The_Liquid_Laser said:
We are talking about strategy here. Strategy is about planning things out in the future. That is why Iwata had nothing to do with Gamecube's strategy even though he became CEO while Gamecube was on the market. It was already too late to make an overall strategy at that point. On the other hand Iwata put a lot of focus and energy into consolidating all of Nintendo's software development onto one system. The Switch was first and foremost his strategy. Also, you said in a previous post that Iwata was a bad strategist, because he got his ideas from books. What kind of weird logic is this? Reading books on strategy makes one a better strategist, not a worse one. Lastly, you are starting to turn the argument from strategy to execution. Perhaps he isn't the best at execution? But when he comes to gaming strategy he is unparalleled. The DS, Wii and Switch were all big risks, because they were so different from what came before. They were successful because the fundamental strategy behind these systems is solid. And none of these systems would have existed if Iwata wasn't the CEO. |
Your point about the Gamecube is not the same as the Switch wasn't out or even close to out when Iwata passed. Again, Iwata passed in July 2015 but the Switch didn't launch until another 21 months. They may have had an overall strategy or idea for the system at that time but a lot can change in roughly 2 years time. What you and others are assuming is that nothing changed from the inception to Iwata's depth and Kimishima did absolutely nothing but follow the plan. The actual launch and the solftware line-up is what you have to give credit to Kimishima for as he was president at the time. But you all don't want to give him that credit because he's not a sacred cow.
When I say he's a bad strategist unless he uses a book, what I mean is Iwata can't run a business unless he's using someone else's gameplan. The minute he goes off script the company goes off a cliff and has some of their worst loses. Iwata had to rely on those books because he had no business sense of his own. The success of the Wii and DS shows that 1)Those business books are good and 2)Nintendo makes good games. However, it doesn't really prove Iwata was skilled at what he did as, again, those were the only successes he had. When you consider that, it's clear that the books carried him, rather than Iwata's keen business sense leading the company to success.
Iwata was someone who should never have been moved into the position he was in. He was a programmer without parallel and that's where he probably should have been. As a CEO, his results are mixed. I'll end on this. When Nintendo becomes incredibly successful after someone takes Iwata's job, it's hard to say he was a good businessman.
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I'm not saying the Switch will beat the PS4 LT but otoh I wouldn't count the Switch out just yet. Rol did make some really good points.
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