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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

Yamauchi Retiring from Nintendo's Board 141

Posted by CowboyNeal from the calling-it-quits dept.
terrisus writes "While he had stepped down as President a few years back, Hiroshi Yamauchi had remained on Nintendo's Board of Directors. In June, however, Yamauchi will now be retiring from the Board of Directors as well. He will be foregoing his multi-million dollar retirement package, instead desiring the money be put to work in other places. He will still be a 10% stockholder in the company. It's sad to see him go."
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Yamauchi Retiring from Nintendo's Board More

Yamauchi Retiring from Nintendo's Board

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  • My Yamauchi retired a while ago (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:43AM (#12392585)
    Apparently, I didn't feed it enough. I'm surprise Nintendo kept theirs alive this long.

  • It is sad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:44AM (#12392590)
    But despite being sad probably not a bad thing. Yamauchi is pretty much personally responsible for the fact that Nintendo in the mid-90s were frankly a bunch of unrepentant assholes, and thus indirectly responsible for the fleeing of Square and pretty much all of the rest of Nintendo's developer base as well. His departure from the spot at the helm of Nintendo meanwhile is the chief reason for Nintendo's relative degree of recovery lately. Many companies however, such as Namco, have still indicated they retain hard feelings over the treatment they received from yamauchi.

    That said, exactly what is the functional difference between being on the board and owning 10% of the company anyway?

    • Re:It is sad (Score:3, Informative)

      by TEMM ( 731243 )
      The board makes decisions that affect the company directly, while shareholders are only responsible for electing the board of governors.
    • Personally, I was pretty happy/excited when I heard he was retiring. This guy might have done great things for the company way back when, but the last 10 years or so of his career were awful. The day I read the interview with him where he pretty much says "Screw Square, we don't need them!", I knew why Nintendo was slipping towards failure. I can only hope the new pres. will be able to repair the damage this guy did...

    • Re:It is sad (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SetupWeasel ( 54062 )
      Now that Namco is making games like Star Fox Assult, Donkey Konga, and the arcade Mario Kart, I think much of the wounds have healed. Nintendo has been going out of their way to mend relations with 3rd parties in the last couple years.
    • That said, exactly what is the functional difference between being on the board and owning 10% of the company anyway?

      Well, let's see. As a 10% shareholder, you just get 10% voting power on anything that is voted on in proxies. You don't really get much if the shares are common, non-preferred shares. As a director, you get an additional retainer/salary which takes the form of cash, stock, or stock options, and depending on the size of the company can be quite large (anywhere from $25k to $1 million) per
    • IAALSD (I am a licensed securities dealer).

      The board of directors by law must consist of at least 40% "uninterested parties". Uninterested meaning not stockholders, working for the company, family members of people working for the company, etc.

      Which of course means that 60% still CAN be part owner (stockholders).

      Of course, this is USA SEC law. I don't know Japan's laws, but I would expect that they are similar.

      I don't know the makeup of Nintendo's shareholders or their method of voting in board members,

  • Non-greedy executive? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fyre2012 ( 762907 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:52AM (#12392625) Homepage Journal

    "He will be foregoing his multi-million dollar retirement package, instead desiring the money be put to work in other places"

    Wow... i'm impressed... when was the last time any other executive ever gave up a multi-million dollar severance package with the advice "it's best spent on something other than me"

    what would happen if exec's around the world took this example to heart?

    • does that included a intern pressing the feed button daily?
    • He owns 10% of a company with a "$7+ billion war chest". I assume that means liquid assets and not the total value of the company. So turning down $10 million or so might be for a tax break.
    • ...wow no more greedy execs?

      umm...I guess the next in charge would be the greedy managers :^P an okay cause I guess

    • No slight against Mr. Yamaguchi, but this doesn't even compare to the amount of charity Bill Gates does on yearly basis. He's forgoing a severance package worth somewhere between $2 and $10 million (estimated based on general Japanese practice -- their executives are not well compensated salary-wise compared to American ones, although they have "perks" which are kept off the books to balance things out, but thats a whole 'nother topic)... but not his 10% of a $13 billion dollar market capitalization (might
    • The precedent was set by Robert Townsend when he was president of American Express in the late 50s, refusing to take a bonus or pay increase while still working, because that would be misappropriating the stockholder's money.

      KFG

    • Re:Non-greedy executive? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tirinal ( 667204 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @01:31PM (#12393077)
      Things like this are actually par the course in Japan, where the yearly salary ratio of the top 10% of wage earners to the bottom 10% is only 4:1. In America it's 15:1, for reference.

      In short: yay for work ethic.
      • In short: yay for work ethic.

        That's work ethic? I thought work ethic was when you worked 60 hours a week for 40 hours pay.

