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The American face of Nintendo, President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime, once said, "I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names."

Nintendo hasn't been kicking much ass over the past few years — the company posted a $456 million operating loss in its last fiscal year, its third loss in a row. Though the original Nintendo Wii console was a hit with consumers, analysts have called the new version, Nintendo's Wii U, a flop.

Critics wonder why Nintendo doesn't take a leap by creating or licensing content for mobile devices many consumers already own.

Recently, Nintendo released Mario Kart 8 to rave reviews and more than a million sales in its first weekend. At this year's E3, or Electronic Entertainment Expo, the company announced a new intellectual property, Splatoon, a family friendly take on multiplayer third-person shooters (using paint guns instead of gun guns). Splatoon uses the GamePad to display a map that allows players to instantly teleport around the arena by touching a teammate's location.

NPR sat down with Reggie Fils-Aime at E3 in Los Angeles to ask him a range of questions about Nintendo's present and future.

People are saying that Nintendo is the underdog, since Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox are selling better. What do you say when people say that?

Both of those other competitors have other business lines, so by definition we are a smaller company, so by definition we must be the underdog. In terms of sales, the fact of the matter is that the sales will ebb and flow with the momentum of the software. For us, we are seeing a lot of momentum in our business with the launch of Mario Kart 8. We believe with the pacing of launches that we have over the next number of weeks that we'll continue to see very strong momentum. For our competitors, much of the content they showed was 2015 content, so over the next number of months through this holiday we'll see in terms of who sells the most.

All Tech Considered

Game Over For Nintendo? Not If Mario And Zelda Fans Keep Playing

You don't often see a man cheerily quaffing from a half-pint mug on a street corner in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

But the drink in this gentleman's hand is as innocent as a newborn kitten.

It's called aloo bukhara juice, and contains tamarind and dried plums, or prunes, if you prefer.

Summer's reaching a punishing peak here - it's 104 degrees Fahrenheit - so I assumed he was just drinking to keep cool.

But a sign on the wall behind him explains that aloo bukhara offers other benefits:

It "comforts the heart; increases the appetite; keeps your stomach in good order; boosts your iron count; subdues burning in the hands, feet or chest; protects you from jaundice, and is a panacea for any illness caused by an ailing liver."

That's pretty hard to resist so I forked out the equivalent of 20 cents, and tried a glass. I found it very sweet, with a rather overpoweringly pungent spicy bouquet — in other words, an acquired taste.

Less comforting to the heart was another sign on a nearby wall: "The holy jihad will continue until Doomsday".

Let us begin this Friday with some unabashed joy: the Australian show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, adored by many a fan of glamorous lady detectives, smoldering fellows, sexual freedom and fantastic outfits, will return for a third series, according to the show's Facebook page.

As star Essie Davis told me earlier this year, Phryne Fisher is a superhero, very different from the vast majority of television characters of any kind, let alone women. Watch it for the clothes, watch it for her flirtations with Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, watch it for her improvised unconventional family, watch it for the refreshingly frank dialogue, watch it for the mystery-solving, or watch it for the sheer sophisticated sheen with which it shimmers: just try it. The first series is on Netflix; the first and second can be found on disc or streaming (for a fee) through Acorn, your outlet for much good Canadian/British/Australian stuff.

The wait to find out whether Phryne would return has been so tense that I, for one, have held back some of the second series from myself so it wouldn't be over; it is good to know I can now happily gobble the rest knowing that she and I will meet again.

Maybe there's something in humans that pushes them apart the way plate tectonics moves continents. Whatever the reason, the ideological divide between conservatives and progressives in the U.S. has grown over the past decade, and not by a little, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

The survey of a sample of 10,013 adults earlier this year found that since 2004, polarization among Americans has accelerated, placing both ends of the divide further apart than they have been in recent memory. (Pew has an arresting animation of the phenomenon.)

Washington politicians often are criticized for their increased partisanship in recent years, but the Pew poll suggests they are actually truly representing their constituents in this. And there are few signs in the data that provide grounds for much optimism that the trend will reverse itself anytime soon.

