This past weekend, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé gave a lecture at New York University as part of its Game Center Lecture series. Touching on a wide range of topics from his time at Nintendo, he recalled one particularly tense conversation he had with Amazon that explains why the company had such a tumultuous relationship with the retailer during the Wii and DS years. According to Fils-Aimé, Amazon asked Nintendo to undercut the competition in regard to price, which is 100% illegal.
Happening at some point in the late ’00s or early ’10s, Fils-Aimé said, “It was a conversation that got to me after it had progressed through all of the levels of my sales organization. Essentially, what Amazon wanted, is they wanted an obscene amount of support – financial support – so they can have the lowest price and beat Walmart. I literally said to the executive, ‘You know, that’s illegal. I can’t do that.’” After some silence, the Amazon executive stated that was what they wanted, so Nintendo stopped selling to Amazon. “It’s because I wasn’t going to do something illegal,” Fils-Aimé stated.
Elaborating further, Fils-Aimé said, “I wasn’t going to do something that would put at risk the relationships we have with our other retailers, but it also set the stage to say, ‘Look, you’re not going to push me around. This is the way we do business.’ And so, that’s how, overtime, you build respect.” While the two companies weren’t playing ball for a few years after, Fils-Aimé claims that Amazon was ready and willing to help Nintendo when it came time to launch the original Nintendo Switch, which he believes was only possible because of his direct approach to business relations.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