      • Re:Non-greedy executive? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Nept ( 21497 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @03:09PM (#12393565) Journal
        Chief executives at U.S. companies that shipped jobs overseas won a 46 percent pay hike last year, more than five times the average CEO raise. If the U.S. minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay has since 1990, it would be $15.76 an hour instead of the current $5.15. CEO pay overall was 301 times higher than the $26,899 earned by the average production worker. The pay for CEOs who outsource was about 3,300 times the pay of an Indian call center employee or 1,300 times that of an average Indian computer programer.

        Ref:
        Title: U.S. CEOs Who Outsource Get Bigger Pay Hike-Survey
        Source: Reuters
        Author: Andrea Hopkins
    • Wow... i'm impressed... when was the last time any other executive ever gave up a multi-million dollar severance package with the advice "it's best spent on something other than me"

      As a 10% stockholder, chances are he will be reaping financial benefits from this action; it's nothing more than a long-term view.

      That's the purpose of giving stock to board members and CEOs and so forth - it gives them a long-term interest, rather than focussing them on the bonusses associated with short-term gains.

  • Eat the cherries (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:53AM (#12392628)
    Perhaps his health is in decline? It's hard to imagine that anything else could push him to retire.

    A few powerups and he'll be back.

  • Well there it is then (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:53AM (#12392633)
    Mr. Yamauchi is going and so ends an era. No doubt, for a time Nintendo got too big for their boots although I have little pity when Nintendo originallly screwed Sony way back and made fools out of them.

    However times changed, audienced moved on. Sony moved forward, Nintendo stood still. A stream of half baked products didn't help them and the once mighty Nintendo who simply ruled the home console market for so long became part of the past. Of course M$ didn't help much either. Difficult to know what to feel, I always got the impression Yamauchi was a bit an ol' stick in the mud and not a particularly nice person.
    • You know I never liked Yamauchi but I respect the man for what he was able to do. Your observations about the game industry are slighly off base. You're right times did change. Still Nintendo wasn't standing still. More 64's were sold than super nintendos believe it or not. It's simply that Sony opened up NEW markets. They found people who had never owned a gaming console and they sold to them. At first they fudged the numbers to try and make their console look better. They orginally marketed the PS
      • I think the console manufacturers are going to have a hard time this go-round basing their consoles on horsepower and pixel-pushing. Sure there will be that contingent of people who always have to have "the best', but if Nintendo's any indication (particularly in the handheld market) it's that gameplay is the key, not hardware.

        The thing that killed the Dreamcast was the Microsoft tactic of "wait! Our console will slice bread, give you sex anytime you want, and make a lifelong companion!" Sony hyped the SN

        • Just one note:

          Microsoft's getting a Square game (rumors, I think. Has it been confirmed?) And if that's the case, it might be the coup of the century.

          Actually, Microsoft is getting two Mist Walker games. Mist Walker is a new studio run by the guy who invented Final Fantasy.

          Mist Walker is also working on a strategy RPG for DS. Frankly, they smell to me like a studio that rents the name of their famous founder... but we'll see how they perform.

          • Mist Walker is also working on a strategy RPG for DS. Frankly, they smell to me like a studio that rents the name of their famous founder... but we'll see how they perform.

            Though it is possible this will end up being true, this kind of thing is growing common in Japan. A lot of awesome developers are starting very small studios who then collaborate with larger studios to finish the games. In some ways more of a Hollywood model.
        • As GP said, it is the end of a era. I think the end of this era was with the Nintendo 64 , Playstation and Dreamcast (and the others).

          You see, I think Microsoft and Sony are making the best they can, they both entered a new established market (for them) using their own markets power to enter.

          Microsoft played cheap by making a Gaming PC, Sony used what they had from their previous Nintendo short time relation.

          But now, we have seen the old generation competitors vanish, remember Neo-Geo, Sega, Turbo
        • The thing that killed the Dreamcast was the Microsoft tactic of "wait! Our console will slice bread, give you sex anytime you want, and make a lifelong companion!"

          Microsoft hadn't even announced the X-Box by the time the Dreamcast's production had ceased. What you're probably (mis)remembering is the often repeated tale about how Sony killed the Dreamcast by announcing the specifications for the PlayStation 2 the day before the Dreamcast release.

          Of course, anyone which remembers Nintendo doing that to Se
          • No. Sony's console was announced and Sega beat Sony to the market by quite a few months. But since Sony had announced the specs over time, people "waited" to see what Sony was going to come up with.

            I never said Microsoft had any hand in the death of Segas console.

            The software support for the Sega platform went to Sony when the Sony people threw money at developers to get "exclusive" deals. Sega had no capital to pursue that.

