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Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima stepping down

With executive's retirement set for June, console maker names Shuntaro Furukawa its leader-in-waiting

The Tatsumi Kimishima era at Nintendo will go down in history as a brief but successful one. The company today announced that Kimishima, who took over as president in 2015, is retiring, effective June 28.

Kimishima's tenure started at a low point for the company. He was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the death of Nintendo's much-loved prior president, Satoru Iwata, and he took over at the very end of the Wii U's brief, unsuccessful life span. However, he oversaw the 2017 launch of the Nintendo Switch, which sparked a tremendous turn-around for the company and has it once again in a competitively healthy position.

The task of continuing that momentum will fall to Nintendo's next president, Shuntaro Furukawa. The 46-year-old is presently a director and managing executive officer with the company's corporate planning department, and heads up its global marketing department. He has been with Nintendo for 24 years now, and has also served as outside director of The Pokemon Company since 2012.

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Brendan Sinclair

Managing Editor

Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was previously senior news editor at GameSpot in the US.