Reggie Fils-Aimé recalls controversial partnership with Amazon during the Nintendo DS era

Reggie Fils-Aimé, the former president of Nintendo of America, recently spoke about the tense relationship between Nintendo and Amazon during his time leading the gaming giant. Those interactions led to a temporary halt in sales of Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems on Amazon, largely because of shocking demands from the retail giant.

The origin of the tense relationship

During a lecture at the NYU Game Center, Fils-Aimé said Amazon became increasingly aggressive about expanding in the gaming market in the later years of the Wii and DS generation. Amazon’s strategy was to offer the lowest prices in the market, even below rival Walmart. To make that happen, an Amazon executive asked for an “obscene amount of support” from Nintendo so it could sell the products at lower prices.

The controversial demand

Fils-Aimé refused to go along with the request, saying he could not agree to something illegal. He told the Amazon executive: “You know that’s illegal? I can’t do that.” That led to Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems being pulled from sale on Amazon.

Impact on sales

Even without Amazon as a sales channel, Wii and DS sales remained strong. Nintendo was selling around 10 million systems of each per year in the United States. During this period, the Wii made its mark as an innovative console, with motion controls as one of its biggest selling points. Games like Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy were hugely popular and helped drive the console’s success.

After that conflict, the relationship between Nintendo and Amazon returned to positive territory by the time the Nintendo Switch launched. Amazon once again played an important role in supporting Nintendo’s games, highlighting that the renewed partnership was built on a mutually beneficial approach.

The legacy of the Wii and DS

The Wii sold more than 101 million units worldwide, while the various DS iterations, including the DS Lite and DSi, combined for 154 million units sold. The Switch, which launched later, surpassed those figures and gave Nintendo a fresh boost in the market. Fils-Aimé’s experiences offer valuable lessons about business relationships and the need to act both ethically and strategically. Switch sales, now above 155 million units, show that the impact of his decisions is still being felt across the industry.

In today’s market, as Nintendo continues to innovate with the Switch 2, much as it did with the Wii and DS, the discussion around its retail partnerships remains important. With several new titles planned for the future, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo, under new management teams, continues to shape its strategy.