By Harold Goldberg
Last week, Reggie Fils-Aimé, Circle Board member and former Nintendo of America president spoke to an auditorium filled with high school students at the Lab School for Finance and Technology.
This inspiring talk was part of the school’s first Game Day, and it was inspired by our Playing With Purpose journalism and narrative mentoring program. At the school, the Circle holds two classes for journalism students. It’s been a great partnership, one in which we see students grow to become young writers with strong instincts – even if they don’t have previous experience as a journalist.
For instance, Saniah Etienne became a our intern via our Playing With Purpose program at the Lab School. She also won our $10,000 Rockstar Scholarship. Saniah will be attending Howard University this summer, and part of that program includes a two-week study in Ghana.
Reggie spoke from experience as someone who has risen from his days as a child bear the school in the Bronx to top the American unit of Nintendo, the best publisher of family friendly games that has ever existed.
To kids from every grade that packed the auditorium, Reggie spoke about how they, too, could be successful in life. As an observer, the most important moment may have been when Reggie talked about “capability meeting opportunity.” He said some had warned him not to take the Nintendo position that was offered to him. That’s because, at the time of the GameCube era, Nintendo wasn’t doing nearly as well would be with Reggie at the helm.
That changed with the success of the Wii. Reggie pushed for the family-friendly Wii Sports to be include for free in the Americas. Wii Sports, much imitated by other companies, helped to make the Wii a best seller. Ultimately, it would sell over 100 million unites. Reggie also helped to make the Nintendo DS the second best selling console in history next to the PlayStation 2.
Students and faulty were enthralled. There would remember the three words “capability meeting opportunity” and the time Reggie came to school. After the talk, Reggie signed autographs for students and teachers.
Then, along with journalist and Circle member Jordan Minor, Reggie and I had a deep talk – with our journalism students only – about the marketing of Nintendo consoles from the GameCube on to Switch 2 (which was released under the watch of the new president, Doug Bowser).
Even though Reggie is retired, he still is a busy man. He’s a key part of the Circle’s Board of Directors, as well as a number of other Boards. Once he left the school, he prepared to fly to Las Vegas to give a talk there. We’re so honored that Reggie is part of our arts education community. And we know our students are happy about that as well.
Author/journalist Harold Goldberg is the founder of the New York Videogame Critics Circle and the New York Game Awards. He is the New York Times’ video game columnist.
