Nintendo
- Former Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime left GameStop's board of directors after serving barely a year.
- Company leaders, including former Chewy CEO Ryan Cohen, wouldn't articulate the company's strategy, he said.
- "To me, that was not acceptable," Fils-Aime said during a panel at South by Southwest.
Former head of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime stepped down from GameStop's board of directors because company leaders would not share their vision, he said at a South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas on Saturday.
"There has not been an articulated strategy," he told Bloomberg's Emily Chang. "Leadership says we don't want to articulate our strategy because they don't want it to be stolen. To me, that was not acceptable."
During the gaming retailer's annual shareholders meeting in June 2021, chairman Ryan Cohen said something similar.
"You won't find us talking a big game, making a bunch of lofty promises, or telegraphing our strategy to the competition," Cohen told investors in June 2021. "We know some people want us to lay out a whole detailed plan today, but that's not going to happen."
Fils-Aime stepped down from the company's board in 2021 after serving a period of roughly one year.
He also told the conference GameStop leadership "rebuffed his ideas," according to Bloomberg.
Representatives for Ryan Cohen and GameStop did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
GameStop has otherwise laid out broad plans to transform from a brick-and-mortar retailer to an e-commerce-focused company — the so-called "Amazon of gaming" — and announced an NFT marketplace. Its stock price still reflects the Reddit-driven boom that recapitalized the ailing retailer to the tune of $551 million but has been trailing downward in recent months.
Reggie Fils-Aime served as the president and CEO of Nintendo America during some of the company's most successful years. He oversaw the North American launches of some of Nintendo's most successful consoles, including the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch.
He retired from Nintendo in April 2019.
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