Reggie Fils-Aimé On Leveraging Nintendo IPs Across Different Entertainment

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé recently held a 20-minute Q&A in Seattle, where he talked about how Nintendo plans to use their IPs to grow the company, whether he sees the Xbox and PlayStation as competitors, and more. [Thanks, Ars Technica!]

Here are the highlights below:

• Reggie views Nintendo’s games as ‘intellectual property’ that Nintendo plans on leveraging in a variety of ways outside of just regular console games – such as with mobile and entertainment ventures such as the partnership with Illumination and Universal Studios. He emphasized Super Mario Run as their vision for mobile: “to deliver our intellectual property in compelling ways to consumers who may not have experienced those properties before. A belief that they’ll come back, maybe buy a Mario T-shirt, eat that Mario cereal, or buy a Switch, because of affiliation and affection they have with that IP.”

• On the topic of why it took so long for Nintendo to come to mobile, Reggie answered that the longer rollout was intentional, because Nintendo needed to figure out how to translate the games into “unique experiences” that weren’t just a straight port. “We needed to work through how to be effective on platforms and marketplaces that we ourselves don’t own,” he said. “That took time.”

• On whether Reggie sees the PlayStation and Xbox as Nintendo’s competitors, he firmly answered that he didn’t. Rather than competing against the other consoles, the Switch is meant to compete with entertainment time like surfing the internet, watching movies, etc. instead.

• Reggie talked about how the Wii U directly influenced the Nintendo Switch and the console’s proposition, such as how players wanted to play untethered from the living room. “Without Wii U, we would not have the Nintendo Switch, in terms of what we learned and, importantly, what we heard from our consumers,” he said.

You can read more on the interview at the link here.