This article was originally written for Zelda Universe.

It’s been a little while since Reggie Fils-Aime retired from his role as the head honcho at Nintendo of America. The Regginator was invited to give a commencement address at Ringling College in Florida, after which he spoke to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about a number of things, including of course his time with the big N.

He spoke about the success of bringing Nintendo back to a mainstream audience, after joining the company at a time when the GameCube (along with the Xbox) were “a distant number two” to Sony’s PlayStation 2.

Reggie said: “Coming in behind initially the Nintendo DS (which sold 150 million units globally), and then the Wii, (which sold over 100 million units) it was a glorious path forward in truly bringing our form of video games to a very wide audience.”

Reggie also mused on why we as Nintendo fans grew so fond of him, giving some of the credit to his first E3 where he was part of the reveal of not only the Nintendo DS, but The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

He said: “I think why the Nintendo fan gravitated to me was that I was associated with some wonderful initial reveals at my very first E3. That was when we showed off the Nintendo DS, and it was when we first showed video content for what would become The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. So it was a brashness and aggressiveness, but also a drive to really bring Nintendo back to its glory and fortunately I was able to be part of that process.”

He most certainly was.

E3 will be a very different event without Reggie this year. We’re not quite sure our bodies are ready to deal with it. But it’s great that we’re still hearing from the big man from time to time, and that he clearly still holds Nintendo — and us fans — in such high regard.

Check out the full interview in the video below.