            I don't believe the sole reason the PS2 won over the Dreamcast was the release
    • Nintendo just never got the nerve to sell to the graphics obsessed gamer. It's really a shame because I think they would be so much bigger if they did.

      I just think great graphics and gameplay that isn't awful, but does not have to be great will normally sell games to MANY MANY people that and some good marketing.

      • Just FYI, the GC is generally considered to be more powerful hardware than the PS2, and the graphics are usually better than comparable PS2 titles.
        • It is considered to be more powerful, and that's part of the problem. Far too many of Nintendo's games look like they were ported from the N64 (which is often true). And even their flagship titles like Super Mario Sunshine are pretty far from impressive when it comes to graphics and art. Third parties have obviously done some amazing things with the hardware, but Nintendo of Japan really hasn't.
          • It may be a lame tech demo, but you either live in your own little reality or you never touched Luigi's Mansion.
            Even more recent titles like Metroid Prime blow away anything that the N64 could dream of.

            The only N64 ports on the Gamecube are the 2 zelda titles, and Animal Crossing (not release on N64 outside Japan so whats the big deal).

            Do you even own/play Nintendo games on this generation?
    • Nintendo originallly screwed Sony way back and made fools out of them

      Yes, Nintendo did quit the Playstation-as-SNES-addon deal, but that probably ended up being the best thing that ever happened to Sony. You can hardly say the Big N "made fools out of them."

      I agree with your assessment of Yamauchi, though. He seemed very pompous, feeling personally betrayed by Squaresoft's decision to start producing for the PS, when in fact the CD format was the only way they could have done justice to FFVII's story a

  • Well, at least he's honorable. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:53AM (#12392635) Homepage
    I'm impressed by not taking money for leaving, unlike a certain Fiorina we all know.

  • Domo Arigato ,Mr. YamuchiO! (Score:5, Informative)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday April 30, 2005 @11:55AM (#12392647) Journal
    The man who took nintendo from a local playing card company , to a corperate Behemoth of the Gaming world.
    If it wern't for his foresight , it is likely today the only time you would hear the name nintendo , is if for some reason someone read the manufacturing info on a deck of cards during a game of poker.
    http://www.nintendoland.com.nyud.net:8090/home2.ht m?history/hist1.htm [nyud.net]
    Thats a nice quick rundown of the history of the company .

  • Game Face (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
    He must have done something really bad - like help Nintendo slip out the eponym [prairienet.org] slot for "home videogame". Otherwise, he would have taken the huge retirement bonus in more stock at a preferred price (like an option), or just cash with which to buy stock like anyone else. $10M in cash infusion that way could have given the company money to use, perhaps bumping the share price up, while smoothing his transition from prez -> director -> major shareholder. Nobody's that "nice", and I'm sure many others wi

    • Re:Game Face (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Staats ( 877154 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @01:12PM (#12392980)
      He's 77 years old and filthy rich. What the hell does he want 10 million dollars for? He's a competitor, always has, always will be, and now he wants his side to win.
      • Rich people love $10M. The $10M isn't much difference against their $7B (0.14%, a daily fluctuation). As I pointed out, transacting the $10M in stock would have made them all look better. He's getting kicked out, and paying a price.
    • He owns a tenth of the company. If the reinvestment of the money which would have been granted him makes itself back ten times over before he dies, which is virtually guaranteed, he makes a net profit.

      It's simple business sense.

  • A Genius (Score:5, Informative)

    by warmgun ( 669556 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @12:15PM (#12392734)
    Maybe he was responsible for some of Nintendo's Microsoft-esque strong arm tactics with distributors and publishers, but Nintendo is still a very profitable company, despite being #2 or #3 in the console race, much due to his leadership. Can Microsoft say that about their videogames division? Nintendo is going to be here for a long time to come and it's all due to Yamauchi-san. He will be missed.

    Just FYI, did you know he's the largest shareholder of the Seattle Mariners?

    • Was the largest shareholder of the Seattle Mariners. Nintendo of America now owns the 54% of the team that was his. This happened about 10 months ago. Either way though, the man helped save baseball in Seattle, which makes him a well liked person here.

  • Not worried... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ChrisHanel ( 636741 ) on Saturday April 30, 2005 @12:15PM (#12392735) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure this is just a move to free up his schedule for more Donkey Konga.

  • Yamauchi wants Nintendos to make movies. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30, 2005 @12:43PM (#12392854)
    Yamauchi's last major decision at Nintendo was to get the company into animated films. http://www.joystiq.com/entry/2511842316440486/ [joystiq.com] This may be a good idea. PlayStation marginalized Nintendo's consoles, and PSP will probably marginalize Nintendo's handhelds. But if Nintendo makes CG movies in house, they could do Pixar quality animation with Ghibli-quality stories at under half of Pixar's production budget.

