Feature: Reggie's Video Highlights From 15 Years At The Top Of Nintendo

Reggie had one heck of a good run. Nintendo will never be the same.

I was hoping for a best of Reggie recap when I heard the news yesterday. Reggie might have been as influential when it comes to Nintendo as a whole, but he was clearly willing to have a laugh at his own expense.

Somehow...
Reggie's pose above (with glasses) remind me for this. 😅

The Chicken Robot presentation was the best thing ever! It's been too long since we had presentations like that!

A sense of humor about yourself is, in my opinion, critical to being a decent human being. It’s sorely missing in so many of the executive class. I wish Reggie well for the future!

Reggie and Iwata fighting Matrix style was my personal favorite. Whether you liked Reggie or not, he has a good sense of humor. I hope Bowser continues that legacy — but that'll be hard without Iwata sadly.

Regend.

I'll keep saying it. And I'll keep having to tack on gubbins to fulfil this silly NL character quota.

Well, i disagree that the 3DS did not meet expectations, DS has just sold over 150 mil units and that is way above the meaning of a succesfull console. DS was a miracle and miracles dont happen every day. 3DS has sold almost 80 mil units and that means it was a very succesfull console.

Metroid on the DS
crowd cheers
Touch where you want to fire
crowd feels let down

Everything Reggie said about the DS is a reality fifteen years later.

Touch interface and handheld online capability changed the industry COMPLETELY.

People now play Fortnite online on their phones, in not too different a way from how Prime Hunters played.

Sure, phones had to go through a whole decade of ad-filled ripoffs of Farmville and Bejeweled to get there, but we made it!

This came out of the blue. I remembered that Reggie was the reason that I didn't liked nintendo spotlight, at first. Because I found the E3 presentations so enjoyable with him.

Thanks for everything, you will be missed!!

I demand that the next Zelda game must have a Reggie reference, even if only in the English localization.

This is always my go to Reggie video. E7 2007, the release date announcement for SSBB. Reggie basically is the originator of "let's make a big release date announcement and then have the game delayed, not once, but twice". Sony may have perfected it on the PS4 w/ several high profile games, and Squenix stole the show w/ FFXV live orchestra event date reveal only to be delayed months later, but Reggie did it first, and he did it best.

Still don't like him, sorry non haters

I always thought his presentation style was a little "wooden," but he clearly loved Nintendo and loved his job. While Bowser has a cool name, his background is working at EA ... shudder.

Seeing all these videos makes me miss Iwata-san even more. Sad to think those days are falling farther behind us.

A collection of some of my favourite moments from their presentations. Opened old wounds over losing Iwata, gawd I miss that guy. I'm happy for Reggie getting to leave on his own terms; he's earnt the early retirement, but doesn't make it any easier... his leadership will be sorely missed.

@Bunkerneath
"Still don't like him, sorry non haters"

Then, you don't need to post your saltiness here. Keep your hatred toward him inside your mind.

Reggie leaving feels like the last nail in the coffin for the quirky style of the Iwata-era PR. Granted, we didn't see much of Reggie during the current Switch-era, but I'm still gonna miss all the whimsical skits that Iwata, the Treehouse and NoA used to do more.
Koizumi feels like a no-nonsense business daddy compared to the goofy antics Iwata, Miyamoto and the NoA used to pull.

@Lone_Beagle Reggie definitely was a business guy at nature, but I love that he went along with the playful skits and wasn't afraid of making light of himself.

@Anti-Matter There was absolutely no hatred at all, they just said they didn’t like Reggie. You’re allowed to not like someone, y’know.

Def one of my favs (of both Reggie and Iwata):

Seriously, Nintendo should put Iwata and Reggie into Smash looking just like this. Would be sooo cool.

Bye Reggie! I never learnt how to pronounce your name, but thanks for the memories.

The moment that sticks out most in my mind is that near-soprano "BILL!!!!" from the series of Yo-Kai Watch videos. XD

It's one thing to be the COO of a company, and it's another to have a fun personality to help supplement that role and interact with the fans. More companies need execs like this.

I wish Reggie a happy retirement! IMHO he's earned it. Besides, the memes won't retire as easily....

Reggie's comedic talents reached an all-time high with his silent "well, $#17" look after talking with the kid who knew Japanese. You know, the one on the left in the image @Anti-Matter embedded as well.

