Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015) • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by aikinai » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:43 AM UTC

cannam wrote: post #20

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…

> 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 p…

I completely agree. Maybe it's shallow but I could not muster any interest in the original hamburger DS, but as soon as I saw the Lite I wanted one. And I still love that design language and feel, especially in Crystal White.

It's a great way to get a premium feel out of cheap materials. I wish more modern (cheaper) electronics would learn from what Nintendo has been able to do.

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

#32

Post by danielscrubs » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

chrisan wrote: post #17

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…

> 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…

My Switch is quite irritating. Every week it starts to drift and then the drifting stops after 20 min. It started doing this after maybe two months of light use and I'm extremely careful with my gear.

Also, the ergonomics, which I didn't think would bother me, is really bad. I can play hours with the Switch Pro controller, and 30 min with the regular controller before my hands hurt. I don't know if it's because I'm old, but the Gameboy Color never bothered my hands like this.

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

#33

Post by aikinai » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:47 AM UTC

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…

Nintendo's game development is the exact opposite of lazy. They spend insane amounts of attention and manpower on the fine details. That's exactly how they keep succeeding despite lower power, poor cloud services, etc.

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

#34

Post by Macha » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #11

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…

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 original Xbox.

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

#35

Post by Kaiyou » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:50 AM UTC

Didn't Nintendo drop this philosophy the moment Gunpei left to work on a GameBoy competitor for Bandai and pushed out the GBC? Or was it after Gunpei died in a car accident shortly after? The NGC also didn't follow this philosophy and neither did the GBA. It wasn't until the Wii/NDS era, when they kind of brought it back.

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

#36

Post by joshjdr » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

k__ wrote: post #29

"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.

“These two withered parts allowed for mainstream pricing ($350) and freed the team to work on peripheral innovations like decreasing latency and refining positional tracking.”

The focus on decreasing latency is arguably what differentiated the Rift early on: https://www.wired.com/2014/05/oculus-rift-4/

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

#37

Post by swiley » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:56 AM UTC

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…

Compared to the SE? Yes

Compared to the 7 which feels like a flimsy piece of trash? Meh they both feel about the same.

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

#38

Post by Kaiyou » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:58 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #15

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…

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.

GameBoy lasted weeks. I remember reading that it lasted about 40h.

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

#39

Post by Macha » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:58 AM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #28

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).

To be fair, this has had gaps. The GBA SP and original DS were notably less durable than the devices that came before or after. The hinge design was relatively fragile especially with the mechanism being exposed even when closed and relying on relatively narrow plastic straps.

They also felt the need for the original 2DS as a more child safe design than the original 3ds. The 2DS XL on the other hand has a very thin top shell - even I've managed to break a screen on one by putting a laptop on top of it in a bag.

The gameboy series, original 2ds/3ds and DSi are tanks though.

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

#40

Post by bottled_poe » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

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 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...