were all starstruck and didn’t know what to say because we were so humbled by his presence. He is a father first, A kind hearted person second, and an individual who truly cares about the gamers and those who are truly dedicated. It was so great to meet him and I wish I could do it again. Nintendo really could use his help right now.
That's kinda funny, Nintendo didn't make Brawl... oops.
@@carefulman3673 umm yeah they published it, gore didn’t say Nintendo made it, gore said they were making it for Nintendo and that they had a chance to meet him. You know as an associate.
Nintendo were looking at bad times when the Wii-U failled to get good sales, and might not be around if the Switch hadn't worked. I didn't know who Reggie was, which is the same amount I knew about the Wii-U. So maybe he took some blame for that not-so-great launch. Either way my timeline blew up yesterday with new Nintendo titles, so at least they seem to be doing OK. As to what is happening inside the company I couldn't say, but I hope it's not bad stuff as I still like the company.
@@carefulman3673 oop.... cringe asd
@@carefulman3673 You know publishing and like licensing doesn't happen automatically right ? Thsi fellow didn't say he was a programmer.
I'm very interested in a lot of the conversations people are currently having about Nintendo before and after Iwata's passing. As much as we romanticize the Iwata era, I think we all agree that it still had a ton of severe problems. Nintendo's anti-consumer practices, cutthroat business strategies, and increasingly irrational fear of imitators managed to heavily persist into Iwata's tenure as Nintendo's head. Heck, many of these problems only BECAME problems during Iwata's time. That said, for as many problems as Nintendo had, those problems always seemed to be offset by their superhuman proficiency as a game developer. Mainline titles in established Nintendo franchises were just outright expected to be flawless upon release, and even in Nintendo's worst moments, they never abandoned that philosophy. Not only that, but during the company's lowest times, Iwata insisted in taking full responsibility for those decisions personally by taking pay cuts and appearing publicly whenever possible. For Nintendo during Iwata's time, long-term stability within the company itself and consumer trust were more valuable than anything else, and prioritizing those things gave Nintendo an immensely loyal fanbase.
When Iwata passed, the company's focus shifted far more towards short-term profits, which is ultimately the goal of almost every operating business. Nintendo's past business model was unique and transitioning to a more-traditional model meant that they would need to walk back a lot of what the company had been about in the past. Reselling Wii U titles for elevated prices was one example, but, to me, a greater sign of Nintendo's transition was how they started to sell their IPs to the highest bidder. Lego Mario, the Mario Movie, Nintendo World, and plenty other examples would never have happened during Iwata's time (not that I necessarily think utilizing their brand like this is a bad idea). The real problem in all this is that by chasing short-term profits, Nintendo has a chance to jeopardize the very foundation of their company: their long-term stability.
Like a lot of people, I don't feel like I have enough information to comment on Nintendo's attempts to union-bust, but I agree with Reggie that this never would have happened in the past. Iwata Era Nintendo wanted happy employees because happy employees create better products. Maybe Reggie's point is that happy employees won't seek to form unions (which isn't necessarily the best argument), but I'd be inclined to believe that even if they DID try to form unions, past Nintendo wouldn't try to stop them, because that would destabilize the company. It's for this reason that I'm kinda concerned about modern-day Nintendo. If they're willing to sacrifice long-term stability for success with the Switch, I'm starting to worry about how their first-party games will fare during the process. Nintendo hasn't launched a major internally-developed game since before COVID. That's a long time, and the delays facing BotW2 (which is supposed to be re-using assets from the original) is doing very little that calm that concern.
I'm hoping that a lot of this is transitional stuff and that a lot of these concerns are unfounded. All that I'll say is this: Nintendo has a lot riding on their first-party lineup come 2023. BotW2, Metroid Prime 4, potentially a new mainline Mario game, and maybe even a new console all have the potential to either restore flagging confidence in their brand or permanently destroy the trust they worked so hard to build with customers since they entered the video game space. Like many of us, I have a long history with Nintendo products that goes far past the normal relationship between a company and a consumer. I want Nintendo to succeed because their products have defined entire gaming generations and have provided me with thousands of hours of entertainment. But, if they don't succeed and instead demonstrate that they are willing to completely destroy consumer trust for the sake of profit, the Switch may be their last console I support for a long time.
I think that this comment deserves some attention since it is the most well-presented argument I've read so far in the comments section of this video. I agree with the fact that most of the copyright claims and takedowns happened during Iwata's time, but he wouldn't be doing the things that current Nintendo is doing right now. I don't think that he would agree with the current NSO right now considering you have to pay a full-on 80 bucks a year just to play games online, NES, SNES, N64, Genisis, and a handful of DLC (which you don't keep if you cancel BTW). They have refused VC services on Switch and decided to take away the only means of having it (Wii U and 3DS) while still striking down "pirates" who get at least a good 12 miles away from touching their games. A famous and recent example is the copyright issue with the fully scanned rare Super Mario 64 Guide that was only printed in Japanese and (as far as we know) they have no intention to reprint/redistribute at any time.
This can also lead to the argument that Nintendo's current business practices make no sense as well. They have turned more Anti-Consumer when Reggie left, and have done very little to redeem that aspect. This is something that we all can agree that Iwata managed to stick the landing well when it came to being as consumer-friendly as possible. Because of him, we got an online service that was free and didn't experience any downtime, updates came with games so people without internet can have fully updated Wiis, gave us a way to experience older games on our newer hardware via the Virtual Console, and has always admitted to mistakes that the company made. He always had the gamers' best intentions at heart when he jumped into a development of a game, which is why we've seen some really phenomenal games come out during his time.
