Yamauchi Retiring from Nintendo's Board

terrisus writes "While he had stepped down as President a few years back, Hiroshi Yamauchi had remained on Nintendo's Board of Directors. In June, however, Yamauchi will now be retiring from the Board of Directors as well. He will be foregoing his multi-million dollar retirement package, instead desiring the money be put to work in other places. He will still be a 10% stockholder in the company. It's sad to see him go."

Comments

Non-greedy executive?

[Fyre2012]

"He will be foregoing his multi-million dollar retirement package, instead desiring the money be put to work in other places"


Wow... i'm impressed... when was the last time any other executive ever gave up a multi-million dollar severance package with the advice "it's best spent on something other than me"

what would happen if exec's around the world took this example to heart?

Well there it is then

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Yamauchi is going and so ends an era. No doubt, for a time Nintendo got too big for their boots although I have little pity when Nintendo originallly screwed Sony way back and made fools out of them.

However times changed, audienced moved on. Sony moved forward, Nintendo stood still. A stream of half baked products didn't help them and the once mighty Nintendo who simply ruled the home console market for so long became part of the past. Of course M$ didn't help much either. Difficult to know what to feel, I always got the impression Yamauchi was a bit an ol' stick in the mud and not a particularly nice person.

Re:Well there it is then

[CSMastermind]

You know I never liked Yamauchi but I respect the man for what he was able to do. Your observations about the game industry are slighly off base. You're right times did change. Still Nintendo wasn't standing still. More 64's were sold than super nintendos believe it or not. It's simply that Sony opened up NEW markets. They found people who had never owned a gaming console and they sold to them. At first they fudged the numbers to try and make their console look better. They orginally marketed the PS2 as a cheap DVD player. In fact, the fact that they included a DVD player and the Dreamcast didn't have one was proablly a big reason that Sony went down so hard in those console wars. Nintendo's marketshare may be a shadow of it's former self but I wouldn't go counting them down and out. On a side note, god bless microsoft (bet I just offened 80% of slashdot with that). But I mean it. I'm thankfull for the X-Box. It's a good concept and god forbid it's by an American company. I hope they crush Sony in the next round of consoles and I'm pretty sure that if they do they'll do it with better games (they already have better hardware) so everyone will win.

Re:Well there it is then

[happymedium]

Nintendo originallly screwed Sony way back and made fools out of them

Yes, Nintendo did quit the Playstation-as-SNES-addon deal, but that probably ended up being the best thing that ever happened to Sony. You can hardly say the Big N "made fools out of them."

I agree with your assessment of Yamauchi, though. He seemed very pompous, feeling personally betrayed by Squaresoft's decision to start producing for the PS, when in fact the CD format was the only way they could have done justice to FFVII's story and scope. Nintendo is still playing catch-up to recover from the decisions he made and the crucial bridges he burned.

Re:Well there it is then

[Doctor_Jest]

I think the console manufacturers are going to have a hard time this go-round basing their consoles on horsepower and pixel-pushing. Sure there will be that contingent of people who always have to have "the best', but if Nintendo's any indication (particularly in the handheld market) it's that gameplay is the key, not hardware.

The thing that killed the Dreamcast was the Microsoft tactic of "wait! Our console will slice bread, give you sex anytime you want, and make a lifelong companion!" Sony hyped the SNOT out of the PS2, and people waited. That waiting crushed Sega's strapped financials enough that it couldn't launch a counterattack when the PS2 did come out (with shitty launch titles and less than advertised power.) I don't know if Sony can do that twice in its lifetime. We'll have to see. If they can, the XBox will suffer in sales while people "wait" for the next big thing from Sony.

But back to my original point. You can have the best console numbers in terms of raw horsepower in the world, but if you don't have a library of games people want to play, you're not going to go very far. Microsoft's console may be more powerful, but with the exception of a few titles, Sony's got the big games and developers wrapped up. Microsoft's getting a Square game (rumors, I think. Has it been confirmed?) And if that's the case, it might be the coup of the century.

Maybe I'm way off base, but I think we're going to see the graphical "leaps and bounds" start to slow down this next generation of consoles, just like CPU speed's no longer becoming a huge update every 18 months. It's not necessarily engineering limitations, but there's only so real you can make something before people aren't 'wowed' by your creations anymore. The hook of "more lifelike" whatever might not hook that many who are satisfied with the tons of games and tons of things for the current consoles. I mean, who has time to play all the library of games for these machines?

PSX -> PS2 (big leap)... PS2 -> XBox a lesser leap (but one nonetheless, with XBox's powerful hardware compared to the PS2) PS2 -> PS3 Not such a huge leap.

XBox -> XBox Next? I'm betting it will be less than a huge leap too.

Eh, I'm just rambling. It might be that the new consoles are the shiznit. I just don't have a feeling they will be.

Game Face

[Doc Ruby]

He must have done something really bad - like help Nintendo slip out the eponym slot for "home videogame". Otherwise, he would have taken the huge retirement bonus in more stock at a preferred price (like an option), or just cash with which to buy stock like anyone else. $10M in cash infusion that way could have given the company money to use, perhaps bumping the share price up, while smoothing his transition from prez -> director -> major shareholder. Nobody's that "nice", and I'm sure many others will also be suspicious, which will hurt the company,

Re:Game Face

[Staats]

He's 77 years old and filthy rich. What the hell does he want 10 million dollars for? He's a competitor, always has, always will be, and now he wants his side to win.

Re:Bye Yamauchi

[FidelCatsro]

Perhaps he should have retierd sooner , but without him , chances are Nintendo would today still be selling paper-backed playing cards

Re:Bye Yamauchi

[Maul]

Your statement would be insightful except for the fact that Nintendo is a profitable company.

Re:It is sad

[SetupWeasel]

Now that Namco is making games like Star Fox Assult, Donkey Konga, and the arcade Mario Kart, I think much of the wounds have healed. Nintendo has been going out of their way to mend relations with 3rd parties in the last couple years.