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Executive shuffle: Nintendo, Disney

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Jan 15, 2008 5:17 pm PT

Denise Kaigler anointed Kaplan's successor as PR doyenne, Jean-Marcel Nicolai leaves Atari to oversee development at Mouse House's game division.

As the Wii continued to break sales records in 2007, Nintendo of America rewarded its sales, PR, and marketing teams by reorganizing and relocating them to New York City and Redwood City, California. As a result, many longtime staffers accepted severance packages rather than relocate, including high-ranking executives like Beth Llewellyn, George Harrison, and Perrin Kaplan.

This week, NOA announced that it had filled Kaplan's position. Taking over is Denise Kaigler (pictured), currently the head of Global Corporate Communications and Corporate Citizenship at Reebok, where she has worked for 16 years. February 18 will be her first day on the job as vice president of marketing and corporate affairs at Nintendo's brand-new Redwood City office. She will report to executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Cammie Dunaway, who replaced George Harrison last November.

Meanwhile, Disney Interactive Studios--formerly known as Buena Vista Games--announced today it, too, has added a new member to its executive team. Jean-Marcel Nicolai, currently the chief technology officer and senior vice president of product development at Atari, will come on board as senior vice president of global production. He joins legendary game designer Warren Spector at DIS, which is currently working on the relaunch of the Turok franchise, due out later this year on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

25 Comments

  • Malaphisis

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 11:26 pm PT

    sweet...will turok be wearing steel toed reeboks?

  • Fireblade003

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 12:32 pm PT

    GZay2Stay, WHAT are you talking about? This is Nintendo of America, they're going to be hiring Americans for marketing.

    Unless you were joking, in which case that still wasn't that funny.

  • mangojuiceboy

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 6:35 am PT

    @ DonutTrooper

    look, if people on this site can turn a article about lets say, xbox live not working properly or sony delaying something (these are just examples by the way) into a fanbot war then I believe me posting first or second is hardley immature or dumb. perhaps my lack punctuation in the prior sentence may perhaps make this post not stand up.

    Anyway, I was just being Dumb, don't really care about this article. And yes, i just waisted about 3 mins just pointing that out..

  • KoolEmpty

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 6:21 am PT

    I read it got bored by the 3rd paragraph...
    tldr version - WTF kind of job position title is "Global Corporate Communications and Corporate Citizenship"

  • suprsolider

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 10:28 pm PT

    Activision was originally a part of Atari, so if they bought Atari then the whole thing will have gone full-circle.
    --

    No it wasn't. Activision was formed by Ex-Atari employee's when they were disgruntled by Ray Kassar's comments to people like David Crane, that a game developer is no more important than the person on the assembly line putting the game together. That obvious didn't sit well. So he, Bob Whitehead, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller left Atari and formed ACTIVISION.

    It would be ironic that Activision would buy Atari though, then it can come full circle. Even though Atari isn't the TRUE Atari. That died over 10 years ago. Atari now is just Infogrames with the Atari name because they bought the rights to the name.

  • IIBlackknightII

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:56 pm PT

    Good experienced person to develop games.Plenty of changes left this year i guess so.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:54 pm PT

    Meh thought they were related.

  • Pete5506

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:36 pm PT

    I will be watching this

  • Jedilink109

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:26 pm PT

    Dude, the Publisher doesn't make the game. The developer does......duh. But Disney will technically be publishing it. So they should advertise it alongside all of their cutesy Disney crap. I would find it comical.

  • IndoAssassin

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:14 pm PT

    Lol Touchstone is publishing Turok. Propaganda Games is developing Turok.

  • Nintendo_Ownes7

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:03 pm PT

    @nickythenewt21 Actually Touchstone is making Turok but Touchstone is owned by Disney so yes Disney is making Turok.

  • nickythenewt21

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:25 pm PT

    Wait... is Disney making Turok?

  • gin_rummy89

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:06 pm PT

    Interesting, I would like to see what comes of this.

  • Nintendo_Ownes7

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:58 pm PT

    athenian29 Activision wasn't part of Atari (The Founders of Activision left Atari to become the very First 3rd Party Developer and the only reason they chose the name Activision is because it was the only choice out of the many names they had to choose the was ahead of Atari in Alphabetical Order.)

  • iAkuma

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:45 pm PT

    I agree with SuperbGamer

  • athenian29

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:44 pm PT

    God, Atari's on it's last leg (and I do mean leg in the singular). I'm just waiting for EA or Acti-Bliz to buy them, and put 'em out of their misery.

    'Course, wouldn't that be ironic? Atari gets bought out by their own ex-division. I really hope you guys know what I'm talking about, but I'll explain for those who don't; Activision was originally a part of Atari, so if they bought Atari then the whole thing will have gone full-circle.

  • Nintendo_Ownes7

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:42 pm PT

    darkzerogamer that has nothing to do with it Reggie used to work at Pizza Hut as a corporate Executive were he was responisible for the Big New Yorker, and Big Foot Pizzas. And Nintendo doesn't have Pizza in there games. but you were probably just kidding, also did that thing say Warren Spector was working on Turok or did it just say Disney because that is kind've hard to understand.

  • SuperbGamer

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 5:58 pm PT

    Disney went well with Kindom Hearts.

  • darkzerogamer

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 5:55 pm PT

    From shoes to videogame systems... Hmmmm. I expect a lot of rebock related games on the wii fit platform now.

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