I do think that another path for redemption for Nintendo would be to stop busting labor unions, make some massive overhauls to the manufacturing of the Switch so things like Joy-Con drift will no longer be a thing, offering a service where people can still play online with there friends (even if for a limited timeframe), bring back Nintendo Selects (it is about time), and bringing back the VC so people can have an active choice. While having a solid lineup of games may help with the reputation I would say that Nintendo would have to do way more than that to get people actively fired up (and in a good way) about their products again.
Sorry for going on a tangent there, I hope you don't get too mad for adding something else to the argument as well...
One thing I'll say about Furukawa is that he claimed awhile back that he's paying attention to what the market wants, as he doesn't want more failures like the reputation of the Wii from 2009 onwards and the Wii U as a whole where Nintendo got complacent with the former's success, and he probably knows exactly why they turned out the way they did.
Now actually listening to customer feedback is a different story, but he is doing some things right that Nintendo should've been doing a LONG time ago.
@@SUCHMISH Uh, no he didn't have gamers best interests at heart. If he did, the creator's program would've never been made, and franchises like Mario Party, Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and more wouldn't have been at their absolute worst, often more than once.
I agree with this assessment 100%
To be fair I don't even know what next "big hit" would or could succeed the Switch. VR seems a little too obvious of a step for them, and they have sort of attempted that in the past. If there's something I know Nintendo likes is innovation, and I personally can't see what the Switch's successor could even be, if they even want to go for it
I miss Reggie at Nintendo he was so expressive and excited every time he came on. I really felt the energy when he ran the America division. I've never even seen this bowser President at all like he hides in a dark castle.
You say you never saw him, but I can tell you you're not missing much.
I just saw a picture of Bowser on a wiki page, he looks like a generic man in his 50's. I do not mean any disrespect in saying that, but that's what he looks like.
@@LexLucario7922 from my knowledge, a bald white man with glasses right? Yeah. If you can think of what that person would look like you got Doug bowser
Feels like now more than ever, a certain videogame NEEDS to be a reality
*cough cough* Persona 5 *cough cough*
Good one, dude. 10/10 would laugh again.
@@CoraCreates God Shut Up
Nintendo had a lot more character in my opinion back during the Wii U and 3DS Era, alongside the early Switch Era. Now they just feel like any regular video game company, but being more targeted towards families
Agreed
That's why I have no interest in buying a Switch, Wii U and 3DS had character, The Switch didn't show that to me.
I agree. The only company that seems to be showing any life in the 2020 decade is SEGA. I'm not saying SEGA's games this decade have been perfect but when I look at SEGA and I look at the games they've given us, SEGA doesn't feel lifeless too me. Sure Sonic Colors Ultimate blew up in their face but I think Blind Squirrel Games is more to blame than SEGA in general. It doesn't help SEGA has a fan base that'll point out....well....any flaw especially with Sonic. "This Sonic model is slightly blue-er than he's supposed to be.....worst game EVER!!!!" lol. But compared to everyone not named SEGA, Nintendo still has more life and character than Ubisoft, 2K, and I like EA but EA.. Then again that's not exactly hard to do. The only games Ubisoft has that has any personality whatsoever is Rayman which too be honest they haven't done much with since well Legends other than creating mobile games, and Immortals Fynx Rising. That's about it.
@@sonicstarman9663 nintendo has been going closer and closer to that ea line recently
@@flamingrubys11 Nah I'd say their closer to Ubisoft. EA will make a game with microtransaction. Ubisoft still makes fun games sometimes. Sure they miss more often but they come out with a good game every now and then. Nintendo's not quite at Ubisoft levels of soul less, because they still have some pretty fun and interesting games, I don't even like Golf and Super Mario Golf looked like it was fun to play. But I have a feeling after Miyomoto dies that's when they'll be the new 2K. 2K is worse than EA and Ubisoft in my opinion. Sure EA does microtransaction too but at least EA's game works when it does it. I'd rather have a game with microtransaction that works than a glitchy mess, and I'm still salty about WWE 2K18 on the Switch and WWE 2K20.
@@sonicstarman9663 when miyamoto bites the dust the whole company self destructs thats my prediction
I can only imagine how soul crushing seeing all this can be for somebody like Reggie.
I think current day Nintendo has really lost sight of what their original ideals were. If they can find in themselves to recapture those ideals, maybe they can restabilize their image, their games, and their community.
EDIT: who knew the most open-ended comment about wanting Nintendo to do better would spark the most angry, fervent replies.
lol Nintendo has always been out of touch with their audience
@sk I dont necessarily disagree that a lot of games during the 90's and early 2000's have aged in certain area's but I do think many of the highly regarded classics still hold up today and Id even go as far as to say quite a few of them do certain things better than a lot of the modern games of today. For example one of the big issues i have with many games of today is that many of them hold your hand rather than letting you figure it out. Now are there examples of games that dont hold your hand? Yeah ofc there is but there's also plenty of examples of games in the past era's that have aged very well. I think the only era you can really make that argument for is the NES era but even some NES games still hold up very well (Mario 3 and Ninja Gaiden are two examples). Also Gamecube is amazing and I would argue one of the best consoles the company came out with.
I think the games are fine
They aren’t the problem here imo
@sk garbage Wii days? I know many Wii games were shovel ware but they also had some great gems, plus that’s one of Nintendo’s best selling consoles.
