Nintendo appoints new president, former Pokemon exec Tatsumi Kimishima
Following the death of Satoru Iwata in July, the gaming giant has turned to the chairman of Nintendo of America.
Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has picked a new leader, Tatsumi Kimishima, following the death of Satoru Iwata in July.
Nintendo will be hoping that its new boss' business experience will help alleviate the company's recent troubles, as its Wii U games console struggles to compete against rival hardware from Microsoft and Sony. Before his death from a bile duct growth at age 55, the late Satoru Iwata confirmed that Nintendo was working on a new games platform, code-named 'NX', and that the company would be experimenting with mobile games.
Kimishima, 65, has worked at Nintendo since 2000, when he served as the chief financial officer for the Pokemon Company, which is the corporation in charge of marketing and licensing the lucrative Pokemon franchise. He subsequently served as Nintendo's president of America, and earlier in his career worked for the Sanwa Bank of Japan.
"We aim to strengthen and enhance the management structure of the company," Nintendo said in a notice issued today, "following President (Representative Director) Satoru Iwata's passing on July 11, 2015 and a large-scale revision of the organizational structure of the company."
Along with the new appointment come a series of changes at Nintendo's upper echelons. Genyo Takeda, who played a huge role in the development of the Wii console, will soon be known as Technology Fellow, while industry icon Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda, gets the new title of Creative Fellow.
