One of the best parts of the video game industry is finding out that some of the people at the “top of the food chain” are truly gamers like the rest of it. Not everyone indeed falls into that mold, and we see it quite often, but there are times when it’s clear that the people in charge just want to make good games, and gamers enjoy playing them. Nintendo has been famous for this over the years, as multiple big-time executives have revealed their love of Nintendo titles. A current President loves Fire Emblem, for example.
We speak of current Nintendo global President Shuntaro Furukawa. On the most recent episode of the Kit and Krysta podcast, Krysta revealed that she actually met Furukawa when he became Nintendo’s global president. He came to Nintendo of America to introduce himself to everyone, and it was there that he revealed his love of the series:
“At the time he was telling us like, how he was a huge Fire Emblem fan and he was like playing Fire Emblem and he was like “I’m a huge fan, I’ve been playing Fire Emblem, but then I got to the end of Fire Emblem and I was like, the credits were rolling, and it got to the very end and it was like, Executive Producer: Furukawa” like him, right, and he was like “that was a hard cold reality that I had to get back to work”.”
That’s a funny story and one that hopefully will help gamers connect with Mr. Furukawa a bit more in the times to come. Not unlike previous president Satoru Iwata, Furukawa has been doing his best to guide Nintendo to positive ends and keep the company headed on the right path to both growth and game quality.
He’s never been shy about stating certain things about the industry or about Nintendo’s more immediate goals, such as focusing on employee growth rather than buying up studios. Given that The Big N had record profits in 2023, we’d say his business sense is on point.
As for his love of the RPG series, that’s rather cool given the rapid expansion the franchise has had during the Switch era. Not only has it had three successful console releases, but it had a mobile game release that was the most profitable entry in the “mobile expansion” that Nintendo started years back.
With the next Nintendo Direct scheduled for June, perhaps we’ll see Furukawa’s beloved franchise make an appearance.