@sk lol enjoy the 3-4 games on that junk. PS5 sucks bruh
I worked at nintendo as a tester when he was around although the pay was crap for contractors the company was amazing to work for and would even let you have days off even if you just felt mentally off they would never give you crap. He would walk through from time to time and greet everyone and everyone seemed very happy. The only no no was no falling asleep at the desk. lol Which when your testing the same thing every day can be easy to do lol.
As much as I love Nintendo, I do get disappointed with how they’re handling business. “You love the soundtrack from Mario 64? Go play the game again and don’t you dare download mp3 file from it or we are hunting your ass down!”
Guess who started that?
Ummm... even if Reggie was around, nothing would be different.
That started during the Reggie era, and was actually worse back then. You couldn't even play Mario music in the background.
I think this is kind of BS considering the amount of RUclips videos I see using Mario 64 music. Even if they were DCMA, people clever enough to edit in Mario music tastefully tend to be doing well on RUclips through their audience, rather than RUclips itself.
@@Saixjacket I know it's not BS because it happened to me personally.
I don’t think we should blame anyone rn
Maybe Reggie is covering up shady stuff or maybe he’s right and things have changed
Until there’s evidence of what’s going on and since when those problems began
Every big game company has this issue it just leakers are upset they got fired from there job kind of thing
Or, maybe the report is bullshit.
@@lazy_figetspinner_from2228 that's not an excuse
The company has been going downhill since Reggie and Iwata (rip) are gone. Plain and simple! I can't even recognize Nintendo anymore, so much so that, I sold my switch and all my games. I don't even want to support them anymore and very few games in the past 3 years have picked my interest. When lots of PS2 games and GameCube games are better looking and way more fun and complete than some of the recent games they've been putting out...it begs the question...wtf are they doing?!
@@lajeandom Chad energy
my body never felt ready ever since reggie left
In England being dismissed for being a union member is illegal and can claim unfair dismissal for it.
I bet in the US it's not because the US is a dystopian capitalist dictatorship that hates poor people
Based
That's the fun part in the US, they fire you before you get the ball rolling. Once you've actually done the petition and officially asked they can't fire you but til that point it's fair game.
based ingerland
based and redpilled
Just keep in mind, Nintendo has never been good. It's always had issues, mismanagement & negligence, consumer disrespect, poor response to backlash, and horrible anticompetitive practices. But its lowest lows have never looked so bad that even employees within the company were complaining to this degree. I do wonder what the future holds for them as a company. Not actually invested coz I was never a nintendo fan, but still morbidly curious.
Of course, because perfect company doesn't exist.
@@grougail2387 Are better companies than N
segachads this is our moment
True, but was it this active? Reggie only ran NOA, so might've not even had influnce on past occurrences of that.
morbiusly curious
There is one word that changed gaming for me from reggie
"If it's no fun, why bother ?"
That simple line change how i play game, i used to be so hardcore, buying every game released, spending hours grinding, pulling out review like a psycho, and playing hours and hours completing game not because i want to but the feeling of i have to keep up, and one day i see reggie say that line and i look at myself and all game I've played, i am miserable, i stopped having fun and joking around with my friends, it just mindless activity, then i started unfollowing gamin channel, stop visiting game review website, stop watching game 'rant' videos, now i just play what i like to play, it has been better
Thanks reggie, you helped me bring back the game experience i love, filled with curiousity, wonder, most especially happiness
I didn't know someone that has the name "monke" could have so much emotion.
@@realthemariogamer monke e*
@@ripley7910 I know but it's cmon it's basically the same thing.
Respect the iwata Amiibo in the background RIP Mr Iwata
The Nintendo Reggie left had charm, had a soul, cared about making the user happy and giving them experiences, and I’m totally sure working there was a complete joy.
Nintendo has always been a ruthless, cutthroat company, despite putting on a happy, family-friendly face.
I think you're just describing Japan.
Just like disney..
Not surprising, nintendo is literally the disney of games...and just like the real disney they've been going downhill
Yep. And yet they have the most mindlessly loyal braindead simps for fans who will defend every corrupt, anti-consumer move they ever make.
The rest of this comment section is filled with simps who have deified the likes of Reggie and Iwata.
@@SubjectiveObserver Sony are noticeably different, not necessarily for better or worse, but Nintendo's practices don't seem to be a national or cultural issue.
This man was the best thing about Nintendo. Such a great factor to why I loved my time using Nintendo came down to my trust in them thanks to this guy. I currently have a Switch sitting doing nothing and I even forget it's there at all so who knows maybe that says something
Well it says that you wasted your money since you’re not using it
I don't use mine anymore either. It's like my enjoyment of it has been soured.
@@BaldLezB_In yeah and?
The BEST thing about Nintendo? Most of the good things happening at Nintendo during his tenure came down from Satoru Iwata and Iwata’s very distinct vision for running the company, domestically and internationally. Reggie’s a great marketing guy, but for enthusiast consumers his time at Nintendo was a pretty mixed bag: that was the period when Nintendo’s relationship with third-party and Western developers hit rock bottom, and under his direction Nintendo of America outright refused to localize many creative, original titles from its Japanese and European branches that didn’t fall into a narrow box of big franchise IPs or “accessible” games for young children or Wii Sports/Wii Fit casual players. (To name some critically lauded examples: Mother 3 was infamously never localized, allegedly due to fears that its adult themes would stain NoA’s Disneyesque brand image; Xenoblade, a gamer darling that kicked off a major franchise, was almost canceled in the US because of a false belief that Japanese RPGs aimed at the 12-and-up demographic, or any game on a Nintendo system without simplified gameplay and an old recognizable brand, were unmarketable.)
