Rumor: Kaplan, Harrison and Llewelyn leaving Nintendo of America

37 Comments by Ludwig Kietzmann Jun 6th 2007 5:39PM
Filed under: Business

Or rather, Nintendo of America is leaving them. According to Game Informer Online, which earlier this month broke news of the Redmond giant (no, not that one) relocating its sales, ad and marketing departments to either New York or San Francisco, approximately 90% of the employees in the affected areas have opted to remain stationary and accept a severance.

Included in those leaving Nintendo are senior director of public relations, Beth Llewelyn, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan (pictured), and senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, George Harrison.

The executive trio's time of departure is still unknown, though GI asserts that Perrin and her pals will likely stick around until after next month's Min-E3 event in Santa Monica.

Tags: Nintendo, Nintendo of America, NintendoOfAmerica, NOA, Perrin Kaplan, PerrinKaplan, Rumor

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Crono: Jun 6th 2007; 5:44PM

Bye perrin, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Rob: Jun 6th 2007; 5:46PM

I'll miss Kaplan's interviews she is very funny and likeable.

Jon: Jun 6th 2007; 5:47PM

Huzzah. Reggie needs to go to.

NoA needs more executives who comes from a gaming background, not marketing.

Fuzz: Jun 6th 2007; 5:53PM

Perrin sucked. She could go through a 10 minute interview, and not actually say anything. And when you did get info out of her, it was wrong(region free Wii, as an example).

Jordan: Jun 6th 2007; 5:55PM

Jon, you moron, REGGIE HAS A GAMING BACKGROUND, he was and still is a hardcore gamer!

2ez: Jun 6th 2007; 5:55PM

"NoA needs more executives who comes from a gaming background, not marketing."

Yeah, get gamers to be on their Marketting team, what a brilliant strategy!

arrrgh: Jun 6th 2007; 5:56PM

Perrin was a complete tool...never even really knew the terminology she needed to navigate interviews and always sounded awkward as hell...didn't seem like she knew what she was doing.

+1 on the gaming background execs

Gausser: Jun 6th 2007; 5:58PM

I agree with Rob. Although Perrin's comments were less than accurate, I will miss her. And Jon, what the hell are you talking about? NOA needs strong marketing to keep Wii and DS sales rolling along.

fox: Jun 6th 2007; 5:58PM

Can't say I'll miss Kaplan but Harrison is a long time employee, right? It's too bad that they couldn't find a way for him to keep his job without relocating.

J: Jun 6th 2007; 6:00PM

I agree, Perrin was not very good. Well... she was good in the sense that she could work around every question and say absolutely nothing (or totally screw everything up and give mis-information). But Jon, you want to see Reggie go too? Please tell me you are joking! Reggie is nintendo's voice, that man is one of the best things to happen to the company.

arrrgh: Jun 6th 2007; 6:01PM

Gausser, i think he meant that the execs still need marketting training, but that they should have at least SOME interest in gaming...to give their work some context ;)

cc123: Jun 6th 2007; 6:06PM

90% leaving including three top execs. Doesn't that seem a little high? Especially when Nintendo is doing so well.

Something strange is going on.

Joshua: Jun 6th 2007; 6:09PM

Nintendo of America, you assholes.

Shogan: Jun 6th 2007; 6:28PM

I won't miss Kaplan for the reasons stated above. She caused so much confusion at the Wii launch from not knowing the product she was trying to sell.

Triforceowner: Jun 6th 2007; 6:35PM

Crono is right... well I don't like Kaplan anyway. It is because she said something dumb once like, "You have at least three DVD players in your home, you don't need another." A week or so later Nintendo revealed Wii would have a DVD functionality in 2008.

zwarrior: Jun 6th 2007; 6:38PM

Regginator is the new CEO of NOA, so is he responsible for all the change going on? And could it be for the best? He's the one who increased VH1's viewers by a large margin, so maybe he knows what he's doing now. Though George Harrison has been here for a long time, another break up, that name must be bad luck.

Spirit-of: Jun 6th 2007; 6:42PM

Knowing how tight Nintendo is with a buck, and if this rumor is true, I would just about imagine that they ask them to move without offering to cover their moving expenses, help with finding a new place to live, or even a bump in pay.

The cost of living between Redwood and New York/San Fran has got to be pretty substantial for 90% of the employ to choose not to move.

Jon: Jun 6th 2007; 6:45PM

Nintendo's president/CEO was a games designer. That is what I meant when I say we need more people with gaming background as executives. I am not denying Reggie's brilliance (actually I do not care, as most of the brilliance of Nintendo came from Nintendo Japan).

Goodbye Perrin. Nice knowing you, not.

