Reggie Stopped Nintendo From Changing Logo to 'Graffiti Style' - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2020 / 2,913 Views

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime speaking on the Present Value podcast revealed some interesting information. The Nintendo of America marketing team at one point were trying to change the Nintendo logo into a graffiti style when he first joined the company. However, he was able to talk them out of it.

The marketing team's reason for changing the logo was to try to move away from the kid friendly image and changing the logo would have been one way of doing that.

"From a branding standpoint, we had to be clear in what Nintendo as a brand stood for, as well as what the individual franchises stood for," said Reggie Fils-Aime. "I’ll give you an example. When I joined Nintendo, there was a sense of almost shame that Nintendo appealed to young consumers, and the marketing team at Nintendo of America started doing things with the logo – that classic Nintendo logo in an oval – they would put it into graffiti style, or they’d do different things to try and age up the logo, and I put a stop to that because that is not our brand.

"And what we needed to do was yes, appeal to a broad swatch of consumers, but we needed to do it based on what the brand stood for, and not doing it in some false way. Systemically, we went through and cleaned up the presentation of the brand, but we also created messaging coupled with content that really broadened the reach, broadened the appeal, and set the stage for all of the great products we would launch like Wii, like Wii Fit, and eventually the Nintendo Switch."

Thanks NintendoEverything.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

14 Comments

Zenos (on 27 January 2020)

This makes sense. Change the library rather than just the logo. The Switch got games like Doom and Mortal Kombat and unlike Sony Nintendo are not censoring anime games, so I think they have succeeded in showing that they are an adult oriented platform.

Jumpin Zenos (on 27 January 2020)

Ironically, games like Doom and Mortal Kombat are popular primarily among 10-13 year old kids.

Zenos Zenos (on 27 January 2020)

Eh, I don't know about that. These days most gamers are adults and they have the biggest purchasing power.

method114 Zenos (on 27 January 2020)

I honestly wouldn't have cared either way. I do agree the library is more important though and Switch has been doing great there IMO at least.

S.Peelman (on 27 January 2020)

Thank god that would’ve been the stupidest thing ever.

Darwinianevolution (on 28 January 2020)

Remember when Mario had a tribal tatoo on his arm? I wonder what would have happened if that 2000's trend had continued...

Mystro-Sama (on 27 January 2020)

If you want to change the kid friendly appearance then start making more mature games. Making edgy logos doesn't help.

Valdney (on 27 January 2020)

Thank God for Reggie’s common sense!

Azzanation (on 27 January 2020)

Well done Reggie

Flilix (on 27 January 2020)

Thank you Reggie.

siebensus4 (on 27 January 2020)

That image change resulted in abandoning the Nintendo name completely during Wii era and ended up in a complete confusion about target audience with Wii U.