His branding savvy also couldn’t save the Wii U from historic disaster, or even the Gamecube and Wii’s steep falloffs in their later years after their new game releases dried up (due in part to poor relationship with third-party devs and refusal to localize Japanese titles). Infamously, NoA under Reggie’s watch also fired an employee who was targeted by Gamergaters due to private information about her they made public.
So, Reggie wasn’t this flawless champion of the people; he was a businessman. It’s easy for him to get sanctimonious in hindsight, but how would he have handled things differently if NoA employees tried to unionize when he was in charge? Curiously, the interviewer doesn’t ask. (Considering how most big Japanese consumer electronics corps feel about unions, I’d put my money on “Reggie would’ve handled things exactly the same”.)
I still think the Switch is an amazing console with great games. I have had a blast playing Mario and Minecraft with my gf. It's a shame they aren't caring for their employees and seem to be slumbering in the last couple years though.
Being in my 40s I can say that Nintendo really is a shadow of its former self.. but so are all the big corporations I grew up with like Konami, Capcom, Blizzard.. Disney.. It's sad.
Aside from certain screw-ups (staring at RE3 remake), I think Capcom is doing fine most of the time. Probably the "lesser evil" in the bunch.
I'm fine with konami because of their rhythm games but the rest you said yes
At least Konami still knows how to make pachislot machines
Nintendo hasn't exactly ever had the best standards for things like workers' rights and environmentalism. Most people have selective memories and do not remember the many occasions where gaming magazines and websites had them scored lower than both Sony and Microsoft in those criteria before, during and after Reggie was part of the company.
it's insane that Reggie has left nintendo for over 3 years now, my mind still can't process that fact
truly the difference between a real leader vs. a corporate figurehead.
I've said it once, I'll say it again, and I will say it a hundred times if I have to; ever since Reggie left and Iwata's passing away Nintendo have gotten worse and worse ever since.
DO NOT use a persons death for why something/ones bad, thats disrespectful to the dead person. Dangit, Im stinkin sick and tired of ppl using someones death for a reason like this, Ns definitely made crap mistakes but this isnt gonna solve everything, its just disrespecting Iwata
@@skullerclawerbandicoot7966 How exactly am I disrespecting Iwata? If anything my comment gave him high praise along with Reggie. I don't think you understand what you're even talking about.
@@Aaaa-g6u8e Using his death for why Ns not the same. (I may have read it wrong so I apologize if thats the case) I can get how during his time, it was great compared to now, I just had an issue with the "Iwatas passing part"
@@Aaaa-g6u8e This guy has been stalking everyones comments he has got no life, just ignore him
@@otakuthegreat Im not stalking ppl, Im just saying dont use someones death is the reason for why someone/thing got bad, thats disrespectful to the dead person. I just got overboard with that
There are two Nintendo right now, the Iwata Nintendo and the post Iwata Nintendo, i have a feeling Nintendo is desperately trying to rediscover itself. And sometimes it's not easy to start over, takes generations sometimes
I mean u can consider the same thing with Apple and Steve Jobs, in which they kept on trying with new designs, albeit people considering them inferior to Steve's
Nintendo was always an aggressive company, during the reign of the Super Nintendo they were rough on retailers to push their products and snuff out competition. Nintendo of Japan doesn't trust Nintendo of America to entertain their western audience, whereas Sega always gave their American division more freedom on how to market the company in the west.
@@millabasset1710 Yeah. And I think Reggie and Iwata made a good combo, and I feel like during that tenor there was more trust in NoA (or Reggie specifically) but what's being described now seems very Nintendo of Japan.
But I agree Nintendo is struggling to find itself again. We needed a strong business man when the Switch launched but now they're lacking that face for Nintendo. Furukawa stated he didn't like being on camera. Doug Bowser doesn't seem interested in putting himself out there a lot outside of some social media posts. People just need that personality to latch unto
@@millabasset1710 eh, soj and soa are always at odds when it comes to sonic though.
@@TailsGuy72 SEGA of America seems like the most relaxed of the two divisions.
Even in just juxtaposing the current Nintendo directs and the presentations of the past before Bowser taking over, a big change can be seen. The playfulness, albeit somewhat cheesy, really felt family friendly and you could tell it seemed like you were a part of the presentation. It seemed genuine and was enjoyable to watch. In fact, I sometimes even find myself rewatching Reggie presentations and clips every now and then. Now it just seems like they’ve gone all ‘professional,’ afraid to show almost any personality for fear of whatever. Whenever they do try to crack a joke today, it’ll come off as awkward a lot of the time. Iwata passing away didn’t help either: ever since then Nintendo hasn’t seemed to be the same. But this makes sense considering two of the biggest figures of Nintendo had just left. Perhaps some like this change. Though one thing for sure is that this new atmosphere doesn’t seem to be good for the employees, which is truly unfortunate.
Is Reggie saying "we had much more open communication, so the employees wouldn't have needed a union"? Or is he saying "if workers tried to unionize, I wouldn't have tried to bust them"? I would hope he meant the second, but if it's the first then he's missing the point.
Unions are parasitic so the first point is better
How far back do the allegations go?
