> Very HQ centric. Nintendo of America is only considered a marketing/translation arm. They get virtually no decision making ability.

I think that is a really big problem for Nintendo going forward. For a long time now I have gotten the feeling the Japanese executive decision making apparatus is very very out of touch with the American / European consumer demands. They understand the Japanese gamer market but they have continued to "not get" the western marketplace at all. The fact they depend on strong sales of their first party franchises should be a strong indicator that Nintendo is not a healthy organization. That will work for awhile as they sell of nostalgia but newer kids don't have the same attachment to Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc. The Nintendo online story is still a joke compared to Sony and Microsoft.

>Nintendo is not a healthy organization.

I disagree heavily.

The toy view the japanese executives take is radically different than american videogame companies, that allows them to have a cult like following.

Nintendo is also extraordinarily cash rich.

They don't need the western market, its just a bonus.

The switch was a system tailor made to the japanese aesthetic of not having large tvs, not caring about online games, and long commutes.

There are many things about the Switch which I love but there are a lot of lessons that Nintendo is having to re-learn the hard way since they’re not watching their competitors.

I remember there was an interview a few years ago with a flat out mentioned that when building an online service they never looked at Xbox live. At all.

That’s how you get to the point that in 2017 you launch consul that doesn’t support cloud saves and ties purchases to the hardware instead of a single account. If something goes wrong with my switch all my purchases die with it. I have to send it in to Nintendo and have them fix/replace it and move my purchases over. And of course if something happens (including a bad software update) I could lose all my progress in all my games.

Sony and Microsoft of had solutions to this forever. You have to pay money for the cloud save back up (which really annoys me) but my games are tied to an account and not the hardware. When my Xbox 360 died? I just bought a new one and all my stuff re-download it. When I bought a PlayStation 4 Pro I could easily move all my stuff from my PS4.

There are a few things were Nintendo could make some small adjustments and make life MUCH easier. I know numerous parents would love the ability to buy a game once and play it on two or three consoles (one for each kid) the way you can with stuff on iOS or the PS4. Instead you have to pay 60 bucks a kid.

I love Nintendo for making fun, interesting, colorful, lighthearted games. It’s nice to have something other than the latest major zombie shooter to play.

But in some ways they still live in 1993.

I remember working at a console developer about ten years ago, the Japanese developers I worked with said when Nintendo first showed them the Wii, the Nintendo guys had to ask my future coworkers (non Nintendo developers ) about online features of Sony/Microsoft consoles when they were asked about Wii online features because they had no clue what was going on there.

Before that, was on this project to look at Gameboy Advance cartridges and that was kind of a weird racket. All these numbers are from memory and could be wrong. Your development company had to pay something like $10 a cart to Nintendo (which seemed a bit excessive when the retail price was ~$30 for Nintendo carts and other cd/dvd consoles charged $10 per disk and the retail price for those was $50 to $60, PC gaming I think we got about 50% of each sale at something like Best Buy for full price sales so losing $10 of $15 pre retail sale to Nintendo is a huge margin) and reserve production at the official Nintendo plant a year in advance at that point, so you had to correctly predict how many carts you needed or you could lose big because you made too many and had unsold carts or didn't make enough and needed to wait months for an opening in production to meet demand which would be nicer problem to have. So Nintendo may be just too attached to making money off per unit sold to give it up for online convenience.

> ties purchases to the hardware instead of a single account. If something goes wrong with my switch all my purchases die with it.

I believe your purchases are tied to your account, but can only be used on your "active" console, which you have to deactivate (or get deactivated by Nintendo if you don't have access to it) before being able to use them on another console.

Yeah; prior to the Switch you had to do a more clunky system transfer, but purchases haven't been tied to the console since the WiiU/3DS.

That’s new to me. I knew they were going to fix it but I didn’t know anything had changed yet. Thanks.

A friend who works at a fairly large toy manufacturer in Japan says there is a serious problem at the top with management across the various entertainment companies. The aging population leaves large number of of older execs at the top with less and less new talent and ideas coming in. Decisions that once could be made by a single person to take a chance on a talented junior now have to go through and be approved by multiple people so theres less risk taking on new ideas instead of just going with what worked in the past. Many of the global household names, including Mario, were risks on a younger employee.

Nintendo seems to be thriving despite this but it might just be the larger than life people like Miyamoto that are preventing this

That's probably not a problem with Nintendo currently. At least for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an important part of game designers are composed of fresh blood that challenged the established ideas of what a Zelda game is supposed to be.

> newer kids don't have the same attachment to Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc.

What makes you think this? I know plenty of children who have been exposed to Mario, Zelda, etc. relatively recently and they’re just as attached as you might consider “older kids” to be.

Most traditional Japanese companies were set up like this. The overseas branches are basically distribution companies who make a percentage of their revenue. They are just like any other reseller. Their only leverage is that they can make customization requests if the potential sales increase is there.

This mode has almost killed all Japanese CE companies because the rest of the global market did no longer buy in to the 'paternal' model.

Nintendo is one of the last Japanese companies working in such a mode. And because they always go against the mainstream, they may just be different enough to make it matter.

It's not surprising that Nintendo stays HQ focused. They learned from their competitors over the years not to let the local offices get too autonomous. Those of us who remember the bewildering array of hardware from Sega and the mislaunches understand why. Sega of America was notoriously at war with Sega of Japan and even did simultaneous console R&D on their own.

> Unlike their competitors, Nintendo is not diversified in the least.

Also unlike their competitors, Nintendo was founded in the 19th century.

And they started as a playing card company and instead of growing to include video games, they pivoted and abandoned the old business.

Nintendo actually still produces some traditional games, including mahjong and hanafuda cards, and sells them in Japan.

https://kotaku.com/the-traditional-games-nintendo-continues-...

Hey, thanks! I wondered about the card game they played in "Summer Wars", now I know it was Hanafuda.

Or rather it was Koi-Koi, payed with Hanafuda cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koi-Koi

According to Wikipedia they tried a number of pivots before settling on video games, including love hotels and taxis[0].

0)http://www.n-sider.com/contentview.php?contentid=34

They didn't abandon the old business.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n09/hana-kabu_items/

That second one is interesting, considering how many of their games/marketing materials/etc are full of references to their history.