Dear Reader:
Shuntaro Furukawa discusses his goals, Mr. Kimishima stays on in advisory role
The following details come from a new Wall Street Journal article...
- Mr. Kimishima sees his successor as someone good at building consensus among all employees rather than relying on a few ''geniuses''
- had been eyeing Mr. Furukawa for years as a future CEO
- Mr. Furukawa on Nintendo: ''should focus on things that only we can provide. Otherwise Nintendo would lose a reason to exist''
- Mr. Furukawa has often briefed investors and analysts about the company’s financial results
- while he hasn’t developed game consoles and software himself, people who know him said he is an enthusiastic game player
- Mr. Furukawa said a recent favorite is ''Golf Story,'' a role-playing sports adventure game developed by a small studio in Australia
- ''I have to ask him many numbers-related questions, but there have been so many times in the past when I ended up spending so much time chatting about games.'' - Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute
- Mr. Kimishima said he would remain at Nintendo as an adviser and assist the new CEO along with Shigeru Miyamoto
- Mr. Kimishima said it was getting difficult for him to fly around due to his age
- better-than-expected sales momentum of the Switch console made him decide it was time to pass the baton
- Mr. Furukawa said he hoped to bring the Switch to a wider audience and pointed to Nintendo Labo
- also said he wants to turn smartphone games into a revenue pillar for the company
- Kimishima said stay tuned for many unannounced titles for the Switch