According to the fairly lengthy IGN article on the matter, both employees and contractors noticed a cultural shift following 2015, the year Iwata died. This change became more pronounced following the success of the Switch.
imagine just imagine if reggie came back
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
That yesssss is going out of bounds tho
Literally nothing would change. Nintendo of America has always been nothing more than a marketing branch for the USA. Not a single person at NOA has ever had a drop of influence of Nintendo (Japan) - and they never will. What NOA does is what NOJ tells them to do. Nobody at NOA makes games. Nobody at NOA knows how to make games. And very few of them actually play games (especially if we're talking about the 'executives'). This includes Reggie just as much as it includes Doug Bowser.
Literally the only thing Reggie had was charisma. He had presence at E3 and other public presentations. That's it. If he were still at Nintendo, nothing would be different than it is now. Even this very topic covered in the video is being misunderstood by 99% of the Nintendo loyalists here. When Reggie says "This isn't the Nintendo I left", he isn't even talking about their modern garbage business practices or anything like that - he's strictly talking about Nintendo's anti-union practices, which really only concerns those working at the company - not their products. And even that is kind of a lie because Nintendo has ALWAYS been anti-union.
The whole interview is just an excuse for Reggie to try and make himself look better by throwing his old employer under the bus. And he knows he can get away with it because he has had far more exposure and popularity than say, Doug Bowser, who isn't even allowed to be any kind of figurehead at all because NOJ's Furukawa care even less about worldwide public image than Iwata did (and that's saying A LOT).
(Although that initial E3 with Bowser 'King Koopa' thinking he has going to be president was admittedly the cutest thing they probably will ever do again)
Or if we had another person similar to him take over. Sure they're rare, but they definetly exist.
Out of 999999 possible universes that happens in 0
He'd do the same thing lol
I mean you left to bowser so what do you expect🤣🤣🤣
I am often watching the Japanese division of Nintendo as a Translator myself, I am not entirely sure exactly what is going on in detail, but I can say for translation tools, there are plenty of tools out there, unless it's Nintendo proprietary as Bill Trinen mentioned long ago having to transcribe on a Notepad while playing the Game, which is what I mostly do, there needs to be more innovation in tools, practices and to give employees a better way to do things.
Unless the translation methods have improved or stayed the same, it's better to be an independent translator.
Slowly, I am even adapting to newer tools, methods and ways to do it better, Nintendo of America could learn a thing or two.
You've got to be kidding. He probably never saw it. He was way too high up on the totem pole to more than likely even notice these things
B-But he had lunch with employees!
Reggie Fils-Aime for US President.
"A 3DS in every pocket"
YES!
This literally happened during his tenure...
Oh please. This was 100% going on when he was at Nintendo and there's no way he didn't know. He's only been gone a couple years. These employment policies didn't change overnight as soon as he left. "Associates" claim this has been how it is for years
I think we should focus on the scandal of them artificially inflating used retro game prices by purposely excluding them or making them hard to play on their own products and being overly struct on copyright policy to take down peoples only way to play them in relation with Wata Games and Heritage Auctions...
As an associate tester, I never got an invite, nor did any other associate get an invite to anything. Every year though, they would have a garage sale where all the permanents would go through everything and buy what they wanted, and then the associates could get what was left over, which wasn’t ever really anything good.
One year they treated us to a bunch of packaged food, snacks, and candy. Literally all of it was expired. Associates weren’t treated well. And this was under Reggie.
Reggie's just drifting now that he's fucked from every angle, he squandered his time at nintendo so now he's letting any bitter doommongering leech talk like he wasn't just as bad, if not worse, during his tenure at the company.
A shame Nintendo has lost such a powerful force. Although even when reggie was there, the company as t perfect and it was still orbital striking fan projects, I can tell things definitely changed when he left.
Reggie is my favorite Nintendo characetee
Reggie is the greatest rapper of all time
@@themarieplushie Reggie is the #1 best seller
I’ll miss you Reggie.
Forever in our hearts and games.
Reggie also suggested Nintendo could use Animal Crossing for NFTs. This guy isn’t the Reggie we knew and loved.
I dunno how much I believe that a corporate culture just changes overnight, as much as we all loved Reggie.
Between Iwata's passing, Reggie leaving, And Bowser taking over. It pretty much did.
Considering your beliefs are based on nothing, who cares.
What are the circumstances of Reggie leaving? For him to essentially throw the new CEO under the bus, I have to wonder at his motives even if what he is saying is true. I think we could all benefit from more context.
I wonder what his motives are too. Nintendo of America have been using contractors even when Reggie was in office, like any other major corporation. We know contractors are not the same as actual in-house employees. It is highly unlikely contractors were treated equally as NoA employees when Reggie was there.
Also, to add I know a few contract workers, despite the "poor working conditions" they have turned down being offered to convert to full-time within said company they did work for and continue to choose to remain as a contractor for tax reasons.
His motives are that he's publishing a book about his life and having controversial stuff to talk about helps promote it.
He left because since Iwata died, Reggie just didn't feel the same way that he felt before with Nintendo, so he decided to leave.
@@MisakiP-1 ever since Iwata's death you could see Nintendo turning more corporate. It's missing so much of the magic they had before during the wii and wiiu era
@@metroidcypher I agree. People always bring up the striking down of fan projects or online videos whenever people are nostalgic for the Iwata era, but it is clear that Nintendo has developed far more soulless business practices. The fact that they got away with removing $20 DK: Tropic Freeze from the Wii U eshop to incentivize the purchase of the $60 Switch port is something that has long bothered me.
