Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has commented on Operation Rainfall, a petition effort that successfully saw Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower localised in the west. Yet, he feels that these campaigns do little in terms of driving sales.
Speaking with Siliconera, Fils-Aime said of Operation Rainfall, “I have to tell you—it doesn’t affect what we do. We certainly look at it, and we’re certainly aware of it, but it doesn’t necessarily affect what we do.
“I’ll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that our head of product development had a bet on X versus Y—we also had a bet around localizing Xenoblade. I wanted to bring Xenoblade here. The deal was, how much of a localization effort is it? How many units are we going to sell, are we going to make money? We were literally having this debate while Operation Rainfall was happening, and we were aware that there was interest for the game, but we had to make sure that it was a strong financial proposition.
“I’m paid to make sure that we’re driving the business forward—so we’re aware of what’s happening, but in the end we’ve got to do what’s best for the company. The thing we know [about petitions] is that 100,000 signatures doesn’t mean 100,000 sales.”
Elsewhere he called the WiiMote gaming’s most significant innovation of the decade, adding, “The WiiMote introduced a completely new style of play that arguably set an industry standard for motion controls, and let the consumer experience games in an entirely new way. The thing, I think, that’s really set Nintendo apart from the competition is its focus on new styles of play.
“We’re always looking for ways to innovate, ways to bring new and fun experiences to the consumer. In the end, it’s all about the software, and all about how you experience that software—and controllers have a huge effect on that.”