With that, here are five takeaways from Pew's study:

Enemies of the republic: It's one thing to disagree with and even dislike people who hold ideological views different from yours; it's another entirely to see them as threats to the nation you hold dear. Unfortunately, large percentages of Americans view members of the other major party as endangering the nation, or at least its well-being.

Pew reports that 36 percent of Republicans view Democrats as threatening the nation's ongoing success; while 27 percent view Republicans in that light. Those are obviously large segments of the population who intensely distrust other large segments of the population. Negative advertising obviously finds a very receptive audience with these voters.

The center doesn't hold: Way back in 1994, when President Bill Clinton was in the White House and the Gingrich revolution was just in its infancy, a Pew survey found 49 percent of Americans to be in the ideological middle, holding progressive views on some issues, conservative views on others. Two decades later, the middle has been squeezed down to 39 percent. Meanwhile, the portion of Americans at either end of the bell curve who maintain an ideological purity has grown significantly, especially among liberals.

The percentage of hard-line progressives quadrupled to 12 percent from 3 percent 20 years earlier; hard-line conservatives saw a less steep increase, to 9 percent from 7 percent. While the conventional wisdom is that most of the nation's partisan rancor is due to Republicans' becoming more conservative, the survey suggests that progressives are doing their share to contribute to the gulf as well.

Hardliners = money and votes: It's no surprise that voters with the most consistent red or blue ideologies are also the most likely to vote and make campaign contributions, but Pew found an interesting difference between conservatives and liberals. Consistent conservatives who said they always vote exceeded their liberal counterparts by 20 percentage points. But when it came to campaign donations, strong liberals actually outdid their conservative counterparts in that department, having a 6-point advantage.

The worst-performing voters and donors were those in the middle. Which is why fundraising emails nearly always use the most extreme language; they're aimed at the true believers for whom issues are black and white with no shades of gray ambiguity.

Blue house, red house: Cities have long been liberal bastions while suburbs and rural areas have been more conservative. Pew asked a question that got at that dynamic in a fascinating way. It asked those surveyed whether they would rather live in a community with larger houses that are farther apart and driving is essential to get practically anywhere or would prefer smaller houses that were closer with stores and schools within walking distance. Seventy-five percent of those whose survey answers identified them as consistent conservatives said they preferred the large house, car-dependent community. By contrast, 77 percent of consistent liberals liked the more urban scenario.

Reinforcing this, in the answer to another question, 79 percent of mostly or consistently conservative respondents said it was important to them to live in a place where most people shared their political views. That number was 60 percent for those who were mostly or consistently liberal. This gets at a phenomenon that has been called the "big sort," in which Americans are increasingly choosing to live in ideologically homogenous communities. Politically, this plays out in congressional districts being increasingly safe for Republicans or Democrats and the hardening of partisan boundaries in Congress. And there appears to be no near-term reversal of this trend for most congressional districts.

Compromise means your side wins: For many people, compromise connotes that both sides come away from negotiations feeling good about a result where neither side got everything it wanted and where there was a parity to the result. Not so in the hyperpartisan atmosphere of contemporary politics. Most consistent conservatives and liberals said their side had to get most of what it wanted in a compromise. Now, remember that these are the same people who nearly always vote and who are the most reliable donors — and the forces that pressure policymakers during Washington's fiscal fights become stark.

The American face of Nintendo, President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime, once said, "I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names."

Nintendo hasn't been kicking much ass over the past few years — the company posted a $456 million operating loss in its last fiscal year, its third loss in a row. Though the original Nintendo Wii console was a hit with consumers, the new version, Nintendo's Wii U, flopped.

Critics wonder why Nintendo doesn't take a leap by creating or licensing content for mobile devices many consumers already own.

Recently, Nintendo released Mario Kart 8 to rave reviews and more than a million sales in its first weekend. At this year's E3, or Electronic Entertainment Expo, the company announced a new intellectual property, Splatoon, a family friendly take on multiplayer third-person shooters (using paint guns instead of gun guns). Splatoon uses the GamePad to display a map that allows players to instantly teleport around the arena by touching a teammate's location.