@rjejr
Whoa, so... early December being Ultimate's release date was supposed to be a symbolic call-back?

@AlexSora89 It only would have been symbolic had it been delayed until Feb, and then delayed again until March. 😉

But yeah, you could be on to something w/ the Dec release date for a Smash game.

@rjejr
March? Try late June.

Damn, eleven years later, the PAL Brawl wound is still open.

Two additional great appearances by Reggie, from The Game Theorists:

• Should Nintendo STOP Making Consoles?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTL41TPiAY
• Zelda: Do Motion Controls RUIN Gameplay?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOMnpDH7CZA

Just the fact that he offered himself to discuss these topics merit my respect.

@AlexSora89 Try late June.

Ok, so my being a self-centered 'Murican, we're not supposed to be aware of stuff like that, but at the time, were you guys over there aware of just how much later you were getting it than the US? Nowadays I seem to know everything about every country, but I'm not sure how close I was following world videogame release dates in 2007.

Though if you saw that E3 announcement and heard Dec then didn't get it until June that had to hurt. I know you guys have Paris and the big one in Germany, GameExpo or something, where they would give the EU date.

Are we going to do this Reggie worship for two months now?

Truly sad to see him go! I NEED a final skit with him turning over the keys to Bowser. Great recap! My favorite though is his:
"Bill? Bill!? BILL!!??" LOL

I think we all need him to do one last sort of skit.
I can understand if he wants to depart quietly, but it would be equally as great for him to go out with one last meme-worthy bang.

@rjejr
We live in... better times. I still roll my eyes whenever I stumble upon EarthBound's "2013" release date in Smash 4's Masterpieces section.

@AlexSora89 "We live in... better times."

Yeah, now not only do I have to know how bad it is in my country w/ Trump, I get to know how bad it is w/ Brexit, and in Italy with the corruption of the Vatican’s gay elite. Italy is infamous for it's corruption, but not usually that kind. Feels like the world is trying to fight global warming by absorbing it with all of it's dirty laundry.

Why would they appoint a villain to take over?

@rjejr You're just finding about corruption on a level most knew existed but ignored, we're not even halfway done digging yet and unless the top echelons of corporate capital world destroy free press entirely (and they will continue to try) then buckle up because only so many voices speaking truth can be ignored. The economical collapse has been a long time coming, also. Inflation on inflation. Republicrat or democran, pick your poison.

Regginator! You shall be missed!

@rjejr
Italy has been a wreck since the mid-nineties, no biggie.

@AlexSora89 "since the mid-nineties"

While eating breakfast this morning I was thinking the US has been a wreck since the 70's - greed and crack did us in during the 80's - and the 70's were a mess as well w/ Vietnam and Watergate but they're quaint by today's standards - so if Italy was ok until the mid-90's you've got an extra decade or 2 on us.

Last good year for the world is probably 88-89, fall of the Berlin wall and dissolution of the USSR. Been pretty much just greed run rampant since then, and hate.

This will be my favorite one forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f1-ipNK5dY

@rjejr
Let's all agree that on a worldwide basis gaming is one of the few good things to come out of these last few years. No, scratch that. Pop culture is the only good thing in recent memory.

@AlexSora89 "Pop culture is the only good thing in recent memory."

You must have forgotten, I'm over 50, there hasn't been any good pop culture since 1968. TV reality shows lack all reality, music is autotuned, movie's are remakes - see A Star is Born - sports are all about the almighty $ as contracts and fines make as much news as the games, comics are too expensive for kids to read, TV commercials suck, TV shows lack good theme songs, all we've got are memes, and memes are just the digital version of the t-shirts we wore in the 70's.

Social media and the internet are new ways to spread pop culture, but the older the pop culture the better.

Game of Thrones is great, but it's basically just fantasy Sopranos. The last great pop culture burst was probably the invention of the Fox tv channel which gave us The Simpsons and Married w/ Children, it changed the TV landscape. The biggest changes on the TV landscape today are channels like My9 and Antenna TV which only show tv shows from the 59's - 80's.

The only thing my kids like from today is Youtube, but mostly what they watch are people playing video games from the 80's.

Ok that went a tad long.

@rjejr
Okay then, I mean nerd pop culture. My statement was far too generic for my own good.

