Gamers React to Nintendo Company President Retirement

By Alexander Espinosa

Staff Writer

The president and COO of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, announced his retirement after almost 13 years in the position on Feb. 21. Fils-Aime, who is 57 years old, will be replaced by Doug Bowser, Nintendo’s current senior vice president of sales and marketing. Nintendo of America is the North American division of the Japanese video game company Nintendo, which creates some of the world’s top selling video games.

Howard Thaxter, a sophomore digital game design major, was upset about the news of Fils-Aime’s retirement, “Because everyone knew Reggie [as the face of Nintendo] for so long.”

The announcement was even more impactful for Daniel Caixeiro, a junior digital game design major. “I cried, it was very depressing. I [was] pained inside,” Caixeiro said. “Reggie was the best; he was the face of Nintendo pretty much,” he said. “I saw a bunch of people on Twitter who were super upset about it.”

Matthew Lanza, a freshman digital game design major, also felt sad to see Fils-Aime move on, noting that Doug Bowser’s role “should be about keeping Nintendo popular.”

Alex Nicoletta, a junior digital game design major, was surprised at Nintendo’s announcement. “I really didn’t see it coming, but people retire eventually, so it wasn’t too shocking,” he said. “He made a lot of money, so now he can do whatever he wants and now he has the funds to do so,” he said about Fils-Aime.

Mary Scibilia, a senior game design major, Alicia DiMartino, a freshman art therapy major, and Robert Borrelli, a freshman digital game design major, were also aware of the change in leadership at Nintendo.

Robert Krebs, a sophomore musical theater major, expressed the feelings of many students who follow the company. “Ultimately when someone is the head of a company, retirement makes everyone a little disappointed, so I’m a little disappointed that he is retiring from Nintendo, but moving forward it’s probably really good for the company to have new faces and new people designing games,” Krebs said.

Both gamers and game designers respected Fils-Aime and the work he has done over a decade at Nintendo, and look forward to a new chapter in the leadership of the video game company.