Mr Khan said:
Soundwave said:
Mr Khan said:
Remember though: the free hand other Sega divisions were given was what killed them. Sega 32X was Sega of America's baby, and resentment over Sega Japan going for the Saturn instead basically wiped out Sega's presence overseas in the 5th generation, killing revenue along with it. Though that didn't stop the Dreamcast from storming out of the gate in the West, Sega didn't have the money to keep the train going.
The "iron grip" has some advantages, though Sony strikes a better balance, mostly by building actual studios outside of Japan, which gives them a network in the development community. Nintendo used to have this, or was aiming that direction in the late Yamauchi days with the launch of Retro Studios and NST being a stronger studio for the company. Now NST has been weakened and Retro is kept on a short leash, as are all of Nintendo's operating partners (though again, advantages in terms of reliable farmed-out IP: close cooperation and feedback with Japan made the brilliant Metroid Prime, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Punch-Out!! to look at another studio).
Nintendo should simply expand Retro to be a 2-team studio (like Intelligent Systems), so that they could let one team work closely with Japan and let another be a funnel for American ideas and creativity. Then they should do the same in Europe.
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Current Nintendo is even more closed off ... in the 90s, Yamauchi would override anyone at the company and make decisions on his own if he felt like it.
DKC/Rare deal was greenlit by Yamauchi because liked the Westerner that had the balls to pitch the game to him during a meeting. He made the call on the SGI chip for the N64 too (a Western chipset from a Western company) because he liked it, he didn't care that the Japanese side was probably whining about it. Sega wanted it too at least Tom Kalinske did.
Don't confuse the Yamauchi era with modern Nintendo. Yamauchi granted Arakawa and Lincoln considerable freedom. That's why NOA was allowed to do things like outbid Sony for a Star Wars deal in the 90s, make games like Ken Griffey Jr. and Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside, start up Retro Studios, invest in Rare, etc.
None of that stuff would happen with Nintendo today because they are allergic to giving any of their Western divisions any autonomy whatsoever. Retro has been with Nintendo for 15 years now, and Nintendo still won't let them off the leash to develop even two games at a time or work on anything original, lol.
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That's what i mean. Nintendo used to have more of a balance (but still less autonomy than Sega. No way Nintendo was letting NoA develop a SNES add-on by themselves, for instance), but that's gone now. Retro is the result of that balance, but now used as all non-Kyoto teams are used.
Balance could be struck anew by opening Retro up a little. We're seeing strange things happen at Nintendo, and with these new strategies could come an evolving corporate profile as well.
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Nintendo hasn't had balance in ages. Really since Arakawa/Lincoln/Yamauchi retired that Nintendo that you're basically describing died.
That Nintendo (or NOA) doesn't exist any more.
Letting Retro make 2 games at a time instead of 1 hardly brings any real balance either. Rare would work on like 5-6 games at a time in the 90s.
Yamauchi chose a Western company and a Western chip for the N64, and he basically bought the Seattle Mariners because Arakawa and Lincoln asked him to. NOA could've made a 32X if they really wanted to, they (wisely) didn't want to. The Super FX chip was basically Nintendo's "system expanding" idea, and that was developed by Argonaut, a Western studio.
Yamauchi was more pragmatic in that sense ... he was a business man. He didn't give a sh*t about the games really, lol. In his reasoning if listening to Westerners meant he could make more money, he'd do it. But Nintendo of today ... they're all died in the wool, old Japanese game designers who think the Japanese way is best, Yamauchi didn't care about that.
