Reggie Fils-Aimé has been one of the key personnel behind Nintendo in the past fifteen years.

Nintendo announced that Reggie Fils-Aimé, the president of Nintendo of America, will retire on April 15. He joined Nintendo in December 2003 as the executive vice president of sales and marketing – he became president in May 2006 (and his predecessor, Tatsumi Kimishima, has taken Nintendo’s presidency after the unfortunate and tragic death of Satoru Iwata in 2015).

Reggie got into people’s hearts as early as E3 2004, when he said the following on the podium: „My name is Reggie. I’m about kickin’ ass, I’m about takin’ names, and we’re about makin’ games.” His Wii Balance Board presentation in 2007 has also become somewhat of a meme when he said „My body… My body is ready!”, which became something that even he referenced several years later (as well as in the video below!). So we’re talking about a highly likeable character.

Well, he’s retiring on April 15, and his position will be taken by someone with a surprising name: Doug Bowser! (Yep, Bowser – if you play Mario, you know what we mean…) On Twitter, the first picture of him joining Nintendo surfaced, and take note of the tied-up Mario and Luigi dolls behind him…

Nintendo published a short video on Twitter, and in it, Reggie (or Regginator – another reference in the video!) thanks the support of the fans, and he also praised Bowser’s efforts. Reggie Fils-Aimé wants to spend his time with his wife, friends, and family from the middle of April. And the gaming industry salutes him – let’s mention just a few people or companies that has responded to the tweet: Shawn Layden (one of the American bosses of Sony), Geoff Keighley (The Game Awards, the USA account of Square Enix, the official account of Tetris (a few days ago, a Tetris battle royale game called Tetris 99 launched on the Nintendo Switch!), Devolver Digital, and we could keep going…

Let’s hope that Bowser will be just as memorable as the retiring Reggie is. Good luck to Bowser and our best wishes to Fils-Aimé.

Source: Gematsu

Nintendo fans, Reggie has a message for all of you. Please take a look. pic.twitter.com/EAhaEl5oEJ

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 21, 2019