19 Things Nintendo's President Told Us About Switch and More

A little over a year ago, TIME engaged Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima in a wide-ranging conversation about the company's fledgling mobile strategy, its struggles with the Wii U, the rise of its toys-to-life Amiibo figurines and a mystery-cloaked next-gen platform then known only as "NX." Three mobile apps and a sold-out "classic" version of its 1980s NES console later, with a $299 hybrid/TV games console dubbed Nintendo Switch due on March 3, TIME caught up with Nintendo's principal figure to talk Switch, mobile profitability, how he's liking the job so far and more. Here, following our recent chats with Nintendo EPD director Shinya Takahashi and Nintendo Switch general producer Yoshiaki Koizumi, is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation with Kimishima. Tatsumi Kimishima: Mr. Takahashi started out as a designer, and then as far as his career at Nintendo, he really worked with various development teams, where he worked as a coordinator for different environments. He was the guy they would bring in to pull all of these disparate things together. That was his main job while working with development teams. One thing that's a little bit different between [Donkey Kong and Mario creator] Mr. Miyamoto, say, and Mr. Takahashi, is that Mr. Miyamoto is of course known as the father of Mario, as well as for the characters and games he's helped develop. Mr. Takahashi, by contrast, is someone who really covers everything.