[HN Gopher] Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo, but got laughed out...
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Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo, but got laughed out of the room
Author : alexrustic
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-01-07 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| alex_reg wrote:
| Regardless of how this went, I see the mega-corp development over
| the last 10+ years as very concerning long-term.
|
| Companies like FAAMG just grow and grow, to the point where they
| completely dominate markets in mono/oligopolies. This enables
| them to either buy up or destroy any kind of competition before
| it becomes noteworthy, cementing their positions for many
| decades. Not to speak of the political bargaining/lobbying power.
|
| Regulators need to stop allowing corporations to expand into
| ever-more domains and become so dominant through shear measure of
| size and capital they can throw around.
|
| Gaming is an interesting space here. Microsoft has become one of
| three major players. They are buying up big studios like
| Bethesda, and are pushing hard for a future where you don't own
| any games and can only rent them for playing on Windows, Xbox or
| via streaming.
|
| Right now GamePass is an incredible deal, but things would look
| quite different if Xbox wasn't the underdog.
| Jonnax wrote:
| So this was back around the year 2000.
|
| Imagine the company that released Windows ME trying to convince
| you of their competency.
| Grazester wrote:
| Well to their defense they also released Windows 2000 the year
| 8 months before that.
| jhare wrote:
| People forget how deep the hatred for Microsoft was at this
| time
| dmitriid wrote:
| Nintendo isn't a perfect company by any means. But the are the
| only console/gaming company that keeps thinking outside the box.
|
| Sony and MS: let's build a gaming PC and just have a different
| enclosure for it.
|
| Nintendo: what if we try <any number of crazy and interesting
| ideas>.
|
| Also: a few days ago a friend of mine got stuck with shitty
| mobile internet for e few days. The only gadget that _by default_
| assumed there 's no internet and just kept on working with no
| problems was Nintendo Switch. Everything else (phones, consoles,
| readers etc.) just couldn't imagine a world without an internet
| connection and would suffer when connectivity was
| bad/intermittent.
| topkai22 wrote:
| Microsoft presented a pretty fairly innovative vision of what a
| "game" console could be with the original Xbox One launch
| announcement. It was a complete debacle.
|
| I'm also pretty impressed with XBox game pass- it has changed
| my relationship with gaming. I've been gaming with my XBox than
| my Switch because its reduced the friction of accessing high
| quality console games, and I've been trying more indie games
| because they are just there.
|
| Not the sort of hardware innovation you are talking about, nor
| is Microsoft a first mover in the game subscription space, but
| still important I think.
|
| Disclaimer- I'm a Microsoft employee, but not working on
| anything near gaming, and my opinions are my own.
| bitwize wrote:
| > Nintendo: what if we try <any number of crazy and interesting
| ideas>.
|
| This is called "lateral thinking with withered technology", an
| engineering principle articulated by Gunpei Yokoi. In Yokoi's
| day, the rationale for "withered technology" was that it was
| cheaper and much easier to second-source, meaning that a
| shortage from a single supplier wouldn't hold up the production
| run.
|
| It wasn't until fairly recently (Wii and later) that Nintendo
| realized that participating in the red queen's race of ever-
| increasing console specs was going to get them trounced by
| megacorporations with much more cash to burn selling consoles
| at a loss, so they had to pivot to producing cheap hardware
| with unique value adds in order to get the console profitable
| fast.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > Nintendo: what if we try <any number of crazy and interesting
| ideas>.
|
| I've just discovered Warioware Smooth Moves and man, was it
| fun! A great way to spend time with friends in these sad times.
| recursive wrote:
| Have we forgotten about Kinect so soon?
| dmitriid wrote:
| Kinect okay, but looks like MS sort of just gave up on it.
| And now smartphones have it beat in terms of capabilities. So
| it could've become smaller, faster and more capable, but the
| window of opportunity passed.
| recursive wrote:
| They pushed it pretty hard, but people hated it. They tried
| for several years before scrapping it though. To my
| chagrin. I was excited about it.
|
| I haven't seen any phone stuff that's similar to the
| capabilities of kinect. VR is the closest thing in the
| current crop that I can see.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Phones can detec motion, objects, faces and quite easily
| and surrisingly reliable considering how small their
| cameras are. Kinect could probably be great, but alas.
