01Net Strikes Yet Again: Iwata near firing

[gumby_trucker]

Helios said:

RolStoppable said:

Helios said:

Yes, that's why I mentioned the practicality of the matter. In a perfect world (or rather, in a world of perfect information) you could serve and maintain your market for an extended period of time, but in reality you don't know for sure what will actually work - except that which has already succeeded. This is true regardless of which framework you are working within.

For the record, I am aware that this is not actually Rol's, Malstrom's or anyone's position - I'm only showing the result of taking the concept, as expressed by Rol, to its logical extreme.

As for Malstrom, my only real objection against him (and his 'political agenda') in this context is the notion that no game developer can function/serve a market outside the proposed framework, which is simply absurd

I fail to see the logic in what you said.

All I see are people who put ideas forth that Nintendo is currently doing the right thing or at least not the wrong things. How can it even be up for question whether or not Nintendo should make more games that are similar to the ones that made the DS and Wii successful? There is only one answer and that is "yes, they should".

Why? Because you want them to make those kinds of games. My point is, that's not good enough. No one has any mandate to dictate how Nintendo should perform their business, either from a venture capitalistic or artistic standpoint. Nintendo doesn't serve the needs of the market - their products do (or don't). They are free to seek fortune wherever they wish, and in fact they could just as easily quit making games altogether, just as they quit making cards (which, by the way, had been profitable for nearly a century).

Finally someone on my side!

Thank you Helios, for saying what I was not able to say. Truly, yours are some excellent posts!

Another thought that crossed my mind was in response to Lord's analogy of today's customer as the patrons of old. Correct me if I'm wrong but this analogy is lacking. If anything, the equivalent of a patron to Nintendo would be its share-holders. In comparison to them, the few hundred dollars a year we invest in Nintendo products are insignificant. More importantly our investment isn't as transparent (and predictable) to Nintendo as those of the share-holders and it carries less obligations with it, not to mention the fact that us consumers have no open channel of communication with Nintendo, unlike the shareholders.
To make the analogy complete, I guess you could try to equate the consumers of today with the common working class of the renaissance: those people who would come to church in order to pray, and upon witnessing the magnificence of the frescoes and the architectural mastery around them, would be so humbled as to increase their donation to the church. (ie: if we buy more games, ultimately Nintendo's stock goes up, which makes the shareholders wealthier and happier).

It's not a perfect analogy because I doubt the artist ever received a cut from these donations during that period, but I think it illustrates some parts of the relationship a bit better.
Thankfully for us, the consumer, Nintendo never allows itself to be too heavily influenced by its share-holders, and no one in this forum would suggest they should be.

 

The second thing I wanted to point out is in response to an earlier reply by Lord regarding Van Gogh. The fundamental argument here has already been made by Helios but I just wanted to add that even Lord's assessment of Van Gogh's situation is in agreement with this point of view: Namely, that Van Gogh did not see a high level of success until his work was presented before a different audience than the one who had seen it initially (contemporary artists, according to Lord). 
Once again, had he been working under a single oligarchical patron it is quite possible his career as an artist would never have developed in the first place. Therefor only the option to choose his audience (one made for him posthumously, but a choice nonetheless) is what allowed him to build the reputation he has today.

Finally, my reply to Rol about my last paragraph being written by someone "who must be high" (lol) was going to address the difference between Nintendo the publicly traded company, and Nintendo the collection of human beings, but Helios made that point already, and in a commendable manner IMO.

Hopefully I have now tied up all the loose ends I've left in this conversation.