@AlexSora89 Sorry, pop culture is one of my "things". Back in the mid 90's I wrote a short piece entitled "Nostalgia is History" for my friends 'zine, lamenting how everyone is always stuck in the past and we need to get on w/ the present. Only back then I didn't know how bad everything was going to turn out.

Lets' see if I can squeeze it all in here. It's in some early Microsoft Works 3.1 format I think.

Nostalgia is History

Finally, at long last, or is it shortly, nostalgia, particularly of the 1960's variety, appears to have reached it's zenith. And since nostalgia has become nearly synonymous with the 1960's, thanks due in large part to the baby boomers, the end of the 60's revival marks the end of nostalgia as well.
To make the point perfectly clear, I am referring to nostalgia in the broadest sense, the mass marketing of events from our childhood, or our parents childhood, to remind us how great things were, and how they will never be as good again. This is not a reflection upon personal experiences or family gatherings, exchanging old photographs and watching home movies. These would be personal memories, not nostalgia as it is currently understood. Nostalgia has become overly obvious, obnoxious and thrust upon us by the media.
November, 1995, marks the end of nostalgia. This moment is based upon the convergence of two unrelated yet very related events. The first is the much publicized re-uniting of the Beatles, a major event, especially considering the death of one of the members, John Lennon, a few years ago. The other event, a New York City centered affair, is the Beat Generation exhibit at the Whitney Museum. While Allan Ginsburg lives, the past will live with him, and us, but this museum showcase should help answer all of our questions and in essence clear our collective conscious of the Beat bug. Months earlier of course was the not entirely surprising demise of Grateful Dead singer Gerry Garcia. With his passing an entire movement leftover from the 60's has come to an end. So what does the end of nostalgia mean? Well, without the past, we will still have the present and the future.
While Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and other icons of the past will always be with us, it's time to start focusing our attention forward rather than back. The release of the upcoming Oliver Stone film "Nixon" portends the conclusion that the 1960's are running out of steam. Watergate, remember, though viewed as a 60's icon, was 1970's event. And thankfully, there is little left to follow. "Carter" is not likely to be coming to a theater near you anytime soon, or perhaps ever.
The future may be a hard sell for Madison Avenue, esoteric gift shops, and retro-decorated diners across America, but it is time for everyone to own up to the reality of now. The past, at least as represented by mid twentieth century pop culture memorabilia, has come full circle. John Lennon has come back to sing his own epitaph. He and his contemporaries will rest in peace. The present can now make it's presence felt.
The early 1990's, already available as a record collection set, and represented by the obsolete computer operating system Windows 3.1, were a remnant of the 1980's. They were the payback for all the wealth, power and prestige that was running rampant and left us all in an awful state. The healing may not yet be completely over, but it's time to move on. The year 1996 can in earnest begin a new decade, and a new era. So the present shall finally begin again in 1996. A half-length shortened decade for our constantly decreasing attention span. Let us gear up quickly to herald the future and start the next millennia. Nostalgia has finally burned itself out, no need to fan the few remaining scattered embers. It's time for the expression "then and now" to stop referring to yesterday and all the decades before, and start referring to today and all of our tomorrows. With nostalgia behind us where it belongs, we'll be off to a fresh start. So say goodbye to the "age of Aquarius", and say hello to the apocalypse.

❀ R.J. Emmerich Jr.

@AlexSora89 "nerd pop culture"

Oh, and nerd pop culture hasn't been good since the mid 90's with SM64, FF7, Wesley Crusher and Lucas Wolenczak.

@rjejr
That was a good read. But finally I got to see what your nickname stands for. It's been an eventful day, today. And I'm not even talking about Sword and Shield!

@AlexSora89 "what your nickname stands for."

Yeah, I like my initials b/c it's a palindrome, and it always fit in nicely w/ the old fantasy JRPG I started playing back in the late 90's where they let you put in your name - no voice acting back then of course - so it became my defacto. Except on twitter where somebody already had it so I had to go w/ bobmrik, the pronunciation of my first and last name.

Oh, and thanks for the compliment on the read.

I was very wrong about nostalgia, but it did turn out to be a major turning point in my life, I left grad school soon after I wrote that as an ABD - all but dissertation - and started the life I've been living ever since. That piece was the first 1 I wrote for issue #1, here's the last piece I've ever written for issue #3. I was just never motivated again after that. Probably for the best.

