Reggie Fils-Aime had plenty of thoughts to share during his most recent and last tenure at Nintendo. The Wii U underperformed abysmally and Nintendo’s next console was a “make or break” product at the time. Reggie refers to Switch as his “lasting memory” at Nintendo and a defining achievement. Here’s what he had to say:
“You know, Nintendo has done so many innovations in the space… I think what Nintendo did with the Switch, after the poor performance of Wii U, I think to me and what I was part of, that’s my lasting memory.
People forget, when the Wii U launched, the performance over that life cycle was so poor, I mean it was the worst-selling platform, I think maybe Virtual Boy was a little bit worse, but Wii U underperformed pretty radically in the marketplace.
And when your only business is video games that next had to be successful and the Switch continues to be a dynamic platform – selling exceptionally well. And the ability for the company to come up with the concept, to bring it to life, to bring it to the marketplace, to have not only great first-party content but great third party and independent developer content – that is going to be something I will always be proud of.
Along with so many of the other things I was part of, but the Switch really was a make or break product for the company and luckily it was a hit.”
The Switch managed to surpass sales of the Wii U 5 times over as the console is close to 70 million units sold worldwide. Additionally, Switch is projected to reach 100 million units. Reggie’s lasting memory also had one of the biggest impacts in the gaming industry we’ve ever seen.
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