AoE: Jun 6th 2007; 7:00PM

@cc123,

Doesn't look like anything strange to me. 90% not wanting to leave the nice, tech-company rich area in which they live makes perfect sense. Even though we spend 8+ hrs a day at our jobs does not mean that we are our jobs. People have lives, loved ones, friends family... Why leave all that if you don't have to? Yahoo recently tried to move most of their business down to LA a couple of years back, and they has a similar rate of people who would prefer the severance package. In yahoo's case, they relented and didn't move; it'll be interesting to see if Nintendo handles it the same, or continues with the move/lets them all walk.

jSn: Jun 6th 2007; 7:12PM

Someone call nintendo and tell them I'd be glad to work in their marketing department in NY. Lol

Goulet: Jun 6th 2007; 7:15PM

Can we all agree that San Francisco is the new place of residence for sales, ad, and marketing? As you see here ( http://www.nintendo.com/corp/jobs.jsp ), May 30th and 29th show quite a few job openings in SF for Merchandising and Marketing positions.

cc123: Jun 6th 2007; 7:32PM

@AoE

I agree that the amount of people that wouldn't leave should be high. But how many of those other tech companies are having the kind of financial boom that Nintendo is?

Maybe your right though, I don't know the Redmond area and the mindset could be different from where I am.

Mr Khan: Jun 6th 2007; 7:35PM

So there IS a system of divine justice

now it just needs to get rid of Jack Tretton and Steve Jobs, too

Kaplan was an embarassment

Grog: Jun 6th 2007; 8:40PM

It's just the sales, ad, and marketing division... nothing essential.

Ryan P.: Jun 6th 2007; 8:41PM

Stop hatting on Perrin Kaplan just 'cause she's not
Jessica Alba.

Nintendo's marketing problems where always that they just didn't have ENOUGH ads or ANY ads. It's a matter of budget not talent.

I'm sure Perrin could have been more effective if Nintendo as a whole wasn't so god damn cheap.

Bye Perrin! Good luck with your future projects!
(As if she's not checking Joystick for reactions, she's in PR)

Ryan.

Kye: Jun 6th 2007; 8:42PM

"NoA needs more executives who comes from a gaming background, not marketing."

Jon #3

Can you really imagine the marketing strategies?

- Our systems r teh win!!!1!!
The competition suxxorz. lolololllolol!-

A company need executives with experience in selling, making and promoting things. Yes, a deep knowldge of your product and its market is beneficial, but you gotta know what your doing professionally.

Grog: Jun 6th 2007; 10:15PM

"(As if she's not checking Joystick for reactions, she's in PR)"
I think you're putting a little too much importance on Joystiq...

Savok: Jun 6th 2007; 11:21PM

Kaplan was accurate if you knew to simply take the complete opposite of whatever she said as reality.

Ryan P.: Jun 6th 2007; 11:28PM

@27

Reggie said he reads Joystick every day in an interview once, it's actually really popular,
that's why i figured it would be on their radar.

Ryan

NintendoFanbot: Jun 7th 2007; 12:00AM

"when I say we need more people with gaming background as executives."

Yeah, those people with 'gaming background' wouldn't be put to better use by actually designing games. *rolls eyes*

t_m: Jun 7th 2007; 1:25AM

Pretty dumbass move of nintendo, losing 90% of their work force. No way that can't have negative business impacts.

the probably assumed they were like japanese employees who routinely get assigned to offices in different cities, and would never think of refusing or complaining...

Slaziman: Jun 7th 2007; 6:54AM

Reggie reads Joystiq? I CALL BS

ThatFuzzyBastard: Jun 7th 2007; 7:46AM

This is crazy... Yes, Kaplan could be a little annoying (to hardcore gamers) in interviews, but NOA's marketing of the Wii and DS was the kind of massive triumph that's going to be taught in business schools for years to come. It's just bizzare that they'd let the people responsible for it go, at least not without trying really hard to keep them.

But above commenters may be right---Nintendo is famously tight with a buck, and maybe American execs were annoyed by their refusal to help cover moving expenses or the higher cost of living.

Chris: Jun 7th 2007; 8:49AM

Until the *real* Nintendo allows NoA to spend some game development money on more than just a few titles, NoA will just be an English speaking shill that simply answers the Wii-broken-strap hotline and deposits their profits back in Kyoto. So, Reggie dishonoured his superior by not selling enough copies of Brain Training? Then maybe Iwata-san should open up his purse and let Reggie develop a North American Touch Generation (tm) game instead of tying his hands and making him distribute a JPN port.

I like Perrin, but she knew as little as we did about the Revolution until she received her Wii memos. I imagine she was as frustrated as we were. All of the important decisions and, more significantly, the games are made in the land of the Rising Sun. Reggie & Co.'s success is not their doing.

Chris: Jun 7th 2007; 10:10AM

So does this mean the move was a power play to get rid of these three?

Reggie: Jun 7th 2007; 12:46PM

Slaziman, watch your mouth, or I'll kick your ass and take your name.

Snap: Jun 7th 2007; 6:00PM

I'd guess that those that are leaving have families and roots in the area. Why not take a nice severance package from Nintendo then walk across the street to Microsoft and ask for a job.

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