Game Boy Micro is one of Nintendo’s most exciting handheld systems. Enjoy a screen where the pixels stand out for their definition / colors and its size makes it truly portable, more than any smartphone. Some players with big hands might complain about long hours on the device, but nothing that detracts from its “Micro” factor.
Plus, it’s compatible with the entire Game Boy Advance library, and that’s saying a lot. Despite sacrificing Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges.
With this in mind, it’s hard to believe that Nintendo of America wasn’t too pleased with the latest console in the Game Boy family. Thanks to the recent release of the book Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendowritten by the former president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aimewe know close anecdotes about the Big N. One of them has to do with Game Boy Micro.
After the release of the Nintendo DS in November 2004, Nintendo appeared at E3 2005 promoting its next handheld, which would launch in September of the same year. A second Game Boy Advance variant but smaller and without Game Boy/Color support. According to Fils-Aimé, this was the result of “isolated thinking” that the company had at the time..
Fils-Aimé was at the time executive vice president of sales and marketing. The American division planned to wrap up the GBA line with a Black Friday promotion that would wipe out portable inventory, to focus on the recently released Nintendo DS. But in early 2005, Nintendo Japan revealed its plans to release the Game Boy Micro. Because of the way Nintendo was structured, Reggie says that the product and development teams closest to the Japanese branch knew about this long before he did.
“From my point of view, the concept of the Game Boy Micro had no head. The hardware it was exceptionally small, not only were the buttons difficult for an adult to manipulate, but its screen was small. This went against the market trend for larger screens.”
Development of the Game Boy Micro of course continued and Nintendo of America was “forced” to release the system. «We should have agreed that this product would be a distraction in our market and thus not introduce it here [en América] or cancel the project globally. By working together we would have achieved a different result.”Señala Fils-Aimé.
The Game Boy Micro did indeed receive “lackluster results,” according to Fils-Aimé. Selling less than a million units in its first month and less than two million after four months. Until its discontinuation in March 2007, the system sold a total of 2.42 million units.
When Reggie became president of Nintendo of America, he used the Game Boy Micro as a teachable moment for the company. “The lesson: Company leadership needs constant communication about priorities. As president, my solution was to institute weekly meetings with the executive leadership team to review key priorities and our progress on them.”
A decision initially unpopular with some NoA executives, but with notable short-term communicative benefits.
Still, the Game Boy Micro is a little gem among portable consoles, one that attracts all eyes and whose prices have naturally skyrocketed over the years.
Via: VGC