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.



















(Page 1) Reader Comments
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NoA needs more executives who comes from a gaming background, not marketing.
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Yeah, get gamers to be on their Marketting team, what a brilliant strategy!
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+1 on the gaming background execs
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Something strange is going on.
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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.
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Goodbye Perrin. Nice knowing you, not.
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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.
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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.
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now it just needs to get rid of Jack Tretton and Steve Jobs, too
Kaplan was an embarassment
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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.
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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.
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I think you're putting a little too much importance on Joystiq...
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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
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Yeah, those people with 'gaming background' wouldn't be put to better use by actually designing games. *rolls eyes*
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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...
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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.
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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.
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