___________________________________

Psychedelic Journey

The weekend was the worst ever, and the best in my past four months. Monday afternoon turns into evening as things continue to get worse. Abandoned in my apartment, which itself should be abandoned, or at the very least condemned, while Jane prepares for her trip back home to spend the summer among family and friends. The walk to Jane's is a mere five blocks, a route I've covered on several uneventful occasions. This is a tale of one of those walks, perhaps the last, the longest no doubt, in which everything came to a head, and everything but a conclusion was reached.
Leaving my rain soaked damp musty dark and gray apartment was the beginning of my journey, short as it was. The ceiling, having given way to a torrential down pouring the evening before, now lay stripped bare. The electrical wiring which lay hidden within had short circuited leaving me appliance free. The electrician on a day trip to Memphis meant longs hours before I would again see any signs of the twentieth century. But Jane was at last home, and waiting, so off I went to be rescued from my place and my self.
The first block my life flashed before my eyes as a car went speeding by. I was too involved with my own little world to be paying any attention to tons of metallic death. As I watched it drive off I realized how simple it could have been to end it all. One step less, no energy expended, and it would have all been over. I thought of Jane, waiting inside her apartment, receiving the news of my demise and the guilt overwhelming her for abandoning me on our last day together. Sweet sadness and tears. But then thoughts turned to my landlord, and how he would get off scott free, and that just wouldn't do. If death was coming, it would not be headed in my direction. Then I turned a corner and the incident passed from my mind.
Walking down the middle of a side street one realizes just how alone one is. Empty sidewalks and carless streets reminding me of Jane's departure and my being left behind. I immediately miss her immensely and hate myself for the guilt I may have put her through. A sudden sadness overwhelms me and I fight to keep back the tears.
Another corner turned and I happen upon a large dead possum laying beside the curb. I had passed it the night before, and it seems much more lively now. The ensuing stench makes me realize however that death is not kind to this or any creature. My aural response quickly sends me back to my apartment, which did not smell quite like death, but the similarities of nasal discomfort were enough to once again make me curse my predicament.
The tree lined street that followed smothered me in a sense of well being as nature wrapped herself around me. I was no longer in my ill fated apartment, nor alone on manmade passageways for people that didn't exist. Surrounded by trees, with the occasional clouded sunbeam striking me through yawning expanses, spring was life and I was alive in spring. But spring meant summer, and summer meant Jane's return home, which quickly returned me to my ill at ease dread of impending loneliness. Mother nature shielded me, yet separated me from what I wanted most.
Advancing down the tree lined street this pendulum of emotions continued it's seesaw battle for my mind. I was now floating down the block, not conscious of walking, nor of actually moving. It was the street that moved. No not the street, it was the trees that carried the road as I hovered there, suspended by my emotional rollercoaster between living and dying. It was a strange feeling, to be completely at peace with everything around me and at the same time to be so utterly torn apart inside. Emotions are the greatest drug. To give yourself up to them is to have no need for thinking or acting, just a wild ride where you are elevated and dropped, frozen in time and encompassing eternity, the tightening and clenching of muscles hardly even noticed in your becalmed state. Letting go to be carried away by the physical insanity of your mind. The rush of life.
Coming upon a major thoroughfare I snap out of whatever it is I was in and notice I'm almost there. I also realize I've just been experiencing either one of the truest moments in my life or the most insanity any free man has ever gone through. I know however that they are one in the same so it makes no difference either way. There is no distinction between reality and fiction.

EPILOGUE: As Alanis Morrisette's CD spins out it's top 40 tune of the day, "Hand in my Pocket", I kneel on a balcony and the tears stream down my face. The moment of sheer joy I felt as Jane wrapped her arms around me in a sincerely caring hug was more than I could stand. It's all unfair and unjust. It's more than anyone can overcome. It gets the better of me as my journey comes to an end. 👍 rjejr 👎

@rjejr
You're one of the coolest fiftysomethings I've ever come across on the net. Way to go!

@AlexSora89 Thanks, appreciate it.

Though I'm sure you realize I wrote all of that in my 30's when I used to be cool, I've been nothing more than a stay-at-home dad the past 17 years. Well it will be 17 years in about 2 weeks. I really need to do something productive again but while I've cut back on NL & PS I'm now addicted to twitter.

@rjejr
Don't worry, bright minds don't age.