Reggie makes a good point. “This isn’t the Nintendo I left”. Meaning that, if what those reports say is true, then it’s not the same as the Nintendo he oversaw. Therefore, it could be that the reports are vastly over exaggerated. We just don’t know yet. No one should be jumping to any conclusions.
Bet
It'd be smarter for him not to comment. He comes across as badmouthing Nintendo's current leadership.
@@leos8813 well he's retired, so he has nothing to lose.
@@leos8813 he’s being very careful with his wording; saying things like “what’s being described” - he’s giving both parties the benefit of the doubt
I hate this attitude of worrying about a megacorp's reputation more than the potential suffering of the working class people it's riding on. Believe these stories until proven otherwise, because this is how capitalism works, especially in places where a union doesn't exist. That's not going to be for any corporation's lack of effort
I really miss old Nintendo
Remember the times when Nintendo was an idol to all of us? Now they’re starting to turn out to be one of the worst video game companies out there.
@@likability6288 They have recently made some really bad company desicions recently since the switch released. Things like, Nintendo Switch Online, the microtransactions in newer Nintendo mobile apps, shutting down Miitomo and who could forget, Mario 3D All-Stars.
The only thing I miss about old Nintendo is Iwata. NOA were rampant with censorship and was stopping Japanese games coming to west :-)
@@SamM_Scot Iwata sure was a great man... Rest in peace.
@@MisakiP-1 all stars is good 🗿 it let me play 64 and sunshine for the first time
I still think back to those few cold nights when Shigiru Miyamoto was up waiting for Chris Chandlier on an icy park bench.
“This isn’t the nintendo I left” nintendo has literally been openly anti union for decades??? Did you all just assume that Nintendo’s refusal to hire union voice actors was the ONLY anti-union activity the company would engage in?
Judging by the majority of the comments here, nobody actually watched the video and /or understands what 'the union' even is. Just a bunch of Nintendo-simping kids and manchildren who have no jobs and deify Reggie and Iwata as if the company was some bastion of openness, love, and perfection when they were still in charge.
Nintendo fans in a nutshell...
I'd do some extra research on this (take it with a ton of salt) but isnt there some shenaniganny stuff surrounding va unions where they can't work with non union members?
other way around. union won't let it's members work for nintendo because they hire non-union actors
@eric Spencer i'm not google
I like the man and I'm not making any accusations, wouldn't have proof of it either way, but I would like to point out that at no point would Reggie ever paint himself poorly when referring to the company during his time running it, or rather its North American branch.
That being said, he's spot on about Nintendo's decline. I hope they pick themselves back up and get back to a healthy work culture, because capitalism is a deadly disease and it will fester until the company's foot falls off and it can't stand on its own anymore. I hope Nintendo's current management recognizes this and doesn't drag Iwata's legacy to the ground. He worked so hard to elevate Nintendo, and so did Reggie, naturally, it would be a shame to see all of that hard work get pulled back down into the ground with something as nasty as union-busting.
Imagine bringing politics into this
Reggie seems like he's about to cry
I, for one, would love to have lunch with Reggie.
Me too 🙂
Even today, I go and watch older presentations. They were great to watch and were so damn fun
all employees of any company should be unionized completely regardless of how much of an effort towards a "healthy culture" the employer makes
We can agree to that because we’re not employers.
If you are became employer, don’t you think your view would change?
What is Union busting? I don’t get the context here
@@citavalo naturally. it is not in the interest of the employer for their employees to have bargaining power. so if I were a head of a publicly traded company with the purpose of appeasing investors, then yes, unionization is something I'd be incentivized to work against.
but what does that change? without unionization, a tiny minority has way too much power over a large majority. so of course it would still be the right thing, even if it doesn't make everyone happy.
@@jockson7574 union busting is when a company prevents & destroys the employees efforts to start or join an union. they do this as employee unionization is not in the company's (stakeholders) financial interest (employees would be in a position to demand higher wages, for instance).
@@holleey so you mean like unions against a company?
I don’t believe him. This is not something that happens over night. It has probably been something that has been festering for years, even under Reggie’s leadership and only blew up now. Likely because of the Activision Blizzard case that launched a lot of other companies to look at their own.
When new leaders take over, it can happen very quickly.
"Associates"
"Contract employees"
"Involved in some quarterly meetings"
This is how he talks about people. I get that some like Reggie because he said some memes on Directs, but 3 years is a short time in business. He talks like every CEO does, if there's union busting now, there was union busting then.
I'd rather be called a contract employee than "family." Least it's honest. More suspicious of when the boss says you're friends, because at the end of the day they're still your boss. I don't want to get fired by my friend or family member.
@@Hemostat When Reggie talks, he talks like only the full timers count. And by "count", he means had a quarterly meeting.
Sorry, but Reggie was Pizza Hut's CEO before he was Nintendo of America's. Both have bad reputations for how they treat their employees. People give Reggie a break because the marketing department feeds him some memes to say and the fanboys clap, but he's a ruthless CEO like any other.
@@Hemostat Contract employee means that it is so much easier for them to fire you, deny benefits and raises, and just mistreat you. The gaming industry needs to unionize.
@@ArielHal9000 yes ik how work works
@@HemostatSo they do that on top of calling them a "family", read the Axios report that just came, Reggie is avoiding a real answer because he directly contributed to it.
