| Soundwave said: I think this is where Nintendo really misses Hiroshi Yamauchi, precisely because he wasn't a game designer. Yamauchi didn't give a crap about game politics or even the games themselves (lol), he was just a ruthless businessman. If there was money to be made he'd do it, and he was much more pragmatic about market differences. Nintendo would make things like Star Wars games and James Bond games and Killer Instinct and NBA games and baseball games ... because it made sense. Of course Americans like that sort of thing so we'll make it. Simple. The PS4 is an American console, but 20 years before the PS4, Yamauchi went over his entire Japanese division and signed a deal with SGI for the N64, which was basically a Western console. So he was ahead of the curve. I think unfortunately modern Nintendo is too mired in the red tape politics of Japanese game development tradition. Too many developers in charge, not enough business men. Too many people at NCL who feel their opinion should be heard because they've worked at the company since 1980-whatever. I really think it was Miyamoto that honestly pushed Yamauchi to make the N64 cartridge-only because he couldn't stand loading times, but as a result Nintendo basically handed over their strong hold on the game market to Sony. Just stupid decisions like that ... it's really why you want business suits to the run the business, not game designers. And really I think a lot of these games like Bayonetta 2 and Devils Third are basically greenlight by Nintendo in the "Japanese developer fraternity" type inner circle, they're all buds outside of work and they all talk shop and probably drink sake after work ... but this is not how you run a business by greenlighting games based on "Such And Such-San needs funding for his game, he's a good guy so lets give it to him" |
I think that's spot on. The N64 was actually my favorite Nintendo console and it had an amazing aura of cutting edge. A bunch of bad decisions (Nintendo 3rd party relations, delayed launch, cartridges) were the only issue. But it had a lot of new, inovative, western games. Goldeneye (Nintendo at the bleeding edge of console FPS), Perfect Dark, Banjo, Conker's, etc.
I see game consoles as a hardware and software API. You want to provide the best device with the best SDK for developers. That's something that Nintendo never did.
