For Reggie Fils-Aimé, it's not game over after heading up Nintendo's US video game business

• Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has a business memoir in the works.
• The book, "Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the top of Nintendo," is due out May 3.
• He details leadership advice from his time at Nintendo, Viacom (MTV and VH1) and Pizza Hut.

Even before he leveled up to Nintendo's top U.S. job, Reggie Fils-Aimé knew how to make strategic moves.

While interviewing in 2003 to join Nintendo and head its U.S. sales and marketing efforts, Fils-Aimé asked to meet with Satoru Iwata, who had recently been made Nintendo president. 

Fils-Aimé got the meeting and the job, but years later learned it was "a massive breach of protocol."

The request almost "precluded me from even getting the job offer," Fils-Aimé told USA TODAY, "But I knew enough about the company that for me to be successful, I needed to have a strong relationship with Mr. Iwata. … It was critical that (he and Iwata, who died in 2015) connect and we did. This conversation (they had) was supposed to be about 30 minutes and ended up being much longer than that. And as they say, the rest is history."

Three years later, Fils-Aimé became Nintendo of America's president and chief operating officer, becoming the company's face in the U.S. during its launches of the Nintendo Wii, the handheld Nintendo 3DS and other systems and games. He departed Nintendo in April 2019 after 15 years with the company.

Fils-Aimé's new book on 'Disrupting the Game'

Details about that meeting and other leadership advice appear in his upcoming book, "Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the top of Nintendo," due out May 3. "I highlight in the book I did a lot of unconventional things and helped Nintendo really rejuvenate its fortunes and move forward."

When Fils-Aimé, who is 60 now, joined Nintendo, the company in the U.S. had fallen behind Sony and Microsoft, which had entered the video game marketplace with the PlayStation and Xbox in 1995 and 2001, respectively. Sony's PlayStation 2, released in 2000, would go on to become the best-selling console of all time.

Nintendo's GameCube, released in 2001, would go on to sell 21.7 million. In that round of the console wars, the GameCube came in third to the PS2 and the Xbox, which sold more than 24 million.

Fils-Aimé already was a gamer, owning a Super Nintendo, PS2 and an Xbox at the time a recruiter contacted him about the potential Nintendo executive opening. "But I didn't have a GameCube at the time, which was really interesting," he said. "So I knew the industry as a player and I certainly had thoughts for the challenges and opportunities that Nintendo was facing at the time." 

When Fils-Aimé made his first major appearance for Nintendo at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles in 2004, it was tantamount to a mic drop.

“My name is Reggie," he said in the presentation, which you can watch on YouTube. "I'm about kickin' ass, I'm about takin' names, and we're about makin' games.”

That game plan worked. "Reggie sold people on Nintendo all over again," declared Nintendo Life in a profile upon his retirement announcement. "This is precisely what Reggie did for Nintendo for 15 years: 'translating' Nintendo’s actions, then selling them. And in doing so, he helped not just sell products, but make 'Nintendo' a brand again."

Before Nintendo, pizza and MTV 

His pre-Nintendo career will likely be inspiring and enlightening for readers. His parents migrated to the U.S. in the 1950s from Haiti, married and lived in New York City, where Fils-Aimé was born. 

"There's a story there around just my heritage, my personal background as I grew up in the Bronx, and proceeded to bootstrap myself to Cornell University, and on a series of different leadership roles across a variety of different industries," he said.

Fils-Aimé's earlier career included jobs at Procter and Gamble, Pizza Hut, Guinness and Viacom, where as senior vice president of marketing for MTV and VH1, he created the marketing plans for The Concert for New York City, held to raise funds after the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Those already in the workplace and students unsure of their career path would benefit from his upcoming book too, he said.

"Throughout the book, I share leadership stories, in terms of real lessons learned and situations that could be applied to today's business environment," Fils-Aimé said. "So this is about, you know, managing through a downturn in business, it's how do you manage with a difficult boss. It's real tangible advice to the reader for navigating their own career, whatever it is that they're doing."

A resonant Black History Month story

In his upcoming book, Fils-Aimé also addresses some issues that would be timely for – and beyond – Black History Month.

"I touch a lot about the power of diversity and inclusion, how having a diverse leadership team can really help organizations achieve superior results," Fils-Aimé said. "So that's a certain element in my story. I wouldn't say that mine is a purely, you know, African American story. It is a story of an African American who did some pretty interesting and phenomenal things, including heading up the largest part of a Japanese company."

Since leaving Nintendo, Fils-Aimé returned to Cornell as a lecturer and remains a university adviser. He's kept his hand in the video game industry, serving on the advisory board for independent publisher Rogue Games and is also a mentor on The New York Videogame Critics Circle, assisting students seeking to enter the video game industry and journalism.

He is also chairman of UTA Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, which includes Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian on its board and is focused on "the digital entertainment space."

Recent weeks have seen a surge in deals in the video game industry including Sony's deal to acquire Halo and Destiny developer Bungie, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty) and Take-Two Interactive's purchase of Zynga (Farmville, Words With Friends).

In addition to consolidation, Fils-Aimé sees "opportunity for smaller companies to stay independent and chart their own path versus being part of a monolith. That's why I'm part of this SPAC."

Fils-Aimé also addresses corporate culture building, a topic that is also top of mind with the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal, because the state of California had filed a lawsuit against the Call of Duty publisher claiming it had "fostered a sexist culture" and paid women less than men, despite doing more work.

"As a leader, the way you behave is observed throughout the entire company. And you set the tone for good or for bad," Fils-Aimé said. "And so whenever a company has the types of issues that we've seen, and unfortunately, we've seen it quite a bit throughout many companies within the gaming industry, I believe it really is a culture situation set by the uppermost leadership."

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.