I was an associate at Nintendo for a very long time and we never got invited to these "lunches." Dude... what. If we were invited, it was in some corner of the company website we couldn't find.
inb4 the Nintendo simps jump in and start calling you a liar for daring to speak ill of their god, the almighty Nintendo (especially under the great Reggie-Fils-Aime).
Bad corporate culture takes years to manifest. I'm a little surprised he feels zero accountability. Surely if he put more programs into place to protect "associates", prior to leaving, Nintendo wouldn't be facing the bad press they are today.
You know things relating to Nintendo of America nowadays are getting shady when even Reggie starts to question what is going on in the company
I liked how Reggie was always there to present the latest Nintendo Directs. You’ll still see Doug Bowser, I guess, but not nearly as much. A good leader should be leading from the front, not bringing up the rear like Bowser seemingly does much of the time-and Furukawa-san? You never see him in a Direct lol
Yeah, I call bullshit on this. We all love Reggie, but he was a corporate boss. This is not a Nintendo issue. Literally every company does this. He never specified that he was PRO union, because as a corporate leader you obviously wont be.
It dosnt take long for a company's ethics to change, once leadership does. We may never know what Reggie truly feels about unions during his time at Nintendo. But certainly in 3 years, things could be drastically different.
@@bluecricket6157 at the same time a bunch of stories date back to when he was president
Also worth mentioning that this is coming from _Washington Post_ Gaming, a paper owned by Jeff Bezos, even as Amazon's union busting is in the news cycle. I don't want to blame people for having to eat under capitalist bullshit, but damn, this is strange and even a little suspicious. Eat the rich or something if you're gonna posture like this under such ownership
Absolutely, the sheer naivety or wilful ignorance in this comment section is insane. Reggie is incredibly charismatic, but you don't become a corporate boss without stepping on people, and it's incredibly hard to believe this began after he left, when it hasn't even been that long since he parted ways.
Too true King. Nothing wrong with acknowledging this fact.
i honestly don't trust anything Reggie says about this cause he was president of NOA WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING. Reggie's is skilled at giving out vague non-answers to the press, notice that he doesn't actually address any specific parts of the article.
I bet it is the Nintendo he left. What we're learning is Reggie is a suit first and foremost.
The recent complaints allegedly stem back to the Wii U days, so yes.
Of course he’s a suit lol. He’s literally always been a corporate business man.
When an Ex CEO makes a statement like this, it's to get ahead of the inevitable. Do not look at Reggie's time at Nintendo romantically. Take this all with a shaker of salt.
And the way some of you are coming to defend Reggie's honor is honestly disgusting.
Also: WaPo is owned by one of the most notorious union busters alive. The first movement for IT workers to unionize...was at Amazon.
My brother in christ, this is the company you left
Forgive me for being skeptical but any former company head is gonna try and downplay or deny the problems at the company they used to work at. It'd be a lot better to get a opinion from a former worker, who has a lot less to lose from exposing nintendo's wrongdoings. Let's also remember that he was the CEO of nintendo of america and any issues nintendo of japan had he'd have no knowledge of (that is if they go into the issues of Nintendo of Japan in the full interview). No hate towards Reggie I don't know for sure if he's a bad CEO but any CEO is pretty much the worst person to talk about a companies wrongdoings.
Finally a real person that knows the truth, I also don't hate Reggie too. Do not give me wrong but I absolutely know for a fact that not everything was beautiful and pretty when him and Iwata were still around.
But this is the Nintendo you left! Most of this stuff happened when you were at the helm! There's no way none of this trickled up at all, especially on the American side. I love Reggie, but this really feels like save-my-ass PR
Seeing Reggie sad is an experience I was not mentally prepared to see.
God damn I miss Reggie. I was a 3DS Wii U kid so I wasn’t really there during his peak but I still miss him so badly. He just seemed like the kinda guy who walked into the office and everyone smiled. Along with Iwata. Iwata was always putting in the extra mile, taking his pay loss instead of deducting others pay, he spoke in English in the directs, while he primarily spoke Japanese. I miss them both, and I really hope no others like Miyamoto, or Itoi ever have to leave us :(
Yes it is. Their culture finally just to light.
Nintendo always does shady business practices. An example are the product shortages specifically to keep demand high, even months after a products release.
Sony and MS are not above shady business practices either. The shortages are kinda small beans by comparison. At least until this labor issue popped up, which brings them more up to Sonys level at least.
of course nobody wants to mention all the old games they keep reselling at full price.
I’m not even a big Nintendo fan but do you really just buy into this stuff?
@@lyianx Sony developers have "employment holidays" written into their contract. Within a 12 month period you have to take two weeks "employment holiday" which effectively is terminating your employment with the guarantee of being rehired in two weeks time. This is simply to ensure nobody will ever be eligible for redundancy payments and can basically just be sacked on short notice whenever they like. Oh and the two weeks they make you take you can't take up or look for other employment else you are breaching your contract and thus are not eligible for being rehired. Also 50 hour weeks (illegal here in the UK) are commonplace.
@Skelly what's the "scarcity" issue this time?
it is the job of a ceo to crack down on employee organizing. maybe he was your mythical pro-union ceo, but considering nintendo's long history of anti-union practices, i doubt it.
remember everyone, your boss's interests are not your own.
You can be anti-union in the sense that you look out for your employees and contractors best interests. Reducing crunch. Making sure the benefits are good. Personal development. If the labor is organized under your leadership, you've failed as a manager, and in time, your ability to retain talent will falter.
