
It's fair to say that the news that Reggie Fils-Aime – who has been Nintendo of America president since 2006 and joined the company itself in 2003 – would be retiring in April caught plenty of people off-guard.
He's certainly one of the industry's most recognisable characters and his willingness to get in front of camera and laugh at himself has endeared him to millions of gamers, not just Nintendo fans.
Reggie's popularity is evidenced by the fact that the news has been followed by a flood of positive and supportive comments for the big man – most notably from his rivals at Sony and Microsoft.
Mike Ybarra – Corporate Vice President at Xbox – also had something to say about the news:
Reggie famously appeared on-stage with both Spencer and Layden at the 2018 Game Awards, and host Geoff Keighley added his voice:
Comments 68
It's really nice to see Sony and Microsoft bidding farewell to Reggie. I'm going to miss him a lot and hope that Reggie does well in his future. Reggie = Legend
@Aeleron0X Completely agree with you. Reggie= Legend with a big L. Body's ready forever.
Damn onions invading the house again
I too am loving the recognition and sense of camaraderie between Reggie and his peers. Doug Bowser has some big shoes to fill, but I'm hoping he will bring the same level of optimism, professionalism & smile-ism to the table.
@sikthvash I agree on the big shoes that Bowser has to fill, but it won't be too hard as long as he can have some fun with his own name-- It practically makes it easy for him to break the ice really quick
Thanks reggie, for all the great memories over the years
Now there are no excuses to suck at smash with all your free time
Keep playing, smiling and loving
How great would it be if the next Direct opened with one last skit with Reggie and Bowser. They could do so much with the idea it would he hilarious!
Even the greatest cannot withstand the Koopa King. It's a sad day for all of us
What's so impressive is how we're reaching Iwata-levels of emotional... er, -ness. But the guy is even still alive!
This is so sad but so happy for him.
Nice to see Xbox courting Reggie as well! Perhaps Reggie will join Xbox one day and help Xbox work with Nintendo and be best for both!
Reggie. Will. Return.
@Lionyone
In Avengers: Endgame.
Right, @Thanos_ReXXX, mah man?
[bumps elbow on his arm]
Wonderful quip from Geoff Keighley.
In his days as a reporter he tried going rough on Reggie several times, but The Regginator was always too well revved for The Dorito Pope's little party games.
Over the years, a proper mutual respect and apparently even admiration and friendship grew out of their antics. Reggie was above the banter, and bigger man in so many regards.
I'm not tearing up you're tearing up!
Seriously though. Reggie has been the face of Nintendo since I was born, and I've stuck with nintendo since. It's kind of sad to see him go, but it was inevitable sooner or later. All these messages were extremly sentimental, and I enjoyed reading them. Best of luck to Reggie, and may his body always be ready.
As much problems I have with the Game Awards as of current year, I'm glad Geoff invited the 3 gaming big-wigs at center stage.
my body is definitely not reggie for this...
He'll definitely be a hard act to follow
I'll miss you Reggie. Nintendo will be drastically less memetastic without you.
Reggie is leaving on his own terms with his health, a big stack of cash and with no ill will.
This is nothing to be sad about.
@AlexSora89 Remove the underscore from my name next time,
and I would have been notified, my Italian friend...
Kinda weird to see so much praise for him here, though. Not because he doesn't deserve it, and I think he certainly does, but a lot of people on here used to have a fair amount of criticism concerning his media appearances and responses on Twitter, so I was half-expecting there to be some "good riddance" type of comments on here.
Suffice to say, that I'm pleasantly surprised that there aren't any.
this article on regginator says it all..He will be missed!
https://deafswin37.wixsite.com/mysite/post/the-regginator-leaves-nintendo-and-why-nintendo-will-never-be-the-same
@ThanosReXXX Reggie was one of the best and im glad not to see any hate too...But still hold hope for a reggie Amiibo lol
Reggie needs to return as a free DLC for Smash Ultimate.
