NOA needs new leadership
- Thread starter Agent Unknown
- Start date
Agent Unknown
Member
In hindsight I really should have titled the thread as "NOA needs new leadership and a return to autonomy."
I have to admit, this all really makes me see Iwata in a slightly new light. :/
As I said before, imagine Reggie going to EA to make a deal to keep EA sports on Wii U like Howard Lincoln did with EA and the N64. Or NOA signing on Rare. It's incredible the things NOA used to be able to do.
I have to admit, this all really makes me see Iwata in a slightly new light. :/
As I said before, imagine Reggie going to EA to make a deal to keep EA sports on Wii U like Howard Lincoln did with EA and the N64. Or NOA signing on Rare. It's incredible the things NOA used to be able to do.
Agent Unknown
Member
Also, the exclusion of the standard N3DS here would be much easier to deal with if it weren't for region locking.
I have fond memories of importing my GBA in March 2001 months before the U.S. GBA launch.
I have fond memories of importing my GBA in March 2001 months before the U.S. GBA launch.
HUELEN10
Member
I sadly never knew that Nintendo. Mind elaborating for us that started with an NES this century?
PreyingShark
Member
Pretty much.
Unless we want to act like NoA being the one region with an adapter *before* Iwata became CEO and then losing the adapter *after* Iwata becomes CEO is all just one unfortunate coincidence. That works for me too.
Agent Unknown
Member
The bit about Lincoln making a deal with EA on N64 was from an older Emily Rogers post/tweet which I unfortunately can't find right now. As for the rest of what I said:
See this photo?
From left to right:
1) Joel Hochberg, president of Rare Ltd.
2) Chris Stamper, co-founder of Rare Ltd. and project lead on many classic Rare games
3) Frank Ballouz, NOA executive
4) Howard Lincoln, senior vice president (eventually chairman) of Nintendo of America
5) Minoru Arakawa, founder and president of Nintendo of America
This is a photo taken at the legal signing of a contract made between Nintendo of America and Rare Ltd. in 1986 where Rare Ltd. would produce games for Nintendo arcade systems.
Where's Hiroshi Yamauchi? He was back in Kyoto, uninvolved in this deal. That's right---Nintendo of America signed a game development contract with Rare Ltd. without the oversight of the Kyoto office.
Can you imagine the modern Nintendo of America going to Warner Bros. to commission an exclusive Batman game for the Wii U? Or what about even for a simple GTA V port?
It's unthinkable to imagine today's Nintendo of America making game-development-related business deals without Iwata / NCL involved---Iwata becoming NOA's President / Chairman solidifies that. Iwata has buried himself within every facet of Nintendo that getting rid of him would be harder than you might expect.
The fact that it was never released in any region either, would argue towards the fact that there were either legal snags or legal concerns. Reggie was certainly not keeping it from being released the world over because he didn't think it would sell in America.
The fact that it was eventually released, unaltered, has no bearing on whether or not there had been legal issues/snags. Those snags can get worked out, after all.
Also, in general, I don't think the premise of this thread is properly aimed. What NoA needs is autonomy. I doubt Reggie has ever had much of any say in anything going on and replacing him isn't going to fix the core issues at large.
Alex_Mexico
Member
NoA deserves little credit for the Operation Rainfall games, OP!
Xenoblade (the best RPG of the last decade) arrived almost a year after the European release so they did nothing of it's localization. And when they finally decided to bring it they made it GameStop exclusive and in limited quantities since they thought they'd have trouble selling it. Of course it sold out quickly with NoA admitting it sold better than expected.
And The Last Story and Pandora's Tower all NoA did was let someone else take the risk of bringing said games since they couldn't bother. Dunno how well PT did but Xseed already announced that TLS is their best selling game in company history. If that doesn't mean the game was profitable for them then nothing will.
NoA is a joke.
