Topic: When will we see Shuntaro Furukawa's influence take hold at Nintendo?

Shuntaro Furukawa has only been President of Nintendo Co. Ltd for almost a year now, and so far it doesn't seem too much different from the Kimishima era, which wasn't that much different from the Iwata era as Kimishima was only ever meant to be a stopgap CEO to keep Nintendo afloat until a proper successor to Iwata could be found.

For a company as fairly big and conservative as Nintendo, it usually takes time for new management to take hold. After all Iwata became head of Nintendo in 2002, and we didn't see him put his full stamp on the company until around 2 years later, when the DS was released, and the GameCube was on its final legs.

So with that in mind, I think sometime around next year is when we'll start to actually see what Furukawa's Nintendo will be like. Furukawa isn't a game developer like Iwata was, but he does come across as a guy who genuinely loves games, citing Golf Story, a niche indie title from some developer in Australia as a recent favorite of his, as well as having grown up of the Famicom/NES as well. So he'll probably put an even greater focus on trying to get Nintendo to develop and produce games of all kinds, and step out of their comfort zone more.

I believe Furukawa has shown interest in leveraging more out of the mobile market, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's where we see his greatest influence. The Switch is in such a healthy spot right now, it's hard to see how they could risk meddling with the hardware space. I guess there'll be a New Switch and New Switch Lite somewhere down the line, but a complete hardware refresh is going to be a risk - though an inevitable one at some point. Interesting times ahead.

I disagree the "Iwata" and Kimishima eras was similar. There is a very distinct shift in how PR is made, how they announce stuff and the company has been more silent. Just look at the directs, you can clearly see a shift to a more streamlined PR material instead of the more playful videos from Iwatas time.

Furukawa is a pure businessman, nothing more, nothing less. He's "investor friendly" meaning he follows the current business trends investors get interested in and aims to placate investors rather than push back for company imperatives. A modern squishy executive that's mostly a mouthpiece for the shareholders will. Fortunately there's enough people in place on the Board that will keep Nintendo Nintendo (for now) but I think he's going to the most "American Corporate" executive and operation style we've seen from Nintendo, and he'll let Nintendo sink into the current industry trends, whatever they may be, more easily than prior executives. (Yamauchi was a pure businessman as well, but he was insistent upon his own opinion and didn't listen to outside influence beyond his legal requirements to do so.) So far his direction has been behind expansion in mobile, brand/IP licensing, merchandising, etc. He's more open to the idea of the video games market not being their primary market long term, which is, partially wise, but is a marked shift from the past. Truthfully, I'm not a huge fan from what I've seen so far. I see him as just David Ismailer or Andrew Wilson in a better suit.

Right now Yves Guillemot and Phil Spencer are two two top executives of gaming companies/divisions that seem to really have their hearts in the product. (Shu Yoshida isn't the top exec.)

@Therad I agree. In some ways the new era is a lot more like the height of Nintendo's influence in the 80's as a truly faceless company, but I had really grown to like the very playful and "fun" image they'd built in the Iwata era where it was the "corporation that was just your friend" with a focus on behind the scenes and a history, rather than slick, in-the-moment, polished, focus group tested PR presentations. Feels about as genuine as Sony now.

I disagree. Furukawa has stated that Golf Story was a recent favorite of his, and that he grew up with the NES in his youth. True, you do see him saying that they need to do more in the mobile market and IP licensing, but Iwata was the one who started that. Furukawa's just keeping it going. We may not see him much publicly, but that doesn't mean he's a generic suit necessarily. I think he's just not one for public presentations, and feels other people at Nintendo like Koizumi and Takahashi do a better job than him.

I think we have already. Fewer Directs. More announcements via social media.

@Magician There hasn't been much change in Directs:
2018 - January Direct Mini, March Direct, E3 Direct, 2 Smash Directs, September Direct
2019 so far - February Direct, Mario Maker 2 Direct, E3 Direct

There isn't really a need for as many Directs these days when a single modern Direct can cover as much content as a years worth of Iwata-era Directs.

Keep in mind he is only one person. Even the guy at the top only has so much influence. Nintendo is a large company with lots of internal politics that we'll never hear about. But I agree with others who think Nintendo's recent mobile releases are a sign of his influence.

Of course, a corporate leader at a large gaming company is only as effective as the people he/she delegates power to. But at the end of the day, they're still the ones giving direction, so it depends on how well he pushes the people under him to do the best at their job.

@TheMisterManGuy Well if you feel there hasn't been much change, that might be the point. I don't know anything about the guy personally, but perhaps he is the type of hands off leader who only gets involved when things go wrong and is content to let things run on their own otherwise, if they are going well. And I think people would be hard pressed to say Nintendo isn't doing well right now. By my very unprofessional judgement, Nintendo is currently been doing the best they have been, in years. Since the days of the Wii/DS anyway.

