Shuntaro Furukawa will be the next President of Nintendo, after current President Tatsumi Kimishima steps down in June. He has some interesting idea about where to take Nintendo- including one that I am not actually that thrilled about.
Speaking to Nikkei (via Serkan Toto), Furukawa revealed that he has plans to change the game pitching process within Nintendo- from now on, certain product ideas will be greenlit by a panel of five directors within Nintendo, a panel which will include Furukawa himself.
I generally don’t like the process to be centralized like this- for instance, Nintendo moved towards a more democratized style of decision making with the Switch, which resulted in their best console, and some of their best games ever, compared to the stuffiness of the Wii U era. This statement makes me fear there might be a regression of some sort.
Ultimately, it’s too early to ring the warning bells, but… I just hope Furukawa is able to keep the spirit of Nintendo alive.
4) Furukawa also plans to change Nintendo internally: a new committee consisting of five directors (including himself) will decide on certain product ideas together.
I think the implication here is that there were more (too many?) people involved in such decisions before. //end
— Dr. Serkan Toto / Kantan Games Inc. (@serkantoto) May 1, 2018