Xenoblade (the best RPG of the last decade) arrived almost a year after the European release so they did nothing of it's localization. And when they finally decided to bring it they made it GameStop exclusive and in limited quantities since they thought they'd have trouble selling it. Of course it sold out quickly with NoA admitting it sold better than expected.
And The Last Story and Pandora's Tower all NoA did was let someone else take the risk of bringing said games since they couldn't bother. Dunno how well PT did but Xseed already announced that TLS is their best selling game in company history. If that doesn't mean the game was profitable for them then nothing will.
NoA is a joke.
Iwata at NCL. Reggie at NoA. Shibata at NoE. Autonomy and global thinking. I want to see how well this will fair...
Agent Unknown
Member
There's differing opinions on that. However if the supposed inside source from NOA who was e-mailing Starmen.net during that time is to be believed, then yes there were possibly legal concerns and NOA apparently had a rare moment of autonomy in the fact that (according to the source) some time after they secured the ESRB rating, NOA's lawyers forced NCL into an impasse of sorts because NCL balked at the alterations to the rom that the lawyers supposedly recommended. OTOH again, we don't know for sure if all that was true. Even if it was true, what got the lawyers to shut up? Did NCL and NOA eventually get a second legal opinion during the Miiverse campaign that it was all under fair use and parody as many have also soeculated or did they actually go out of their way to contact the parties involved? Neither you nor I have any proof either way on that.
TheSlySoul
Member
I totally agree.
First, start over from stratch on Amiibo. Reissue all of them equally. Study patterns to determine if you should resupply or not.
Second, make more LE's and limit them 1 per customer. Make retailers enforce it.
Third, learn from your mistakes. *This is what frustrates me the most from Nintendo*
First, start over from stratch on Amiibo. Reissue all of them equally. Study patterns to determine if you should resupply or not.
Second, make more LE's and limit them 1 per customer. Make retailers enforce it.
Third, learn from your mistakes. *This is what frustrates me the most from Nintendo*
Alex_Mexico
Member
Fair enough. But what about Mother 3? That was definitely NoA there and happened smack dab in the middle of Reggie's tenure at Nintendo.
no, but it is the I hate NoA day though
Fair enough.
Also you've probably realized what Iwata is doing with NoA at the moment, and that's being incredibly cost efficient. He's obviously not perfectly well tuned to the Western markets, and that's likely where people like Reggie and others come in, but he has the raw mathematical figures at his disposal and, no doubt, many market analysts who do know the Western market. He doesn't want to downsize or gimp the company long term (he's more or less stated this on record, he wants to achieve efficiency not downsizing) but they currently do not have the funds or he does not feel that currently NoA can self-govern given the company's financial situation. Of course this wouldn't have happened had they not folded in on themselves and cloistered up after the initial floundering of the 3DS/WiiU but it was likely a long time coming, in general, as NoA was acting poorly even during the Wii era.
Come the next generation of handhelds, though, I would hope that the reigns of NoA are returned to... NoA. I have a feeling it won't be in Reggie's hands though.
I give Iwata a benefit of the doubt, short term, as he managed to really turn the 3DS around in the states after he took over. I'd say that what NoA is going through right now, is what NoE went through not long ago. Once everything is set up and in order again for Iwata to pull out as CEO, I would like to see someone like Trinen take over the position of President/CEO... and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he somehow ended up in that position given how central he's become as of recent to the face of Nintendo of America.
Dr. Feel Good
Banned
I love the anecdotal evidence that the OP uses to support his claim. "White doesn't sell??? Blasphemy!! The DS Lite launched and was sold out in the color!!" Do you really think NoA doesn't have data to understand sales trends that specifically tell them white is an unpopular color choice?
I admit Reggie is a bit of a joke, but man the OP comes off as a whiny teenager.
I admit Reggie is a bit of a joke, but man the OP comes off as a whiny teenager.
Fixed that for you mate.