    Admittedly, Yamauchi wants Nintendo's first movie(s) to be about some ancient Japanese poems, but that may just be some personal favor he's asking the company to do for him, since his hobby is Go and other old Japanese stuff. After that, Nintendo will probably start adapting their games into movies, as well as making original movie franchises.

    Nintendo is a relatively small company that can't hold onto an established market once cash-rich conglomerates like Sony and Microsoft set their sights on it. Nintendo is best at creating and exploding new markets that nobody else believes in. They did it with the NES. They did it with Game Boy. They did it by bringing Pokemon to USA (in 1996, Nintendo Power itself predicted that Pokemon was too foreign to become popular in USA). Soon, Nintendo might do it again. This time with movies.

    • Well, I mean (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Something to look at here is exactly how much Nintendo is making off of Pokemon outside of just the actual Pokemon video games. Between the cards and the tv show and the movies, Nintendo hasn't followed the traditional paths of either making a video game and pushing it/merchandising it in the media, or a media event like a movie with a video game made about it. They've made a media phenomenon that just happens to incorporate both television media and video game aspects. And it's worked well. It might make s
    • My take on this is that Nintendo realized their primary assets are their name and their creative staff. They don't have Microsoft's money, they don't have Sony's other business, but they have the best videogame hardware and software designers. It is in their best interest to shake up the industry as much as possible because they are better positioned to capitalize on it. MS and Sony have a tendency to focus group everything, while Nintendo will just jump in feet first. The trick is getting third parties to
      • It is in their best interest to shake up the industry as much as possible because they are better positioned to capitalize on it. MS and Sony have a tendency to focus group everything, while Nintendo will just jump in feet first. The trick is getting third parties to follow along.

        That's a good point, although 'back in the day' (pre-PSX?) the third parties were also relatively small and the costs of making a game were much smaller.

        That made it much easier for the third parties to be flexible and take
    • I'm not sure where you're coming from to imply that Nintendo's sales are "marginalized" (last I checked, five million DS units sold [gamesindustry.biz] is not indicative of marginalization, nor is a 37% overall market share), and you must of course realize that although it is a "relatively small company" when compared to Sony and Microsoft, it is certainly not small on any objective scale.
      • I'm not sure where you're coming from to imply that Nintendo's sales are "marginalized" (last I checked, five million DS units sold is not indicative of marginalization, nor is a 37% overall market share)

        Funny point. the margins on a default page in openoffice here is over an inch on all sides, the percentage of page space being dedicated to margins is at least 37% overall. :-)
    • They did it with the NES. They did it with Game Boy.

      They did it with the Virtual Boy... whoops!
  • Hiroshi Yamauchi is basically Nintendo's version of Eisner at Disney, he brought them to the top and then slammed them back down. He was just using old buisness practices that were outmoded, with so much going on at Nintendo now with the DS and Revolution hopefully this will be a brand new age for them.

    Iwata will do a fine job, and Reggie will actually be able to kick ass and take names now ;)
  • the article that link goes to says he was president from 1949 to 2002....1949?? Asians must have slowed the aging process cause Hiroshi still looks fairly young to me. :)
  • especially with microsoft entering the market and try to outspend everyone... I think nintendo is worried if it followed microsoft's strategy it might end up like Sega
  • He did a great job running Nintendo through the 90's but he's the reason they are falling so far behind, he's the one who tells us what we want instead of listening to the gamer. Im glad to see him go, Maybe now Nintendo will regain some market share and stop with all the BS.
    • I think you meant he did a great job running Nintendo through the 80's. The 90's would have been a disaster for Nintendo if it hadnt been for Pokemon, which in turn kept the game boy afloat and resurrected (for a while at least) the N64. Pokemon has been Nintendo's biggest money maker since Mario, who frankly hasn't been doing much since Mario64. Except for sitting in his cellar 'cleaning his pipes' so to speak... Sounds a bit like a slashdotter actually 8)

      • True that made big money, but Nintendo needs the money of an older audience to survive. Companies are making less and less games for Nintendo systems, a 2 generation deep trend that Nintendo cant afford if it happens next gen. Like you said, alot of quick money but in the long run they were shooting themselves by only catering mainly to 12 and under.
    • He did a great job running Nintendo through the 90's but he's the reason they are falling so far behind

      Actually, he's the reason they passed Microsoft up almost a year ago, with the drop of the GameCube to $100. Nintendo has closed the console gap with Sony to 7:1, the lowest it's been in six years.

      Nintendo's catching up, fast, not falling behind.

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