And I remain fully unconvinced that this didn't happen under Reggie. I am not looking at anyone's past in this industry with rose tinted glasses. Let's wait and see what happens.
Miss you Reggie, you'll never be forgotten.
I wonder how much more we know about all of this.
I still cannot believe a guy named "Bowser" is one of the head honchos of Nintendo.
Thanks guys for your information 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
While this could be taken as "things have changed since I left Nintendo," I think it's important to point out that his statement can also be taken as "the reports can't be true because when I was there, we treated contract employees so equally that they never felt the need to unionize" which is... certainly something I could see a corporate executive saying, even one as beloved as Reggie
This is it
It's exactly the Nintendo that you left, it's just being more open about it now. I've talked to many a people that worked for Nintendo and they always told me, it was extremely better to work for Nintendo as a real employee comparatively to that of a contract worker. You're no better than Microsoft, nor have you even been.
Jesus, finally a sane person. Rarely do you see such pathetic excuses be so warmly received by people because of freaking skits and memes.
Nintendo branding is scary, people are willing to criticize Nintendo for both good and incredibly stupid reasons, but they never aim those criticisms at the people that actually held positions of power withing the company because their image has completely convinced people they are just fun people making games. It's ghastly.
Omg how dare you try and tell the truth! Seriously, people think Nintendo is special, but they're not. The CEO may think their company's employees are being treated fairly based on what management tells them, but completely ignore lower level employees in that equation (or are willfully ignorant like Reggie is)
@@PoorStargazer bro, I'm getting my comments shadowbanned and shadow deleted left and right all over youtube, so you don't even know how true this comment hits.
Yeah, the corporate side of Nintendo lost its soul with the departures of Iwata and Reggie.
He was president when these predatory contract policies began. His Nintendo was the same one that requires associates to take two months off to prevent their access to health benefits. This has been bubbling for over a decade and just because it’s getting publicity now doesn’t mean that it hasn’t always been there
Idk man. A lot of Blizzard employees were saying "this isn't the Blizzard I left" and it turned out they were causing those very issues.
I like Reggie but I don't trust him very much either
Note that the alligations against Nintendo of America is said that the era that was the worst was 2015, which was then Reggie was president of Nintendo of America.
No Reggie slander
Look I like Reggie but saying "I know I was able to achieve that" feels like a little bit of a red flag. Good bosses are usually aware and open to the idea that there are ways in which they are able to improve . Granted he doesn't say a massive amount but it kind of feels like he was saying that things were basically perfect with him in charge, and he doesn't know what happened. I wonder if they employees would agree with that sentiment.
Company culture is corporate slang for keeping employees full of coffee and pizza long enough for them to not notice their pay getting outpaced by their bills lol
THREE YEARS REMOVED?! damn it has been a minute
Actually it literally is.
These systems have reportedly been around since like the Wii.
So
Reggie just didn't pay attention to the problem.
Having lunch with the team was not the issue.
A comment like this will get 4 likes, but a comment dick-riding Reggie and going "can't believe people who criticize him" gets over 3k. People are so easily deluded it's impressive
So his position is that Nintendo was better with him because he had lunch with workers? Typical "good guy" CEO.
Its not like that was the only thing he did for his staff. Besides, it’s about the bigger idea of treating his workers as equals, as friends or even a family in a sense. Rather than now where most probably feel like slaves, an expendable resource to a greedy impersonal business conglomerate
@@abomiyeti7440 lmao "family." A boss is not your friend. Ever.
@@abomiyeti7440 Treating your workers like family is a meme meant to defend the practice of union busting.
@@Martinroadsguy Why not? I think the relationship between an employee and their boss should aim to be about partnership, not ownership. Otherwise you’re likely to create a toxic environment built on selfish impersonal totalitarian values that’s only going to lead to problems down the line (like Nintendo right now)
@@WhatTheFrogDoing I don’t doubt that certainly happens, but they’re not invariable. If a boss/business genuinely respected and treated their staff fairly, they would also be willing to at least attempt to meet their requests and rights or reach some compromise. A trade union only serves useful against a stubborn impersonal company who refuses to supply it’s staff with what it almost undoubtably could. I have had multiple jobs which were awful jobs but the staff and boss were so close and cooperative that it made the experiences amazing regardless
I miss Reggie. As a smash player there will always be that distrust with Reggie and nintendo but nintendo has gone downhill since he left.
This breaks my hearth.
Also its already 3 years since reggie retired.
I cant believe that.
Bruh hearing Reggie say that almost makes me so sad we can't have a man like this for many more companies
It makes me wonder if the new leadership is trying to cut down on money at the cost of humans. It could also be that the new NA leadership is just less respected by the JP headquarters so they're getting pushed harder.
NOA was NEVER respected by NOJ. And never will be.
Walmart calls their employees associates as well, this is because they classify them as OWNERS so they get a small profit sharing cheque once a year if their store performs well which they use to cut down on union busting. Aka Reggie is full of crap.
also alot of leaders in company tend to put blame under other department and workers and the work culture of nintendo was probably happening slowly for this to happen and he could have not paid attention if he was doing his own work
How do we know that wasnt the "nintendo" he "left"
I get the feeling that Reggie's a good guy. He just has that feeling, the aura of niceness and kindness that surrounds him.
Whether or not that really is true behind the scenes, I like to believe it's true and Reggie is a good hearted person.
It's just a matter of time when Nintendo starts hunting down everyone named Mario
Do you even realize that's not even a real thing right.
@@M64bros *woooosh*