LegendofLex
Member
Dropped what ball exactly? due to what hubris? Nintendo has had the exact same drought problems since N64.
Daria Morgendorffer
Member
Okay, so people always complain about how NCL is actually mostly in charge of NOA, is the relationship between NOE and NCL that different? I've never really heard much about that.
Iwata [President] at NCL. Reggie [CEO] of NoA. Trinen [COO] at NoA. Shibata [President] at NoE.
NoA is going through pretty much the same shite we had to put up with before Shibata turned up.
perfect lol just perfect
Jawmuncher
Member
When Europe does everything I want but NoA doesn't.
Yeah something needs to change. Nintendo of Europe is awesome.
Yeah something needs to change. Nintendo of Europe is awesome.
And I'm pretty sure Trinen is soon going to be doing what Shibata now does. I think the fact that NoA is being re-organized is obvious.
Iwata likely has no interest or time to be running two different parts of the company, and Trinen has become a big name for NoA in the public and core audience's eye.
anotherVegan
Member
Why would anyone hate on Nintendo?
Gambit 1138
Banned
I agree but unfortunately everyone at Nintendo seems too well insulated. It would take major sales decline to get them out.
TheSlySoul
Member
I honestly would take delayed games over less choice of consoles.
Your avatar got me thinking... GAF today was like Cromartie High -- a school for badasses. All these delinquent posters rebelling against The Man, Reggie. And none of the posters here even have cool purple Mohawks!
You should probably check the other thread.
Miyamoto is done after StarFox, and he's going to work mostly just on his Pikmin. He's already pretty much handed over the reigns on multiple IPs on which he used to work on.
This is how NoA ended up like this.
Gba game in 2006 from series that sold very poorly that would have come out in late 2006, early 2007 . He made the right choice there.
Agent Unknown
Member
Thanks for the reply, I sure hope so.
What other game industry companies put their two top guys out on camera announce new products, instead of some impersonal PR release?
IMO, Iwata and Reggie are two executives that are at least trying to generate some form of good will with their core customer base.
And did I watch the same nintendo direct that everyone else did today? I saw nothing but bomb drop after bomb drop, nothing but great news, cool looking games, stuff that I want to play and own, and people are fucking complaining? Is this the twilight zone?
IMO, Iwata and Reggie are two executives that are at least trying to generate some form of good will with their core customer base.
And did I watch the same nintendo direct that everyone else did today? I saw nothing but bomb drop after bomb drop, nothing but great news, cool looking games, stuff that I want to play and own, and people are fucking complaining? Is this the twilight zone?
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
GAF is on a roll today, damn. Youre all being hypersensitive and hyperbolic with all this.
Nintendo is fine, theyre doing great business and todays decisions all make sense.
Nintendo is fine, theyre doing great business and todays decisions all make sense.
Alex_Mexico
Member
C'mon man, not even a digital release on the eShop? They have GBA games there, you know?
Where there's a will theres a way. And Nintendo of America doesn't care.
They are in a major sales decline, and they've done a god-awful job at reading the North American market. From the terrible western developer relations, to the poor marketing, sales, focus on TVii (which is broken), taking way too long to localize needed titles to fill gaps.
It's hard not to blame anyone but NOA.
Don't question GAF, everyone here has run a national business before and has access to all the data NOA has
And Iwata's take over happened in mid-2013... so a lot of the issues are entirely on NoA's own head.
Agent Unknown
Member
Ok, so even if based on this they felt they couldn't properly manage it in retail stores, why not at least make it available through some other means by doing something else like make a limited run of standard skus available for purchase online only? Wouldn't be the first time they sold something mainly online. If it's really niche, then at least consider a niche approach.
Given what's apparently been said by GameStop...
...This is probably likely to happen.
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
And they all blame one person in particular, because thats how businesses work, where one person decides everything
I agree, this would be a nice thing to do for the fans, if it could be arranged.
But as for retail in general, I'm inclined to believe they have a good reason.