Reggie Fils-Aimé says Astro Bot ‘almost outdid Nintendo at its own game’

Reggie Fils-Aimé paid tribute to Astro Bot and its developers on Tuesday as the game took home the top prize at the 2025 New York Game Awards.

Sony and Team Asobi‘s PS5 platformer was nominated for four awards at the event, which was hosted by former Nintendo of America president and COO Fils-Aimé.

While it missed out on the Best World award, which went to Elden Ring, Astro Bot was named Best Kids Game, won the Best Music in a Game prize, and scooped the coveted Game of the Year award.

“So I have to admit it, Astro Bot almost outdid Nintendo at its own game,” Fils-Aime said, drawing laughter from some of the audience.

Astro Bot also won the top prize at The Game Awards in December, and during his acceptance speech, director Nicolas Doucet said he’d been inspired by Nintendo’s Mario games since he first encountered them as a child.

“Let’s not forget that even before PlayStation there were people making platformers,” he said. “I remember I was a kid in 1989, Christmas, and I got a gray box and it had a game packed in, it was called Super Mario Bros. and it was really, really great.

“So, we are in Japan, we are in Tokyo, they [Nintendo] are in Kyoto, but I want to pay tribute to the company who really put platformers [on the map] and showed us innovation and quality consistently, and inspired us to actually make the game that we made. And I’ve managed not to mention them, have you noticed? But you all know who they are.”

Astro Bot was also VGC’s Game of the Year for 2024. “The sheer level of joy the game produces makes it impossible to compare it to anything other than Mario’s very best adventure,” according to our Astro Bot review, which called it the best 3D platformer in a decade.