Who is making the right decision? Microsoft or Nintendo?

[Mr Khan]

Soundwave said:

I'm beginning to think Nintendo is borderline retarded when it comes to making in-generation adjustments when a console is starting to go south. They're like the Titanic trying to navigate past an iceberg ... completely unable to react. They generally need to fail so hard in a generation and then take a few years to figure out what they did wrong.

They did the same thing with the N64, wasting their time developing the 64DD for years rather than giving the system a real mass storage alternative to cartridges. Only during the next generation did they accept they had to use optical media.

With the GameCube they should've offered an official DVD-playing model that didn't look like a Fisher Price toy, but only had the Panasonic Q which was available in Japan in tiny quantities and nothing else. Instead of getting their feet wet with online play they stubbornly pushed the GBA-GCN link option which was an extremely niche idea that didn't take off at all. 

I'll give Microsoft credit ... at least they are getting feedback from consumers and actually acting on it, they changed a lot of things that people reacted negatively to pre-launch and now are offering consumers the version of the XB1 that many want.

That humbled attitude will I think let MS taste some degree of success this generation if they stick to it. Nintendo is likely going to only taste what it feels like to have a lower selling console than the GameCube this generation.

It's a cultural thing. American companies care a lot less about saving face and more about getting results, so while companies are sometimes stubborn about product lines or features that they should have cut due to the ego of some higher executive, they'll usually cut or change what needs cut or changed (and more importantly, are far more willing to oust the ego-driven executive who was resistant to such changes).

Japanese companies, as seen in Sony's case, see their core businesses as a point of pride and feel that abandoning them wholly in the face of setbacks is fundamentally undesirable. Sony can see that in clinging to their TV business, which was the heart and soul of the company at one point and thus dragging their company to the brink of insolvency. Similarly, it's hard to get rid of executives with bad ideas (though they can always be booted upstairs, as happened with Ken Kutaragi or, sadly, Gunpei Yokoi), and more pretense is made on "tweaking" a bad idea rather than scrapping it outright.

The advantage for Japanese companies is that their products tend to come off as more organic and natural, so when they get a product right, they get it *right*. Western successes tend to be blander and focus-tested.