@ThanosReXXX
Sorry for the screwup!
Same here, though. Sure, on the PR side of things he was rather keen on dodgy answers at times, but overall has always been a fun guy, especially with his boastfully Stan Lee-like attitude and enthusiasm towards the Nintendo Difference.
Still, work - no matter how well paid - takes a toll on everyone. So it's great to see him go out with a bang, rather than a whimper. The industry and NoA in particular will miss him; his family, however, is going to get an early Nintendo Christmas present this time around - him, from here on out.
A fair deal if you ask me.
IT STILL BURNS THOUGH
@AlexSora89 Haha, yeah, indeed...
Unfortunately, I spoke too soon, though: a couple of idiots have already infested the feature about what Reggie has meant for gamers and the industry, so the mud slinging has begun...
Nintendo is losing all of its on-screen camera personalities. Satoru Iwata, Damon Baker and now Reggie. Shuntaro Furukawa has not taken up the Direct role yet instead leaving it to Yoshiaki Koizumi. NoE president Satoru Shibata doesn't have the same on-screen charisma so I am hoping Mr Bowser knows that he has big shoes to fill and really ups his game. E3 will be a good test.
@MeloMan let's hope the princess mushroom doesn't show up on his head now
If Reggie leaves to Microsoft or Sony, it'll definitely hurt. Damon already left for Microsoft, we don't need another.
He is a man with a passion for delivering fun to people. He knew that the Wii U was a great idea but eventually accepted it was badly marketed. He could have walked away but he was so passionate about the Switch and has been instrumental in its success. If he gives to Xbox, well, lets just say that Xbox live will then certainly come to the Switch. And if that happens, well, the Switch will be here for years to come. Decades. When Nintendo get it right they get it right for a long time. Reggie has been a huge part of that in the last 12 or so years.
He has earnt a rest.
He will be missed. I doubt they can find someone with the same personality and presence to replace him. We all know Doug Bowser only because of his name, but Reggie was a real presence. Bowser has some MASSIVE shoes to fill.
I neither expected this announcement, nor expected to feel so emo about it 😢
Sony and Xbox aren't Nintendo's competitors. The million or so diversions grabbing the younger generation from gaming are. They each want to sell a ton... but they really aren't enemies.
Reggie wasn't going to be president for the next Game Awards. Can you imagine how much padding in the back Geoff Keighley must be giving to himself right now?
Come April and Reggie said "April Fools!"
@Der We're Nintendo we share our toys, we share our good fortune, everyone wins.
@retro_player_22 Reggie as free DLC in Smash? Someone mod this Please.
Calling it now: Next E3 all the lights will go out in the middle of Nintendo’s presentation, suddenly Voodoo Child will start playing and Reggie will appear on stage holding a Switch pro, crowd goes wild. 😆
@nate83km Rather inappropriate comment.
@nate83km Shameful comment.
I like it when people remember that regardless of platform, or which systems or games are most popular at the moment, or who works for whom, we're all on team video games! ;D
@ThanosReXXX
Too bad you already snapped, it would have done
wait no Mr. Stark I don't wanna go-----------@AlexSora89 No man, you I would never 'snap' away. You're one of the sensible guys.
@ThanosReXXX
Then where did all this dust come from? Oh, wait, I'm in my attic.
@AlexSora89 Must be coming from those boxes containing your least favorite comics collection, which you had to store in your attic because you lacked the space to keep 'em all displayed in your room...
@ThanosReXXX
I actually have to move my weekly Mickey Mouse comics to my equivalent of the attic from time to time... are you spying on me?
@AlexSora89 No need. I got this handy, gemstone-encrusted glove.
I... can see... EVERYTHING! Mwahahahaha....
@ThanosReXXX
Could you leave? I'm trying to take a dump here!
@AlexSora89 Ah, so THAT's what that was...
@ThanosReXXX

Yes. This thread is now about crappers.
