While the article is most definitely talking about their hardware, I can't help but feel they probably take a similar approach to their software. Switch's OS is basically a fork of their 3DS OS, with much more thought put into play about security (the 3DS was swiss cheese). Of course, there were many bugs to be found (using a massively out of date webkit at launch, they outsourced this to some vendor). But after all these years, online play in their first party games is still just so .. atrocious. Ugh.
Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
11–20 of 182 posts
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#12Often the British engineering philosophy, tbh - frugality of necessity.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#13"Withered" is a really weird word to use here since all of these old-and-cheap parts are cheap only because they're massively widely used. I think a better translation would be "commodity parts". In fact later in the article it says "This was a poor translation of the original, which was much closer in spirit to ‘weathered.’" It seems to me that the use of the term in the headline was deliberately obfuscating clickba…
FWIW I really didn't feel clickbaited - the article more or less aligned with my expectations based on the title.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#14While the article is most definitely talking about their hardware, I can't help but feel they probably take a similar approach to their software. Switch's OS is basically a fork of their 3DS OS, with much more thought put into play about security (the 3DS was swiss cheese). Of course, there were many bugs to be found (using a massively out of date webkit at launch, they outsourced this to some vendor). But after all…
That also has to do with the state of software in Japan. For a very long time, being a software developer was seen as much less prestigious than being an electronic engineeer and a bit more akin to a secretary that codes up the requirements...
So the best and the brightest did not tend to go into software and the typical state of software engineering in a lot of big japanese companies was extremely bad... It's getting better but it's still not great.
Nintendo also has a tendency to outsource a lot of their software development (IIRC the SDK for the wii and the DS was outsourced to intelligent systems who themselves then outsourced part of it)
This is of course a generalization as things goes and there are great things coming out of Japan (hello Ruby!) but having lived there, there was a marked difference between the software engineering culture in Japan and the one I saw in the US and Europe, with Japan being easily a decade or more behind.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#15What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand. More to the point of the article, however: while Nintendo does use "withered" technology, perhaps it's too withered. The Switch uses an ARM-based CPU/GPU SoC from 2015: obsolete before the Switch came out! The GameBoy Color, released in 1998…
As GameGear owner, the set of batteries could hardly hold a couple of hours playing Sonic, meaning I used to play a portable device usually plugged in, while the GameBoy would last days.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#16What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand. More to the point of the article, however: while Nintendo does use "withered" technology, perhaps it's too withered. The Switch uses an ARM-based CPU/GPU SoC from 2015: obsolete before the Switch came out! The GameBoy Color, released in 1998…
They fully compensate hardware with portability and the most polished titles you can find. Also, their first-party games look better on 720p switch display then like 98% of all games on 4k displays.
You can make the best hardware possible, but practically no companies can achieve Nintendo level quality.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#17What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand. More to the point of the article, however: while Nintendo does use "withered" technology, perhaps it's too withered. The Switch uses an ARM-based CPU/GPU SoC from 2015: obsolete before the Switch came out! The GameBoy Color, released in 1998…
> Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand.
Does everyone still feel this way about Apple?
I still can remember the first iPhone I had. The 3G just felt really great in my hand. I probably played with that more than a 13yo will play with his balls. Then the first retina and machined metal feel. It all felt like this was the top of the phone world. But ever since then the iPhone just feels like another phone. I don't feel anything special about the X as its just another in long line of iPhones. I stick with apple because I like iOS compared to how android behaves. Apple could make a plastic phone and I wouldn't care or think less of it.
The switch on the other hand I am enthralled with. My wife, at 40, has gotten into gaming because of it. I'm sure if Nintendo partnered with Apple it would be a highly machined and precisely designed piece of hardware, but I would find it hard to believe it would matter.
I guess what I'm saying is I no longer associate quality of a product with the materials as long as they don't break on me. My switch has lasted 3 years which is about a year longer than any iPhone I've had where I've wanted to upgrade because the phone feels slower than it used to.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#18"Withered" is a really weird word to use here since all of these old-and-cheap parts are cheap only because they're massively widely used. I think a better translation would be "commodity parts". In fact later in the article it says "This was a poor translation of the original, which was much closer in spirit to ‘weathered.’" It seems to me that the use of the term in the headline was deliberately obfuscating clickba…
> It seems to me that the use of the term in the headline was deliberately obfuscating clickbait
I think this (mis)translation was fairly widely recognised before this article was written, so it's probably just using the familiar version in the heading in preparation for clarifying it in the article. Reasonable enough I think.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#19In a weird way, I think Nintendo's approach is basically "Zero to One" to differentiate from competitors, but doing it with cheaper hardware to reduce costs.
I'm not a gamer, but from a business perspective I'm intrigued with their approach.
Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)
#20What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand. More to the point of the article, however: while Nintendo does use "withered" technology, perhaps it's too withered. The Switch uses an ARM-based CPU/GPU SoC from 2015: obsolete before the Switch came out! The GameBoy Color, released in 1998…
> What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand.
The Switch is neat and tidy rather than premium exactly, but I do remember the first time I picked up a DS Lite. I was really impressed. The DS Lite (unlike the original DS, DSi, or 3DS) had a double-skinned cover with a thin transparent plastic shell over the coloured one, which gave it a lovely sheeny appearance, and everything just fit together beautifully. The audio design was a delight as well. I loved that this quality was lavished on something "for kids", and that it was so unlike the sort of sterile metallic slabs that companies like Apple would spend the next decade and more designing.