101–110 of 182 posts
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The article is a case of rose-coloured glassed. It helps that FLOPS per core has essentially flatlined since 2006. I’m sure Nintendo realise that’s the main reason for the hardware choices. https://www.quora.com/What-makes-CPU-models-increasingly-fas...
They've followed this philosophy since at lea st the first Gameboy though. How do FLOPS essentially flatlining since 2006 account for that?
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. 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. I'm not sure quality is the issue, all of my old Nintendo consoles still work years later (SNES, GBA SP, Gamecube), they simply seem to eschew cutting-edge (and often less reliable) technology. I've owned four Xbox 360s, three PS1s, two PS2s…
There is a very well known issue with Switches analog sticks failing en masse, with people having to replace them after short period of time, less than a year.
And since Nintendo uses Apple approach to pricing, the replacement joycons are insanely expensive.
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 Of course, there were many bugs to be found (using a massively out of date webkit at launch, they outsourced this to some vendor).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…
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 gettin…
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i have a lot of complaints about nintendo, but nintendo's only console to be well ahead of their competitors' offerings in terms of hardware was one of their worst competing consoles, in terms of sales. and that's the gamecube. so it hasn't made and doesn't make commercial sense for them to heavily invest in the underlying hardware. ever since the gamecube, and maybe before then, nintendo has been on a divergent path…
> pure laziness in game development Ah you're one of those "how do they keep getting away with making more Mario games?" people. The secret is that they don't release mainline games very often. You don't get a new one every year. You get one every 3-4 (or Metroid 6-10) years. And when you do get a new installment it's just as fun and joyful as the previous ones. They do need to get their shit in gear with the online…
It's remarkable how their fundamental "lateral" insight of the last decade was so blindingly obvious in this age of the smartphone - portability is king. I wonder if they collected data from the 3DS and WiiU and could tell that playtime on portable systems was orders of magnitude greater on portables. If you ask me, given my experience owning a Switch and watching my PS4 and gaming PC gather dust, the most compelling…
That insight happened 30 years ago. Nintendo's best selling consoles and games have always been portable systems.
It's remarkable how their fundamental "lateral" insight of the last decade was so blindingly obvious in this age of the smartphone - portability is king. I wonder if they collected data from the 3DS and WiiU and could tell that playtime on portable systems was orders of magnitude greater on portables. If you ask me, given my experience owning a Switch and watching my PS4 and gaming PC gather dust, the most compelling…
I can't see Sony getting back into portables after seeing how they let the Vita wither on the vine and die. It was a very powerful system for its time and did decently faithful renditions of games running on consoles of the time. It is really too bad: the Vita is great. I just bought one a short while back now that it has been hacked wide open. With an affordable SDCard & adapter in place of Sony's proprietary and ex…
- I hated the touchpad on the back. I'm in that subset of people who thinks the original 'Texas' Xbox controller is a good size for my hands, so I know that's very subjective. But I could never get comfortable with it.
- Using it doesn't feel as smooth as my times with a (3)DS or even the original PSP.
- Speaking Sony killed a shitton of goodwill with their winddown of the PSP for me. Yeah that's a nitpick but I think others had it as well which impacted uptake of the Vita.
- Proprietary memory cards that are too expensive. At least with memory stick I had a couple of options. Yeah I get that the new formats were to help with the piracy issues, but then making your proprietary cards so expensive just makes me feel soured.
- Loading times on the Vita still remind me of playing on a console with a hard drive.
That being said Nintendo has a lot more experience both from a hardware and software perspective so they are very hard to out-compete. The biggest indicator of that to me is the dearth of titles that are easy to do a few minutes on with a Switch/etc versus the kinds of games I have on my Vita which typically are better for something like a long flight or car ride.
Love it. Tech has been so obsessed with "the next Facebook" for the last 15 years that there have been thousands of useful concepts lying on the table. While everyone jumped from mobile to wearables to AR to machine intelligence, there are billion-dollar companies that amount to little more than a CRUD framework, a few innovations, and intelligent marketing/strategy/advisory. It gives me hope for the future - if we c…
Got some examples?
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Sony made several portable gaming devices (PSP, PS vita, PSN compatible phone). The market didn’t really care for them. Which makes sense. People already have a phone, they don’t want an additional thing to carry around. People want a flagship phone, not a worse phone that’s more expensive because it can play some exclusive games. The Nintendo switch was the right form factor, but only Nintendo has the IP to pull it…
> Sony made several portable gaming devices... The market didn’t really care for them. Except for the PSP, which sold 81 million units.
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Even Sony's offering in that regard has been playing catch up to Xbox Live. PSN on PS4 has reached feature parity with Xbox Live on the 360, but it sure doesn't compete in important areas like actually working, download speeds, and navigating the menus in a reasonable time. Not sure what Live on Xbox One is like as I didn't get a Xbox this generation. Meanwhile Nintendo still hasn't caught up with Xbox Live from the…
"Meanwhile Nintendo still hasn't caught up with Xbox Live from the original Xbox." I can't help but think that this is intentional from Nintendo. There are many many online and local wireless features on the Wii/ and 3/DS that are no longer present on the Switch. They seems to start over with every platform. I get the impression though that Nintendo doesn't want communication features that are not "safe" for younger…
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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 gettin…
Is this why software developers are paid peanuts in Japan?