(Editor Update: IGN, who are known to have especially tight connections with Nintendo, have confirmed the news with their sources as well. So, looks like it’s true.)
Everyone has probably heard all about Nintendo’s plans to move their Marketing branch to NYC and San Francisco. However, since that announcement there has been little fan fare or other news about what effects this was going to have on the company.
Until today.
Today Game Informer’s Billy Berghammer released a piece that discussed the consequences of the decision. According to Berghammer an estimated 90% of the Marketing staff at Nintendo is going to take severance packages instead of relocating. While this may not seem like that big of a deal when we refer to these people as “the Marketing staff,” it becomes much more interesting when some of the invidual names of those who are leaving are noted. Not only is Nintendo supposedly losing their Vice President, Marking and Corporate Affairs, Perrin Kaplan, but they are also supposed to lose Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Communications George Harrison.
If this rumor proves true, Nintendo will be losing almost all the big faces of marketing that gamers have seen in the last years. While Reggie Fils-Aime certainly is a huge personality, it makes one wonder who they will get to replace them? Who will give us the ridiculous comments of Perrin Kaplan or the total corporate spin of Harrison?
While in the end I don’t think this is going to have any real effect on Nintendo’s sales, and could even help out Nintendo by bringing in fresh minds, I do feel sad at the prospect of seeing the people whose comments I loved to laugh at, leave.
Chufmoney