Former Nintendo Of America Boss Reggie Fils-Aime Reacts To Microsoft And Sony’s Acquisition Sprees

In a new interview, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has shared his thoughts on the recent spate of acquisitions in the gaming industry. Sony and Microsoft have spent considerable sums of cash on studios and publishers, but Fils-Aime predicts that these acquisitions will see more veteran developers exit so that they can escape the corporate system.

“I do believe [that in the next few years] we’re going to see a number of senior accomplished developers leave these mega-corporations and go on their own because these are the people who want to create something new, something exciting,” Fils-Aime said to Fanbyte. “They’ve got a game idea in the back of their head that they want to bring to fruition and the fact of the matter is in the big mega studios, they’re working on the next sequel. They’re working on the next Halo, they’re working on the next fill-in-the-blank that was a part of that prior studio.

Fils-Aime added that the lack of innovation will be a key deciding factor in senior developers striking out on their own, which will in turn benefit the gaming industry as a number of developers “drive more and more innovation” back into the scene.

In recent years, a number of developers have left big-name studios and publishers to set up their companies. Former Blizzard developers announced the creation of their own company, Notorious Studios, in late 2021, Toshihiro Nagoshi left Sega to form Nagoshi Studio under Netease Games, and The Callisto Protocol’s development at Striking Distance Studios is being led by Call of Duty and Dead Space veteran Glen Schofield.

In other Fils-Aime news, the executive discussed how blockchain and NFT technology could benefit gamers if the technology is given time to mature and remove bad actors from its development. Fils-Aime also launched a new book this year, Disrupting the Game, in which he discusses his life and career which took from numerous executive jobs to Nintendo and a tour on GameStop’s board of directors until he quit due to what he said was a rudderless outlook.