Reggie Fils-Aime: "Nintendo's counterpunch is disruption"

Brandweek, a trade magazine for marketing, today published an opinion piece from Nintendo's Reginald Fils-Aime. Being that Mr. Fils-Aime's job requires that he boast his product in the most universal manner possible, his article is very easy to read and unabashedly supportive of Nintendo's ideology–no surprises there. Citing the movie industry as an example of a medium that did not evolve on technology alone ("Remember Waterworld? If you don't, you're not alone."), Reggie emphasizes the need for "disruptive" technologies, i.e. a technology capable of "overturning a predominant industry trend."

Fils-Aime continues from the movie industry to the consumer electronics sector (take note of the iPod mention and recall the very Apple-esque style of the new Nintendo DS Lite) and then onto his major point: the video game industry. "Mounting evidence shows," says Fils-Aime, "that we may well have overshot our own market." You can guess what follows next: discussion on the DS's current success and the
"code-named" Revolution's future success in expanding the market.

While the slant is obvious,
Fils-Aime's choice quote from Jack Welch intrigued us: "Change–before you have to." The video game industry has always changed, to varying degrees, every 4 years or so. We have no doubt Nintendo will be here for generations to come, but how much of Nintendo's next-generation technology do you think will be adopted by the competition?

[Thanks, Vik]