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jarrod on 11 October 2010
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Rainbird said:
jarrod said:

Iwata said something along the lines of when Nintendo stops making videogame hardware, they'll stop making videogames period.  And they won't ever commit to a format they can't retain control over, they consider hardware a means to an end and working on someone else's hardware would provide fundamental obstacles to their internal development process and culture.

Sega, Hudson and SNK's falls from grace when moving out of hardware paint a pretty cautionary tale... 

Policies can be changed though. And Nintendo still would have a hand in the design of the machine, plus they would be in complete control of their controller.

Sega, Hudson and SNK are probably good examples of companies that fail to adapt in that case. I don't know the situation with their developers though, maybe some talented people left, I don't know. But some developers can still make excellent games for machines that are not made by their employers, loads of developers are proof of that in this day and age, and Nintendo should do fine, even if they don't have 100% control over the hardware anymore.

Hardware design is fully integrated into software design though, that's core to Nintendo and core to their recent resurgence.  Systems like DS or Wii wouldn't have happened with the scenario you're proposing, and it literally runs counter to Nintendo's own R&D.

People from Sega have commented before on how much turmoil their development went through in the 3rd party shift, Naka and Suzuki especially iirc, and how that loss of intimate know how with the hardware fundamentally damaged their R&D process and demoralized their teams.  When literally EVERY company who goes out of hardware "fails to adapt", maybe you should start questioning why exactly that is?