NPR sat down with Reggie Fils-Aime at E3 in Los Angeles to ask him a range of questions about Nintendo's present and future.

People are saying that Nintendo is the underdog, since Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox are selling better. What do you say when people say that?

Both of those other competitors have other business lines, so by definition we are a smaller company, so by definition we must be the underdog. In terms of sales, the fact of the matter is that the sales will ebb and flow with the momentum of the software. For us, we are seeing a lot of momentum in our business with the launch of Mario Kart 8. We believe with the pacing of launches that we have over the next number of weeks that we'll continue to see very strong momentum. For our competitors, much of the content they showed was 2015 content, so over the next number of months through this holiday we'll see in terms of who sells the most.

All Tech Considered

Game Over For Nintendo? Not If Mario And Zelda Fans Keep Playing

All Tech Considered

Project Eavesdrop: An Experiment At Monitoring My Home Office

To see the speed of technological innovation, look no further than a street corner. Hailing a cab from the street is less common in cities with Uber, a service that lets you request a ride with the simple tap of a mobile phone app.

The five-year-old company — now valued at $17 billion — is growing so fast that it's operating in 128 cities globally, on every continent except Antarctica. But its disruptive entrance to the market means it's facing some growing pains worldwide.

"In 128 of our cities, we've got regulatory issues in about 128 of our cities," says Justin Kintz, Uber's policy director for the Americas.

Unfair Playing Field

Cab drivers staged traffic-snarling anti-Uber protests across Europe on Wednesday. They say Uber isn't competing on a level playing field, since the service doesn't adhere to the same driver training, safety and pricing rules that regulate existing cabs. Similar fights are happening in American cities, too.

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A bill that would have let millions of people refinance their student loans at a lower interest rate has failed in the Senate, after Republicans objected that it included a tax on the wealthy to pay for it. The measure would have allowed people with older loans to benefit from today's low interest rates.

The bill from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., didn't get past a procedural vote, falling by a 56-38 vote. Called the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, it was shot down days after President Obama urged Congress to help ease the burden of student debt.

Noting that her bill had bipartisan support, Warren said today that she would continue the effort to help "40 million Americans out there who are trying to deal with $1.2 trillion in student loan debt."

Warren said people with student loans should be on the same footing as homeowners and small businesses that are allowed to refinance their loan obligations.

"Republicans objected to the so-called Buffett Rule, which would increase income tax raise rates on the rich who make most of their money off investments, so that they would pay the same rate as those earning wages," NPR's S.V. Date reports for our Newscast unit.

"Only three Republicans voted with Democrats to proceed with the bill," Date says, "not enough to clear the Senate's 60-vote threshold."

After the vote, Warren asked a pointed question of her colleagues:

"Today is a really good day for billionaires. For the 40 million people dealing with student loan debt, it wasn't such a good day. This raises the fundamental question: Who does Washington work for? Does it work for those who can hire armies of lobbyists to make sure that every single loophole in the tax code is protected for them? Or does it work for young people who are trying to get started in life?"

On Monday, President Obama unveiled a plan to ease the burden on those paying student loans, signing an executive order that caps borrowers' payments at 10 percent of their monthly income.

As NPR's Anya Kamenetz noted, the president's plan expands the Pay As You Earn program, which is hobbled by a serious flaw: "few people have actually signed up for it."

The car industry is required to raise the average fuel efficiency of its vehicles to 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025. But consumers have been reluctant to adopt hybrid technology that'll get the industry there quicker.

That means the car companies have to find other ways to get fuel savings.

If you were to guess, how important would you say fuel economy is to the car business? How much of the research and development is going into making cars more efficient?

Margaret Wooldridge a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan has a pretty good educated guess: "I think all the churn is on fuel economy and the rest is window dressing to make sure [automakers] maintain or expand market share."

That's what car manufactures say: Fuel economy is right up there with safety.

So, how hard is it to make cars more fuel efficient? A Honda Civic from 1984 got 47 miles a gallon. Achieving a few more miles per gallon can't be that hard, right?

