• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
TechNintendo

Nintendo’s new president faces challenging new world

By
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 16, 2015, 10:21 AM ET
Courtesy of Nintendo

There’s a new boss at Nintendo (NTDOY). And, as he takes his seat, one thing seems clear: fixing the company will be no easy task.

Tatsumi Kimishima was named Nintendo’s new president on Monday, replacing Satoru Iwata, a beloved figure at the company who tragically died in July while serving as the company’s chief. During Iwata’s reign, Nintendo had its fair share of ups and downs, watching the business grow to great heights on the back of the Wii game console, and subsequently plummet at the hands of iPhones and Android.

Indeed, the place Kimishima finds Nintendo in now is not a good one. The Wii U is in a distant third behind Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox One, and portable gamers who were previously willing to buy company devices, like the Game Boy or the Nintendo DS, have turned to smartphones and tablets.

The company’s issues were made clear during its last fiscal year when Nintendo’s revenue slipped 3.8% year-over-year to approximately 549.8 billion yen (about $4.6 billion). Although Nintendo was able to turn a 23 billion yen loss in 2014 into a 41.8 billion yen profit in its last fiscal year, it did little to reassure analysts and investors who were more concerned with its performance in hardware and software—the lifeblood of its business. Nintendo sold just 3.4 million Wii U units during a period in which its competitors each neared 20 million unit sales. On the portable side, sales tumbled from 12.2 million 3DS units in the prior year to 8.7 million in 2015.

Meanwhile, the company continues to face other challenges in the market. Sony announced in March that it had sold 20 million PlayStation 4 units since the console’s launch in Nov. 2013. Despite launching its console a year earlier, Nintendo said in June that in nearly three years, it’s sold 10 million Wii U units to date. Nintendo, once a dominant force in the portable-gaming market, is also forced to watch most of its revenue get gobbled up by Android and iOS.

“Nintendo faces major market challenges,” David Cole, an analyst at DFC Intelligence told Fortune . “In the portable market, they have been hurt by the emergence of smartphones and tablet devices that have many games, which are free. On the console side, Nintendo has lost almost all of its momentum and really needs a new product to reinvent itself. The biggest issue is that Nintendo was noted as a premium game developer with exclusive hardware devices and there are now many top notch game developers and many different hardware devices that can play games.”

Nintendo hasn’t ignored its issues. Earlier this year, Iwata announced that Nintendo would bring some of its top software franchises to Android and iOS in a bid to attract mobile gamers. To address its hardware troubles, Nintendo is working on a new device, code named NX. Still, Nintendo is keeping all information on NX close to the vest and its mobile titles have yet to launch. For now, Nintendo is in a rough spot.

“Nintendo’s current place in the market has been minimized,” Christine Arrington, senior analyst for Games at IHS Technology told Fortune. “While it still holds the interest of its core young gamer demographic, the Wii U was not a big enough change to create upgrade demand from the Wii to the Wii U, and many of its handheld customers have moved on to smartphones and tablets. So, the market just has not moved on and embraced Nintendo’s new offerings.”

But not all is lost.

At a press conference in Japan on Monday, Kimishima said he has no immediate plans to change his company’s strategy, indicating that NX and mobile-gaming development is still in the works. His comments reassured investors who believe Iwata’s plan is the right path for Nintendo. And while other names had been floated to replace Iwata, Kimishima’s history—past work in banking, experience running Nintendo’s U.S. operations, and heading up the company’s Pokemon giant—suggest he may just have all of the tools to fix Nintendo’s ailing business.

“The potential for the new CEO to turn Nintendo around is high,” said Arrington. “The benefit the new CEO has is the history of strength at the company. Despite seeming inflexible regarding the mobile market, overall the company has a long history of moving to where the entertainment market is going. Even this late to the mobile market the company has incredibly powerful franchises that still have huge potential.”

It’s those franchises and market knowledge that have saved Nintendo in the past. When the GameCube was on store shelves and being outsold by the PlayStation 2, Nintendo was quickly counted out. However, the company then turned things around and sold over 100 million Wii units. Regardless of its hardware issues, gamers young and old continue to buy its games in droves. It’s that combination of strong game design and perhaps an acumen for what gamers ultimately want that could help Nintendo and Kimishima succeed.

“You simply cannot count Nintendo out,” Cole said. “They have a great deal of resources and there is still great demand for a device that plays games on television sets. As was shown with the success of the DS in 2004 and the Wii which launched in 2006, all it takes is a hit product to turn things around.”

Sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology.

For more about Nintendo, check out the following Fortune video:

About the Author
By Don Reisinger
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

allbirds
AILayoffs
Allbirds’ 600% stock surge says a lot about how ‘AI washing’ became the new ‘greenwashing’
By Suvrat Dhanorkar and The ConversationMay 21, 2026
23 minutes ago
musk
InvestingIPOs
‘We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs’: SpaceX IPO reads like Hollywood fantasy version of the future
By Bernard Condon and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
1 hour ago
murdoch
Big TechMedia
James Murdoch vows ‘ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations’ as he takes over New York, Vox brands
By Jocelyn Noveck and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
1 hour ago
Traders work after a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.
InvestingMarkets
Wall Street thinks there’s a chance the S&P 500 could push 20% higher by 2027
By Eleanor PringleMay 21, 2026
2 hours ago
Elon Musk sits with his fists together, looking up.
NewslettersTerm Sheet
SpaceX’s IPO filing is full of surprises
By Allie GarfinkleMay 21, 2026
3 hours ago
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiling the company's new manned spacecraft in Hawthorne, Calif. on May 29, 2014. (Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
NewslettersFortune Tech
Rollout complete: SpaceX files IPO prospectus
By Andrew NuscaMay 21, 2026
4 hours ago

Most Popular

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
Success
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
23 hours ago
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
Future of Work
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
By Mike Householder and The Associated PressMay 17, 2026
4 days ago
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
Workplace Culture
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 20, 2026
1 day ago
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
Workplace Culture
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
By Sydney LakeMay 20, 2026
18 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.