Reggie Fils-Aimé
Reginald "Reggie" Fils-Aime (March 25, 1961 - present) is the president and Chief Operating Officer of Nintendo's North American branch. He is therefore responsible for all Nintendo-related activities in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. His career at Nintendo began in 2003 as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, a position he held until 2006, when he was promoted to his current position, replacing Tatsumi Kimishima, who had held the position since 2002.[1]
Graduating Cornell University with a degree in Applied Economics in 1983, Reggie's management experience is not limited to his time at Nintendo. Since his graduation from Cornell, he has worked for Proctor & Gamble, Guinness, Panda Management Company, Derby Cycle Corporation, Pizza Hut, and most recently, VH1. Notable accomplishments of his at these establishments include the launching of the Bigfoot Pizza (Pizza Hut) and raising over thirty-five million dollars in disaster relief following the 2001 World Trade Center attacks (VH1).[2]
Reggie gained notoriety among the gaming community at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo, where he introduced himself with the above quote. Many fans now know him as the "Regginator," and he is attributed with sparking a new era for Nintendo, one of improved public relations, which fans and the press dubbed the "Reggielution."[3] He has made regular appearances at subsequent E3s, being one of the three main sources of information for upcoming hardware and software (occasionally providing information on Nintendo's sales accomplishments and goals), the other two sources being Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata. His most notable presentations introduced gamers to the Nintendo DS (E3 2004), the Game Boy Micro (E3 2005), the Wii (E3 2006), specifications of the Nintendo 3DS (E3 2010), and the Wii U controller (E3 2011). He has also discussed and displayed trailers for a variety of games, including Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Luigi's Mansion 2, and he has even personally demonstrated games, most notably Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort (E3 2007 and E3 2008, respectively).
Awards
- Clio Award
- AICP award for Advertising Excellence
- Silver Edison from the American Marketing Institute
- 2 Gold EFFIEs from the New York American Marketing Association
- Named one of the "Marketing 100" by Advertising Age in 1998
Quotes
- "One of our competitors is a manufacturer in Japan who wants to capture every one of your entertainment dollars transporting all your content between all of your electronic devices on their memory sticks. We are not that company, and there is another company out there who doesn't care what you do as long as you do it on their operating system. We are not that company either." (criticizing Sony and Microsoft at E3 2004)
- "That's Sony's issue, not my problem." (referring to how the PSP hadn't reached Europe when promised, but the DS had - E3 2005)
- "Nintendo's way is to challenge conventional thinking. Not just for the sake of doing things differently, but to do things better." (E3 2006)
- "My body is ready." (before demonstrating Wii Fit alongside Miyamoto at E3 2007)
Trivia
- Shortly after the North American launch of the Nintendo 3DS, a QR code was made available on the Internet, which, when scanned, provides the 3DS user with Reggie's official Mii.[4]
- The first game he played on a console was Super Mario World.[5]
References
- ^ http://stars.ign.com/objects/958/958774_biography.html
- ^ http://stars.ign.com/objects/963/963431_biography.html
- ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20061120045545/http://www.thegamefeed.com/features-055b6eaa0eb7a7717c79e7e0dda8bcf2.html
- ^ http://nintendo3dsblog.com/the-reggie-mii-is-your-3ds-ready
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E0DA103FF93BA25752C1A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
