Dromble: Dan Adelman Discusses Nintendo’s Culture, Third Parties, VC & More

[Soundwave]

Mr Khan said:

Soundwave said:

se7en7thre3 said:

Whether its a cultural thing or not, this is the main problem at Nintendo:

Iwata - "Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market.”

Too non-confrontational and runs away from its issues, rather than attack to fix its own weaknesses.

When things got too crowded in the western market with the M$ invasion, Nintendo aimed at casuals. Now that the casual market is flooded, expect Ninty to run away once again. Which direction do they turn to? Don't expect for Nintendo to "learn its lesson(s)" because remember, they run from problems. Right now is panic mode and its why most of us expect Nintendo to support itself, with the Fusion concept. Don't expect a powerhouse console, and don't expect "wii 3" those days are long gone.

Yeah that quote was rather damning but very insightful about how Nintendo actually views the market (versus their fanbase). 

Nintendo tucks tail and runs away any time they are confronted with a strong competitor in any market sector. 

When confronted with a stronger competitor, an important distinction. They could and did defeat competitors like Hudson and Sega head-on. Then bigger fish got into the pond. They tried direct competition, or what passes for that at Nintendo, in the GameCube era. Despite Sony's debt problems, they can still swing more weight around than Nintendo by a good stretch. Microsoft sees Nintendo like a fly buzzing around its head, and as you yourself said, if Microsoft really cared about the industry, they would have owned it ten years ago, lock, stock, and barrel. What you're saying right now is like criticizing the Viet Cong for "turning tail and running when the U.S. Army showed up."

That's how you live when you're a small guy operating in an arena dominated by people much larger than you.

Fair enough. 

I think when MS offered to buy Nintendo basically like it was nothing, Yamauchi learned then that Nintendo could not compete head on in that kind of a race, MS is too big of a company. 

But generally speaking though Nintendo does tend to really not like competetion. Like when Sega really started to attack them aggressively in the early 90s, Nintendo kinda reluctantly had to be pried out of their hole to fight back.