Iwata's approval rating goes up

http://nintendoenthusiast.com/news/iwatas-approval-rating-goes-year-year/

It shows a year over year increase in spite of the infamous Wii U game drought of '13. To be honest I'm a little torn over this. In the end it will probably be either a great thing or a disaster. I don't think there will be a happy middle. Hopefully there will be a huge list of games for 2015, and that Star Fox will be the game we all hope it will be.

Hopefully we get more rpg's and not just X, seems like Mistwalker may not make anything for the U.

Still a Boo!!! from me, I just hope all the titles they shown "coming in 2015" *actually* comes in 2015 & not delayed to 2016. Especially Xenoblade Chronicles X

I literally don't care what happens to Iwata at all.

I thank him for his time at HAL and Kirby. Whoever is prez will do a good job, I'm sure. If not, whatever. I'm a consumer that enjoys the games, not studying the lives of corporate execs.

I'm more interested in games for the platform, not approval ratings for execs. I don't care about Activision, Playstation, Xbox, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, or any other exec approval ratings.

So much for a shake-up at Ninty HQ.

I'd like to be a fly in the room when each person casts their vote.

Well that means you inadvertently care about who is president and what happens to Iwata. Iwata started off as a programmer (often described as a "genius" one at that), and moved on from there. He has a predisposition and a vision for the company. Switch that with say (hypothetically) the previous head of the Xbox division, and you'll get a vastly different direction for the company, which in turn changes the kinds of games you get from Nintendo.

@trugs26: It was a big direction change from when Peter Moore was in charge of Xbox. Moore brought in japanese developer Mistwalker, fought for multiplatform status for GTA4, and brought the Final Fantasy franchise to Xbox. After Mattrick came in then it shifted to AAA big budget games with bland sequels, MTs and DLC. You can almost pinpoint to the year when the 360 shifted to new leadership. People can say that the corporate part of gaming doesn't exist or they don't care about it, but its a big deal. Whether they care to admit it or not.

You can look at how much things have changed from Mattrick to Harrison if you want another example.

@juboner: Well if that article about the Xenosaga HD trilogy comes true that could be Monolith Soft's next project after they complete X. I'd be tickled pink if that happens. I still can't believe that Xenoblade is even possible on the Wii.

Of course I know that replacing a leader changes a companies direction, but since I have no say in the matter it's like worrying about if it's going to rain. I've seen too many fantastic companies go under and I had no power to stop it. I've seen terrible CEO's like Kotick thrive and again I had no power to stop it. Yeah, I buy the games at retail on launch and reserved games. I love supporting my favorite developers, but it's not enough individually. So I'm not going to spend my days worrying about an execs approval ratings. It's just ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. I know all about Iwata hence my comment about HAL above (underlined). I follow developers, but I don't care about corporate politics. That's where I draw the line. These guys get paid millions of dollars and I'm not going to be on the sidelines stalking and cheer-leading these corporate execs.

It's not that I don't understand how these execs affect the companies, it's that I realized long ago I don't play a part in it. Furthermore, approval ratings? C'mon this is scraping the bottom of the barrel for news. The real headline is if Iwata is gone or he remains, that's it. I would read an article about who's replacing him. The build up that leads to nothing though (in this case Iwata is staying and there is no transition in place)? It's throw away news...especially approval ratings.

As I said above: "I thank him for his time at HAL and Kirby. Whoever is prez will do a good job, I'm sure. If not, whatever."

@SolidTy: Actually everyone who games has a say in the matter. If you don't like the direction they are going you don't buy their products. Its a system that's as old as time. It also affects the direction a company goes. Nintendo went for the casual consumer with Wii because the poor sales of the GCN were not as high as they hoped.

@bunchanumbers:I still can't believe that Xenoblade is even possible on the Wii.

It sounds like every time I play the game my disc drive is losing years off its life. But thats what it takes to make it happen on Wii hardware I guess lol.

Of course everyone has a say when they buy products...I'm well aware of sales, I ran retail stores. That's a straw-man argument. My purchase of a single or even double dipping copies of games doesn't control the industry and it never will. I had more control when I was managing various stores and having my management team under me pitching products (I instructed them to do so and then have their employees do the same) and even then I had very little influence on the industry. You are taking a collective mentality and as I said I'm coming from a personal hobbyist perspective.

I'm also a self described video-game historian having a collection that goes back to Atari/Intellivision far before Nintendo entered the console arena so your comment is out of left field as far as I'm concerned. I bought two Wii Us at launch and the Wii U isn't the hot selling product despite my best efforts buying two launch machines.

Again, I'll say it. Approval ratings for executives I'll never care about that sort of news. It's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned. An executive's replacement? I'd care a little bit knowing who the new guy is, but this bit of info is a waste as Iwata is staying. That means more threads repeatedly over and over about approval ratings for the next decade? Sounds terrible. I was more impressed with Hiroshi Yamauchi's accomplishments with Nintendo than Iwata in any event.

I find Nintendo under Iwata severely lacking vision, and that's part of the problem. They can't seem to decide what they want. Do they want the casual, or the core? Do they want healthcare, or games? Iwata's Nintendo is all over the place in terms of vision and focus. Moves like QoL was (admitted by Iwata himself I believe) quickly cooked up by him over a period of weeks to help placate investors after Iwata recognized goals would not be met. It came out of nowhere. Usually with a company that has a vision and knows what it wants there's a steady and driven alteration in course to that area, not a drastic "pull the rabbit out of the hat" move that nobody could have possibly seen coming.

"Try to throw it at the wall and hope it sticks" is the vision I get from Iwata's Nintendo. He comes off as a buffoon that has no idea what he's doing and is way in over his head. Nintendo has never given off such a feeling of confusion, cluelessness and misdirection as it has under his tenure. I can only hope his re-election doesn't destroy Nintendo any further than he's already done these past three years.