He actually admitted this in an interview. He's not an expert on game or hardware development like Iwata was, so he leaves that stuff up to people who do know that like Shinya Takahashi so long as they're on the same page. So even though he leaves the stuff like Software up to experts, he does have a say on what Takahashi and the like should focus on.

I pretty much agree with @NEStalgia, Mr. Furukawa seems like more of a traditional businessman. Which honestly was what Mr. Kimishima was, although at the time he took over (coming off the WiiU era and Mr. Iwata's uneven leadership and contentious relationship with the board), that was what the company needed. You could almost feel how peaceful and steady things became as soon as Mr. Kimishima took over.

I've read that in Japan, corporate ownership works a little different, maybe by law or custom or both, so that in general the managers have more leeway to pursue long-term strategies over short-term profits, unlike American corporations. Also, I'm not sure who exactly owns Nintendo. When Mr. Yamauchi was alive, he was the largest shareholder in the company (and thus could rule by fiat, which he did), and presumably he left his shares to his wife (if she's still alive) and three daughters upon his death. One of his daughters, Yoko, is married to Minoru Arakawa, the first president of NOA, so it may be that the Arakawas still have some influence, assuming they haven't sold their shares. All just speculation, of course.

Source: I've done a lot of research on Nintendo for my podcast, David Sheff's book "Game Over" is a really invaluable resource.

@BougieBeetle It is absolutely true that corporate Japan and Japanese business culture is very different than in the west. A graduate sociology major could probably do a thesis paper on all the differences.

While some aspects of business in Japan are drifting toward more western styles because of globalization, that kind of thing doesn't happen quickly. For better or worse Japan has a "it's not broken don't mess with it" attitude toward a lot of things. And on some topics of "even if it's broken, let's try and see if we can ignore it first because change is scary"

Then again, there are plenty of things the west has picked up from Japanese business practices too.

@Heavyarms55 Interesting. Yeah I'm fascinated by this whole topic, I've studied Japanese culture, history, and language, and I constantly feel like I'm just scratching the surface of all the ways they differ from the west. I remember reading about Toyota's whole "lean business" philosophy and was so fascinated by it. They don't like to run surpluses (because that would be wasteful) which is the total opposite of the US.

I think the release of more third parties and more risque games have been coming out since the change in leadership

More third party support was always in the cards whether Iwata was there or not. He wasn't like Yamauchi who told them to piss off if they didn't like working with Nintendo, Iwata wanted third parties to have a place on Nintendo systems. But up until the Switch, they haven't found an efficient way to convince them long-term, at least on consoles.

@BougieBeetle I can't speak to Toyota specifically, but Japan is a nation of very limited natural resources. Whether they realize this consciously or not, Japanese people tend to avoid waste more than Americans do. I say "tend to" because it's only a general statement and every group has its outliers.

@TheMisterManGuy There was a lot of third-party support in the Wii era, but the issue there was more of a hardware and marketing one that kept the real heavy hitters away. The WiiU era had similar issues, and I get the impression that, despite a lot of initial overtures, third parties weren't convinced about the viability of the console.

As for Mr. Yamauchi and third parties... he was perfectly happy with third party support, as long as they paid for strict licenses and bought their cartridges from Nintendo directly, lol. What a guy.

@Heavyarms55 That was very noticeable when I visited. Hardly any litter in public, and the quality of consumer goods was generally pretty high.

@BougieBeetle The litter is actually something of a different thing. Japan actually has an almost obnoxious amount of wrappers and plastic crap packaging. At least as much as the US. What happened was, after WW2 during the reconstruction period Japan rapidly re-industrialized. Initially they produced tons of export based cheap goods and no one cared about litter or pollution and they let it get really nasty. Lake Biwa the largest lake in Japan, right near where I live actually had regular red tides. So much pollution that the water looked red from all the bacteria and garbage rotting away in it. Then Japan sort of did a massive 180. They realized they were destroying their home and made a conscious nationwide effort to fix it that was largely successful. It worked so well that keeping the streets clean like they do just sort of became thing thing they do. It's now only areas with lots of tourists that tend to have more litter - usually because there is more foot traffic than trash cans.

On a side note, you might notice Japan doesn't have many public, outdoor trashcans. This is because back in the 90's some terrorist tried hiding bombs in them and Japan's solution was to just not have the trashcans. Interestingly that seems to have worked - though it means convenience store workers have proportionally crappier jobs as a result as everyone drops their trash in their garbage cans. lol