Nintendo of America president and COO Doug Bowser (yes, really) has announced he will step down from the company at the end of the year, and his replacement has already been appointed by the Japanese gaming giant.
Per a press release, Bowser, who has spent “more than a decade in multiple leadership positions” at Nintendo, will retire from the studio on December 31st. He’ll be replaced by current marketing executive VP Devon Pritchard, who will also be joining the NOA board of directors.
Additionally, Nintendo’s American division will gain Satoru Shibata as its CEO, although he’ll be continuing to serve as managing exec and corporate director of Nintendo as a whole as well. That’s a heck of a lot of plates to juggle.
Doug Bowser has served as the president of Nintendo of America since 2019, when previous title holder Reggie Fils-Aime stepped down after over ten years in the position.
Fils-Aime was subsequently inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame in October that same year, going on to join GameStop’s board of directors shortly before the pandemic began (and around ten months before the whole GameStop stock debacle kicked off).
Bowser hasn’t revealed what he’s intending to do next, but he did express pride in what he’d achieved during his time with Nintendo, “in both business results and the experience we’ve created for consumers”.
He also praised his replacement, Devon Pritchard, calling her “exceptional” and pointing to her promotion as “a testament to her strong performance and strategic contributions to [Nintendo’s] growth”.
During his tenure with Nintendo, the company says Bowser “deliver[ed] on the promise of the Nintendo Switch” and “helped establish [the Switch 2] as the best-selling video game console of all time”, which isn’t a bad track record.
It remains to be seen what Bowser does next, but given the way corporate America works, I’d be very surprised indeed if we don’t see him popping up on another board of directors somewhere. Stay tuned for more.
