Reggie Fils-Aimè Talks the Time He Had to Put Amazon In Its Place

"You know that's illegal? I can't do that."

Reggie Fils-Aimè's tenure as the President of Nintendo of America was a fruitful one, packed with big hits (and the occasional misses) and emphasized by a suitably big, disarming personality to match. While Reggie's bigger-than-life persona was charming, he also gave the impression that under all the fun and games he was a legitimate businessman, and one, apparently, that was not to be trifled with. Speaking to NYU Game Center, had the following to say about an incident where Amazon was trying to bully Nintendo into some illegal business practices:

At that time, just in the Americas, I was selling ten million Wiis, DS' a year. We're driving a lot of revenue. We had a lot of scale. And, at the time, Amazon was looking to get bigger into the video game space. Amazon's mentality back then was that they wanted to have the lowest price out in the marketplace, even lower than Walmart.

One of their executives called me... Well, it was a conversation that got to me after it had progressed through all of the levels of my sales organization, and essentially what Amazon wanted is an obscene amount of support – financial support – so they could have the lowest price and beat Walmart. I literally said to the executive, 'You know that's illegal? I can't do that'. You know you get silence on the other end, and it's like: 'Well, but this is what I want.'

And literally... Literally, we stopped selling to Amazon, and it's because I wasn't going to do something illegal. I wasn't going to do something that would put at risk the relationship we have with our other retailers. But it also set the stage to say, 'look, you're not going to push me around. This is the way we do business'. And so, that's how, over time, you build respect.

Jump forward a number of years, we're getting ready to launch the Switch. We wanted every retailer to participate with us and go big, and Amazon was right there at the table. Supported the launch exceptionally well. But it was based on mutually beneficial approach that led to that type of strong business result.

Amazon certainly has a reputation for throwing its weight around, but this time the company met its match in Nintendo and Fils-Aimè. Reggie has since moved on from the company, but he remains a fascinating figure who played a pivotal role expanding the gaming market. Let's hope he keeps spilling the beans on interesting little tidbits like this.

Source: NYU Game Center