Reggie's XPlay interview recapped (Iwata's passing, Nintendo's challenges, Sony/Microsoft thoughts, and more)

As we found out last week, Reggie had a sit-down interview with G4TV’s XPlay team to talk about a huge number of topics. You can see a full recap of all the interview’s finer points below.

• Reggie retired because there were things he wanted to accomplish that he wouldn’t be able to do if he stayed at Nintendo
• Reggie started his book with Iwata’s passing because he wanted to tell his story, but punctuate it with moments in time with lessons to share, and also keep things from being linear
• Iwata’s passing also made Reggie realize there was more he wanted to do, since Iwata died at such a young age
• Reggie had heard of Iwata’s passing on a Saturday morning, the morning after Iwata passed
• Reggie had to figure out how to disseminate the message of Iwata passing, while also processing the death of a friend
• Reggie’s book includes ‘So what?’ sections that explain lessons learned, while also giving the book his voice
• Reggie says going to Nintendo was the ‘perfect opportunity’
• Reggie doesn’t think he would have fit in at Sony or Microsoft in the same way culturally
• getting into gaming from a business perspective wasn’t an ultimate goal for Reggie
• Reggie always had a passion for video games
• Nintendo’s Treehouse and higher ups were impressed with Reggie’s knowledge of video games when he first came into business for them
• Reggie says Nintendo brought the goods at his E3 debut (Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, Nintendo DS, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)
• Reggie believes he helped change the tone of Nintendo’s E3 presentations going forward, and Nintendo recognized the need to switch things up
• Reggie says Star Fox Adventures is under-loved and underappreciated
• Reggie feels people don’t truly understand what Epic has done with Unreal to aid game and film creation
• Reggie once again says blockchain will take games to a new level, and needs to be incorporated at the very start of a game’s development
• Reggie says World has captured the imagination of the broader population
• Reggie says broader game options helps gaming reach even more people, and this approach should be kept up
• Reggie wants people in underserved communities to know that he came from where they are, and they can get to where he is
• Link is Reggie’s favorite video game protagonist
• Reggie’s favorite eSport is DotA
• Reggie says Donkey Konga is the best worst game he ever played, and he thought it was going to hurt the Donkey Kong brand, and he wasn’t personally a fan of it
• Reggie’s favorite console launch to be a part of was the Switch
• Reggie says everything learned from Wii, DS, Wii U and 3DS was applied to the Switch
• Reggie said the game lineup and advertising for Switch was great
• Reggie says Halo is his favorite non-Nintendo video game
• Reggie had an Xbox before he had a GameCube (this was before he worked at Nintendo)
• Reggie’s favorite video games of all-time are The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (which he called a defining moment for him) and Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Reggie says he still goes back to play Breath of the Wild nowadays

If you want to see the interview in its entirety, you can find it below at the 59:30 mark.