| Deeds said: I agree with your post EXCEPT THIS. I dont think a lack of autonomy is a weakness at all. Why do you think autonomy would work for Nintendo when it did not work for Sega. Sega of America had too much autonomy and it led to infighting between them and Sega of Japan because Sega of America were pissed off that Sega of Japan chose a PowerVR chip instead of a 3Dfx chip for the Dreamcast. Sometimes its better to keeps your divisions on a long leash. |
Well, I guess I was rather imprecise there. It's less about NoA or NoE having more autonomy than it is about HQ being less insular and more informed about trends outside of their rather strange little home market. That insularity is in part what makes Nintendo... Nintendo, but unfortunately it's also what keeps them a decade or more behind their competitors in terms of things like online policies.
Though I suppose greater autonomy naturally follows from there. Sega was in many ways just a mess of a company, so I wouldn't let their stupidity color the practice. SCE has had a lot more success with it, for instance. I'd even say it's part of the reason that they cleaned Nintendo's clock with the PS1. Nintendo had always acted as if the world consisted of Japan and America, and that was it. But Sony took Europe very seriously and for the first time really marketed a games console to Europeans in their own languages and on their own terms. I don't think that would have worked so well without giving SCEE a lot more leeway.
It seems like Nintendo themselves has gone backwards on this since the Howard Lincoln era, which you'll surely agree were successful times and certainly not a Sega style clusterfuck. It's hard to imagine Nintendo of America turning down something like Super Mario Bros 2 today and that resulting in the creation of a new SMB 2 for the US market today, and with Iwata becoming CEO of NoA I don't see them becoming more receptive any time soon.
