Not sure of any of you are already aware of this, and if you are not, Tatsumi Kimishima is stepping down from his role as President of Nintendo this coming June after serving 3 years and Shuntaro Furukawa will be taking his place as the new President of Nintendo.

Link to the news story... http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/04/26/nintendo-gets-a-new-president

Shuntaro Furukawa currently serves as a board member for both Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. Furukawa will be 46 by the time he because the new President of Nintendo which is quite a young age, but Nintendo thinks that this could be a smart move because they can have someone that can connect with a younger audience instead of a much older President..

Furukawa also speaks both Japanese and English fluently, which could mean that we might see him in more public role more frequently like Satoru Iwata made before his death in 2015

Furukawa did say that "I will balance Nintendo’s traditions: originality and flexibility", I'm not really sure on what he exactly means by that.


For my thoughts, It would be tough to say on what Furukawa is going to do for Nintendo in the coming years, but as long he doesn't screw up the Switch, like how Nintendo screwed up the Wii-U, Nintendo should be fine.

What are your thoughts about the new Nintendo President?

Well, Furukawa's story within Nintendo is quite brilliant. He already has a major positioning within the company, coupled with a high position in another company which Nintendo partially "owns", so besides being young he probably has the best portfolio out of any other potential candidates to replace Kimishima.

I honestly think that, due to his positions, he's quite into what Nintendo needs at this point. He probably was more involved with the Switch than his higher-up, and thus could have a better understanding of the console. Besides, he probably went through the ranks as Nintendo saw its domination in danger as competition from Sony and their own "bad" decisions tilted the balance against them more than once, which could mean he's witnessed the change from within and thus knows by experience what he must not repeat.

Furukawa does have quite the pressure too. He will rise to the position right after the world witnesses the presentation of Smash 5, between whatever else Nintendo may show at E3, so it's going to be a tight timing to take over such a company. I hope he can keep his mind clear, a single mistake with all the hype floating in the air could end up very badly.

Very interesting to see he'll be just the sixth president of Nintendo in nearly 130 years. A simple math says that each president has lasted in that position for an average of 25 years, and doing the math before Kimishima became president, the average was at 31 years. It's an immense number, even more in a company that made the heavy transition from traditional card games to the then-emerging technology of videogames. We'll see how will Furukawa contribute to this average, because his age gives him the potential to keep it high.