Reggie Fils-Aimé, former president of Nintendo of America, recently stated during a lecture that the company had removed its Wii and DS systems from Amazon after the retail giant tried to gain a financial advantage over Walmart. Although Nintendo and Amazon eventually made amends, Fils-Aimé said Amazon's demands were “illegal” and “obscene” at the time.
During the mid to late 2000s, Nintendo remained a dominant force in the gaming industry. Despite the shortcomings of the Nintendo GameCube, the launch of the DS in 2004 and the subsequent arrival of the Wii in 2006 ushered in a new era for the company. Just as the DS made touchscreen controls the norm for Nintendo to use, the Wii's motion control system was considered a main selling point. In short, motion control support allowed titles such as Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy to become some of the Wii's best-selling hits.
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Amazon's desire to beat Walmart didn't sit well with Reggie Fils-Aimé
Despite the overwhelming success of the Wii and Nintendo DS, one of the world's largest retailers was cut off from selling Nintendo systems due to a conversation with the games company's former management. In a lecture hosted by the NYU Game Center that was streamed on Twitch, Fils-Aimé looked back on his time as president of Nintendo of America, a post he held from 2006 to 2019. Fils-Aimé stated that an executive from Amazon contacted him during his tenure and asked for “an obscene amount of support on their Amazon products” and that their Amazon products could offer lower prices on their Amazon products. competitors, Walmart. Fils-Aimé said that at the time the conversation took place, Amazon was looking to improve its presence in the gaming space. “Amazon's mentality then was that they wanted the lowest price in the market, even lower than Walmart,” Fils-Aimé said.
However, Amazon's ambition to beat Walmart in the gaming market did not sit well with Fils-Aimé. The former Nintendo of America president put his foot down and said he would not give in to Amazon's “illegal” demands at the time, leading Nintendo to pull the Wii and DS from Amazon for a time. “That's because I wasn't going to do anything illegal. I wasn't going to do anything that would jeopardize the relationship we have with our other dealers. But it also set the stage to say, 'Look, you're not going to push me around. This is how we do business.” This is how you build respect over time,” explained Fils-Aimé.
Wii and DS still sold well without Amazon
Eventually, Nintendo and Amazon returned to the negotiating table. Fils-Aimé said that when the Switch was preparing for launch, Amazon was right there with Nintendo to support it. As of this writing, Nintendo products are readily available on Amazon. Despite Amazon being left out of the conversation for a period, sales of Nintendo's consoles remained strong. Although the Wii and DS were eventually outsold by the Nintendo Switch, the Wii sold over 101 million units. In comparison, the DS series sold a total of 154 million units across its various iterations, such as the DS Lite and DSi.
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Although the Switch has since sold over 155 million units and counting, the legacy of the Wii and DS still lives on in the hearts of Nintendo fans. Since Fils-Aime left Nintendo, the gaming giant has continued to release the Switch 2, which is approaching its one-year anniversary on the market in June. Considering the Switch 2 has several expected games launching in 2026 and beyond, time will tell how successful Nintendo's current console will be.
