Nintendo: Fan Demands Don’t Affect What We Do

All the passionate Tweets and bold petitions? Maybe it makes the fans feel better about the future of a particular project, but according to Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime, that type of outcry doesn’t affect the way the company does business. Speaking with Siliconera, Fils-Aime was asked about Operation Moonfall and Rainfall. These were two fan-driven campaigns intended to persuade Nintendo into re-releasing Zelda Majora's Mask for 3DS and Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower for the Wii.

Nintendo knew these campaigns were going on, but that doesn’t mean that they worked.

"I have to tell you-it doesn't affect what we do," Reggie said. "We certainly look at it, and we're certainly aware of it, but it doesn't necessarily affect what we do. I'll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that our head of product development had a bet on X versus Y-we also had a bet around localizing Xenoblade.

"I wanted to bring Xenoblade here. The deal was, how much of a localization effort is it? How many units are we going to sell, are we going to make money? We were literally having this debate while Operation Rainfall was happening, and we were aware that there was interest for the game, but we had to make sure that it was a strong financial proposition.

"I'm paid to make sure that we're driving the business forward-so we're aware of what's happening, but in the end we've got to do what's best for the company. The thing we know [about petitions] is that 100,000 signatures doesn't mean 100,000 sales."

We encounter a new petition just about every day, and while the enthusiasm can be great to see, just know that the decisions almost always come down to what makes the most sense for the company.