@AlexSora89 Well, since you're doing just fine derailing this thread all by yourself, I've moved over to the Pokemon thread, to battle the never ending stream of whiners with a text wall of undeniable logic and cold, hard facts, so whenever you're done with your potty training, you're welcome to join...
@ThanosReXXX
DID YOU SAY POKEMOOOOOOONNNNN?!?!
@AlexSora89 Yup. I did indeed say Pokémon...
And what do you get in return for logic and positivity?
Idiots like these, who apparently lack the skill set to be able to read comprehensively...
Some of these people are to count themselves SO lucky, that they're just having an online discussion with me, instead of a face to face one...
@ThanosReXXX
That user could only be defined by his own username.
@AlexSora89 Exactly. I wonder if he actually understands, considering his origin.
@ThanosReXXX
That hypothesis would be just as preposterous.
(Sorry for the late reply. I'm so late because... reasons.)
@AlexSora89 Ah, that sucks. Disadvantage of a laptop: if one part of it goes to hell, the entire thing is useless. That's why I've never owned one. Just give me a desktop PC, and for the in-between stuff, we've got smart phones with decently-sized screens now.
@ThanosReXXX
Thank goodness for the new charger, though. I've finally managed to finish my novel (it's metafictional stuff, think of it as Gwenpool meets Stranger Than Fiction), which I plan to get ready to be published on Kindle via Amazon before the end of the month. Wish me luck, if you will: it might well be my only source of income.
@AlexSora89 Well, in that case: in bocca al lupo. (thanks, Google, for that informal version, otherwise I would have said "buona fortuna")
@ThanosReXXX
That literally means "(go) in the wolf's mouth", which is a figure of speech to wish someone good luck. The optional answer to this is "crepi!", which means "may it - the wolf - die!".
Fun fact: the other place you can tell someone to go to wish him or her luck is "up the whale's backside", where "backside" is obviously being paraphrased for a far more vulgar synonym.
@AlexSora89 Yeah, I know now, thanks to having to look it up. Then again: my Italian, well at least: what I still know of it, isn't THAT rusty, so I already figured what the translation was, and immediately thought of the creation of Rome, another wolf-related thing that I remembered coming from your country...
That, and I already knew the Italian translation of 'shut your mouth', so I was also already familiar with the word 'bocca'.
@ThanosReXXX
Shutting one's mouth isn't really that used in common Italian; it usually comes up in Italian dubs of American movies and such. It might also pop up in spoken language, of course, but it's not that much of a safe assumption.
One funny way people from Naples say it - having a Neapolitan girlfriend, I've learned quite a bit of trivia - is "spitting on the ground". Their dialect is spiced up with all sorts of funny ways to say stuff.
@AlexSora89 Really? Well, my Italian friends over here more often than not used "chiudi la bocca", often just abbreviated to "chiu la bocca", so they certainly could have fooled me.
@ThanosReXXX
It is a figure of speech, yes, but far from being the most used way to tell someone to shut up - that said, if your acquaintances happen to use "shut your mouth" more, then I guess it's their way to put it. It's up to personal preference, really - it varies from person to person.
@AlexSora89 Ah, well... I wasn't really looking for a deep dive into languages anyways. And those Italian friends of mine are long gone, off towards other adventures. I should have perhaps clarified.
It was ages ago when we exchanged words and sentences. Most of them none too polite and/or politically correct, as it often goes with the first batch of words you learn in another language...
@ThanosReXXX
Well, my learning of most languages (mostly dialects, tho) went that way. It's always about the nasty stuff first and foremost.
And the fact they went on their own adventures... is basically summing up life for everyone. The more you want something to stay the same... well, you know the rest.
@AlexSora89 Yeah, I do, but that wasn't quite what I meant.
I just meant to say that I've lost sight of them, because we haven't been in contact anymore. I simply wanted to say that in a more positive, poetic way...
@ThanosReXXX
Of course, I totally got you there!
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