Topic: Nintendo Promotes Head Of Latin American Operations

[Jonnyboy117]

New VP will guide strategy in Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East.

Head of Nintendo's Latin American Business Promoted to VP    

Steve Singer Builds on Years of International Business Experience    

REDMOND, Wash., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Nintendo of America has promoted Steve Singer to vice president of Nintendo's Latin American operations. Singer, who served as Nintendo's senior director and general manager for Latin America, will continue to oversee Nintendo's strategic direction in Latin America, while working with the parent company in Japan to establish a foothold in Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East.    

"Steve Singer has been instrumental in helping Nintendo expand its operations in Latin America," says Tatsumi Kimishima, Nintendo of America's chairman of the board and chief executive officer.  "In his new role, he'll help us demonstrate that Nintendo's systems and games are appropriate for every consumer the world over."    

Singer has an extensive international business background, including assignments in Southeast Asia and Latin America.  He joined Nintendo of America in 1999 after nearly 11 years and numerous domestic and international positions of increasing responsibility with Whirlpool Corporation.  At Whirlpool, his contributions included the establishment of Whirlpool Colombia, a wholly owned subsidiary, in which he served as president and managing director.    

Singer earned a bachelor's degree in marketing and a certificate in international business from Arizona State University, and a master's degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Michigan State University.

[Athrun Zala]

I hope things change a bit now, Nintendo doesn't do so well over here because it's the most expensive of them all (games and systems cost around double the US price, which is way too much for almost all people here :/ )

[Djunknown]

Which begs the question: Where's here?

Talk about having a full deck.  Four relatively big territories, that's no joke.

Why don't they adjust the pricing according to region?

[18 Days]

Yeah that's a ridiculous variety of locations. I've always suggested a Nintendo Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore, it would cater to South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Nintendo Australia is currently the biggest mess of a corporation ever and need to be disbanded.

[oohhboy]

I would prefer it if they were summuraly shot and fed to Kangaroos.

Instead of being consolidated under Asia I would much like it to come under Japanese or European operations. Our tastes are closer to those territories than that of American or that of Pan Asia.  

[mantidor]

Latin america in general is very homogeneous, we have our differences of course but from a business perspective there doesn't need to be radical changes from country to country, now the middle east and asia are other thing entirely.

My fear is always translation, Im a bit of an annoying purist and I rather have english, id prefer japanese of course but Im nowhere near being fluent specially in reading. But Im willing to take that small sacrifice if, and only if, Nintendo doesn't get lazy and do the proper translation for the region instead of just importing the one from Spain, I cant stand the way they talk, is disgusting (nothing personal to any spaniard out there), it really has affected the enjoyment of games like Diablo II or Homeworld 2 for me, I went as far as to download the rom for HW2 in order to play it in english even though I had an original copy. Usually the translation for movies are done by mexicans which I also find horrible but more tolerable than spaniard's spanish. The ideal would be bogota's spanish just from pure selfishness from my part, but Ive also heard is the more neutral of them all.

but seriously, at least start with the prices, just giving the same monetary value for games and consoles as in the states would be a huge step forward.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Wow.  I knew there were big differences between Spain's Spanish and Mexico's Spanish, but I didn't know there were differences between Mexico and the rest of Latin America.  Does Nintendo of America handle Mexico?

[Athrun Zala]

yes, the Spanish is different in all the Latin American countries, like there are some differences between US English and British English. It's mostly pronunciation and differences in the vocabulary so there isn't really a neutral one....

I thought the name of the division would give it away, but yes, NOA handles México and the rest of the continent

[mantidor]

yeah, dubbing is not that bad in mexico though, they avoid using local expressions and try to have a more neutral accent and vocabulary, any dubbing company has to anyway, but if the dubbing is made in Spain the contrast is huge.

I think that Mexico is also handled by the Latin America division, not NoA, when Kaplan was mentioning the different regions about the launch of the Wii she treated Mexico as a different region than US and Canada.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Well excuuuse me, princess.    I asked because I misread the press release as if the Latin America business unit wasn't part of NOA.

As for Spanish, I thought the differences were more like America : Spain :: U.S. : Britain and Mexico : Colombia :: Ohio : Missouri.  I figured being separated by an ocean had a lot to do with the larger differences, so I was surprised to hear that a Mexican movie translation is horrible when I wouldn't consider a Californian one horrible.  (Please bear with me.  I have a fascination with linguistics but no training to go with it).

[nolimit19]

i dont want to be captain obvious, but brazil doesnt even speak spanish...so yes latin america does vary in language. as was said already, this is a pretty big job. these territories seem like they are chosen randomly. tough freaking job.

[KDR_11k]

Dubbing? In Nintendo games? The only dubbed Nintendo game I ever saw was Doshin The Giant.

[mantidor]

is that only limited to Nintendo games? I see almost every single PC game with spain dubbing, so I thought that extended to all other games. Correct if Im wrong but I read that europeans countries are very strict about translating material, I thought it was law in almost all Europe countries that everything should be translated and even dubbed when necessary.

[KDR_11k]

PC games are translated with little delay, yes but console games are a completely different thing. Companies like EA or Ubi bother to redub, most japanese companies simply change the subtitles and call it a translation.

There are no laws about game languages, however. Maybe in France, I hear they get very pissy about such things but I regularly see untranslated games here.