{"id":135750,"date":"2026-01-20T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-196430"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:15:00","slug":"random-reggie-recalls-retailers-upset-with-pokemon-ruby-sapphire-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/01\/20\/random-reggie-recalls-retailers-upset-with-pokemon-ruby-sapphire-shortages\/","title":{"rendered":"Random: Reggie Recalls Retailers &#8220;Upset&#8221; With Pok\u00e9mon Ruby &amp; Sapphire Shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3a48f4c564528\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3a48f4c564528\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"object object-youtube\">\n<figure class=\"youtube\" data-videoid=\"9HNNugGXKQ0\" data-start=\"10196\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9HNNugGXKQ0?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1&amp;start=10196\">\n<p>[embedded content]<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Even though we&#8217;ve just entered a new era of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aim\u00e9 is still <em>the<\/em> name most people associate with the role. And, speaking at this weekend&#8217;s New York Game Awards, the former NoA president shared a little tidbit about his time early on in his career at Nintendo (thanks, <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/games\/pokemon\/only-a-week-into-his-job-nintendo-legend-reggie-fils-aime-had-to-deal-with-retailers-upset-there-werent-enough-copies-of-pokemon-ruby-and-sapphire-i-never-let-that-happen-ever-again\/\">Gamesradar+<\/a>!)<\/p>\n<p>Just a week into his role as executive vice president of sales, Reggie had to deal with an issue surrounding one of Nintendo&#8217;s biggest names \u2014 <strong>Pok\u00e9mon<\/strong>, specifically the first GBA titles, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gba\/pokemon_ruby_and_sapphire\">Ruby &amp; Sapphire<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He didn&#8217;t bring this up by coincidence \u2014 Reggie was at the ceremony presenting the Andrew Yoon Legend Award to the franchise. And it&#8217;s here where he brought up his first professional brush with the series which he says he &#8220;had a long history with Pok\u00e9mon when I was at Nintendo.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kicking off, Reggie told the audience about his first week at Nintendo in 2003: &#8220;I has just joined the company and [was] there for only about a week when I had to work with our retail partners because they literally did not have enough copies of Pok\u00e9mon Ruby and Pok\u00e9mon Emerald [note: Reggie probably means Sapphire as Emerald launched in the West in 2005] for the Christmas rush.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reggie recalls that retailer were understandably &#8220;a little upset&#8221;, and given the huge popularity of the series even then, that&#8217;s pretty understandable. It was an early test, and lesson, for the then-new exec, who said that &#8220;I never let that happen ever again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"74299cdf66f71\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Pokemon Ruby &amp; Sapphire\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/74299cdf66f71\/pokemon-ruby-and-sapphire.large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/74299cdf66f71\/pokemon-ruby-and-sapphire.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Pokemon Ruby &amp; Sapphire\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k2wqNVnh2OE\">The Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Reggie concluded his speech with this, before rolling a heartfelt clip from industry members sharing their memories of the series: &#8220;I always enjoyed working with The Pok\u00e9mon Company and I loved all of their games \u2014 even the Pok\u00e9mon Plus controller [the Pok\u00e9 Ball Plus] with the Mew inside, remember that? One of my favourites.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, perhaps not the best start, but at least it allowed Reggie to make things right quickly <em>and<\/em> improve relations between Nintendo and TPC. So, all in all, a valuable moment in his career.<\/p>\n<p>You can catch Reggie&#8217;s speech, as well as the Andrew Yoon Legend Award presentation, at <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/9HNNugGXKQ0?si=tBiw7yKiXHycUgkC&amp;t=10196\">around 2:49:56<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you missed the entire awards ceremony, you may have also missed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2026\/01\/im-excited-to-meet-you-devon-pritchard-makes-her-first-public-appearance-as-president-of-noa\">Reggie introducing the newest Nintendo of America president<\/a>, Devon Pritchard, making her first public appearance since she took over the role at the start of the year.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><em>Let us know what you think of Reggie&#8217;s story in the comments section below.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/pokemon\/related-articles:196363 @ 1768996810 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[embedded content] Even though we&#8217;ve just entered a new era of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aim\u00e9 is still the name most people associate with the role. And, speaking at this weekend&#8217;s New York Game Awards, the former NoA president shared a little tidbit about his time early on in his career at Nintendo (thanks, Gamesradar+!) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}