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Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

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Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#21

Post by nikofeyn »

dlivingston wrote: post #8

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…

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 from the likes of other console makers. they do not seek to compete in hardware power.

nintendo's true problems lie in online and cloud services, like account management and online multiplayer, and just pure laziness in game development and implementation. they get away with it somehow.

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#22

Post by libertine »

analyticascent wrote: post #19

In 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.

Hmm I'm not sure if Zero to One fits into what Nintendo does - maybe the Wii was (arguably the N64).

Nintendo main differentiation revolves around their IP, which they manage to refresh with every new console release by making some console feature into a game mechanic (and the gameplay revolves around it).

You can see good examples of it in their hardware accessories for games, where they don't feel like gimmicks, yet on other consoles some accessories do feel like it.

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#23

Post by huffmsa »

nikofeyn wrote: post #21
dlivingston wrote: post #8

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…

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 stuff though. And emulation. They could and probably should acquihire a few companies to deal with those. If they made their entire back-catalog available on an official emulator that works one this and the next generation console, they'd be set forever.

Though they've already got enough cash in the bank to run for 50 years even if they stopped all new sales.

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#24

Post by huffmsa »

huffmsa wrote: post #23
nikofeyn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They did bungle this last Pokemon though. But that's just as much in the Pokemon Company as Nintendo.

It should have been a true open world, with real-time battles. Basically Breath of the Wild, but you can deploy Pokemon instead of different weapons.

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#26

Post by polm23 »

taneq wrote: post #5

"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…

The original word is 枯れる, which really is normally translated as "withered", or, contextually, "dead" or "dried up". Translating it as "commodity parts" loses the implication that common sense says the technology is "used up" in some way. It's not a word you'd normally use to praise something.

Here's a bunch of sentences with English translations that use the word:

https://jisho.org/search/%E6%9E%AF%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B%20%23se...

There is also a sense that means "matured" or "tested by time", but I've honestly never seen it outside a dictionary, and in fact for many dictionaries the example usage of that sense is just 枯れた技術, Gunpei Yokoi's term. Example:

https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9E%AF%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B-468424

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#27

Post by huffmsa »

dlivingston wrote: post #8

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…

The Switch isn't supposed to feel premium. It's a toy for children. I think there's a quote from someone at the company to the effect of "our audience is children (even if their age indicates otherwise), we want to give them something that feels fun enough, but it shouldn't get in the way of the games"

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#28

Post by runawaybottle »

dlivingston wrote: post #8

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…

It could be perceived quality, since Nintendo is notable for their build quality. There are many stories of their devices having survived years of abuse (I’m talking Gameboys that still work after falling out of a bus).

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#29

Post by k__ »

"the Oculus Rift’s two most important components are a cheap smartphone screen and a pair of fifty cent lenses"

I got a smartphone and a VR headset to put it in. Yes they are cheap, but the experience is completely different from the Rift.

These may be the most fundamental parts, but they are not what makes the Rift a good VR set.

Re: Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)

#30

Post by huffmsa »

Even when they did ship with more cutting edge power and tech, they approached it as if they didn't have it.

It partly comes from the video game things being a bit of a gamble and side project to keep the company alive. "Success under constraint."

And not it's a bit of an intentional handicap, like setting a horsepower cap on a racecar. Anyone can go fast and make something spectacular with unlimited power, but when bleeding edge graphics aren't even available for you to waste time considering, you have to finds new ways to make your game "fun".

You have to think of new control schemes, new mechanics, endearing art styles, etc. You can't just melt faces (and wallets) with the visuals.

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