"If your only condition was build me a vehicle for 55 miles a gallon ... two snaps we could have it done," Wooldridge says.

"But, now design me that vehicle that's attractive, that has all the safety features, that [has] all the creature comforts that we've come to love and expect — my navigation systems, plug in my phone, power heating ... of my steering wheel," Wooldridge says. "So all of those comforts add more and more constraints and more and more burdens that make this harder and harder."

Business

Ford's New F-150 May Pave The Way For More Aluminum Cars

Skip Stiles stands on the edge of a small inlet known as the Hague, near downtown Norfolk, Virginia. The Chrysler Museum of Art is nearby, as are dozens of stately homes, all threatened by the water.

"We've got...[a] lot of old buildings around here: this apartment building, that church over there, been around since the turn of the last century," says Stiles, the executive director of Wetlands Watch, a Virginia-based environmental group. "You can sort of mark where the storms have come over the years and you can see the progress of these storms as they come farther and farther up onto these buildings."

Climate change may be an abstract concept to many people but in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, it's very real: Sea levels are rising, and the area is increasingly subject to flooding. At the same time, Virginia is a coal-producing state, and the nation's largest coal shipping port is in the region.

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It's been a little more than a year since San Jose, Calif., increased the city's minimum wage by $2 per hour, with adjustments for inflation. Now at $10.15 an hour, it's one of the state's highest.

Back in 2012, as voters were debating the wage hike, some in the restaurant and hospitality industry warned that an increase would be bad for the sector. It would deter new businesses from opening, they said, and would cause existing businesses to slash hours for employees.

So how are San Jose's businesses faring today? The answer is, it depends.

The vast majority of the 17,000 minimum wage jobs in the city are in the food service and hospitality sectors. After the wage increase, the Pizza My Heart restaurant raised its prices by about 5 percent.

Just a block from San Jose State University, Pizza My Heart gets heavy foot traffic that adds to a line out the door on most days. The restaurant does a brisk business; about 50 pizzas come out of its brick oven every hour.

Like many business owners in downtown, Chuck Hammers fought the ballot initiative and braced for the worst when the law took effect last March.

"There's that little bit of a panic from a business owner, you know, 'Is the sky going to fall?' " Hammers says. "And you're nervous. It's a 20 percent increase in what's really one of your biggest costs" — labor.

"After looking at it, I kind of stepped back and realized, well, it's gonna happen to everyone," Hammers says. "It's going to be a fair playing field. We just need to increase prices a little bit."

So he did. Slices went up by 25 cents, pies by $1. Sales held steady and Hammers says customers didn't seem to notice.

Hammers owns 24 Pizza My Heart shops, a franchise. Only four shops are in San Jose, but he decided to raise everyone's wages at all his stores. Otherwise, he says, he was worried he'd lose workers at his franchises outside the city, where the minimum wage is lower.

"The employees like it, they're sticking around longer," Hammers says. "We're getting very little turnover now in employees, which is really good."

In fact, Hammers is opening more Pizza My Hearts. He still bristles at the suggestion that he's a booster of raising the minimum wage. But at the same time, Hammers says he understands that it's almost impossible to live on $8 an hour in a city where the average two-bedroom apartment goes for more than $2,000 a month.

i i

Shep Gordon's job is managing musicians and chefs and turning them into stars. Gordon created celebrities out of the likes of Alice Cooper and Anne Murray, but he says fame isn't necessarily a good thing.

"I made excuses to myself for how I made a living and tried to do it as honorably as I could, but I can't say that I'm proud," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. " ... If you make someone famous, they have to pay a price."

After intentionally staying out of the spotlight throughout his career, Gordon is featured in a new documentary by Mike Myers called Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.

Gordon managed Blondie, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and he briefly managed George Clinton. He's often credited with the recent "celebrity chef" phenomenon, with such clients as Roger Verg, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme.

Gordon says he's been successful in his role behind the scenes.

“ I think my job is accomplished much better if I'm invisible.