| recursive wrote:
| If you put your phone far enough away to capture your
| movements, I don't think you'd be able to play a game
| like fruit ninja. It's a different form factor.
| nolok wrote:
| They also always made money, didn't sell console at a loss.
| Even a "failing" n64 or GameCube was net positive for Nintendo
| from day 1, and every year until end of service. They weren't a
| company in need of help.
|
| And if they joined, Microsoft is not the company that would
| have let them drop everything for the Wii (strange to say after
| the fact given kinect and stuff, but those were followers of a
| known success move), or again for the switch
| silicon2401 wrote:
| The internet dependency angle is a good point to bring up, and
| incidentally it's why I've gotten into data hoarding or
| purchasing products that don't require the internet. Like you
| said, I can use my Switch or even my Kindle without any
| problem. I also play most games via emulation or buy them from
| GOG, which gives you completely DRM-free downloads, making it
| possible to just boot up a game like the old days.
|
| I do have game pass, and the experience has been a constant
| reminder for why I hate a lot about the modern gaming world
| (with the exception of Switch, like you said). Often times when
| I just want to sit down and play a game, I instead have to jump
| through a series of hoops: download xbox update > update xbox >
| download game update > update game. For added fun, once in a
| while you even have to update your controller. Meanwhile I've
| never updated a switch game and always have a pleasantly plug
| and play experience.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Sony is at least willing to invest in VR which is thinking
| outside the box of traditional gaming.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Nintendo is also the only one of the bunch selling their
| hardware for profit. MS and Sony now have to maintain selling
| hardware at a loss to keep up the perception of advancement.
| claytonjy wrote:
| As I recall this has been true of at least MS and Sony (maybe
| even Nintendo?) for several console generations, though after
| a few years they've been able to bring costs down into
| profitability. Is that not expected for this generation?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| As far as I know Nintendo hasn't ever sold hardware at a
| loss. That is not the way they do business. Of course there
| wont be a source from MS or Sony on the matter.
|
| https://www.cinemablend.com/games/1644500/how-much-money-
| nin...
|
| https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/10/xbox-series-x-and-xbox-
| series...
|
| PS Nothing really wrong with a loss leader to draw
| customers. The problem with the console being a loss leader
| is MS and Sony have to perpetually build consoles that are
| loss leaders to show "advancement" that keeps customers. It
| also makes them reliant on subscriptions and software sales
| to maintain profitability. So, they are incentivized to
| lock customers in or they will lose profitability.
| city41 wrote:
| It's a double edged sword though. The gimmicks Nintendo comes
| up with can make their games not as good as they otherwise
| would have been. The Wii motion control for Zelda sword attacks
| and the touch screen levels in Super Mario 3D World come to
| mind.
|
| Also all of Nintendo's mobile games require an internet
| connection to play.
|
| Just playing devil's advocate. I am a huge Nintendo fan.
| majewsky wrote:
| > the touch screen levels in Super Mario 3D World
|
| Hey, now, those are _vital_ to the jumpless challenge run:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahyd-tw2s0Q
| arbitrage wrote:
| There are very few details in the article beyond what is already
| in the headline. Fluff.
| wging wrote:
| Yes, but the source they link to is quite extensive and
| interesting:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-06/xbox-the-...
| ulysses wrote:
| Thank you. I think Nintendo's quote from that article is even
| funnier:
|
| "Nintendo does not talk about confidential discussions with
| other companies. In any event, nothing came of these
| discussions."
| unixhero wrote:
| Too low price then.
| hhkb wrote:
| Think one of the key advantages Japanese (and other East Asian)
| companies have over the US/EU counterparts is that they have very
| strong national sentiments. You saw this with Nissan debacle.
| Same with a couple of Korean companies. All the more reasons to
| believe that the Chinese market is simply a mirage for Western
| companies.
| wassenaar10 wrote:
| Perhaps westerners could learn a thing or two from this
| attitude.
| sidlls wrote:
| We definitely should learn it: and treat those with
| adversarial intent (China) as the enemy they are.
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| What makes you think China has adversarial intent? Or are
| you just feeling insecure at the fact that white people may
| no longer be at the top?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| 1. China does not share liberal values. They have been
| genociding Uighurs for many years.
|
| 2. China is bent on expanding territory. It has border
| disputes with nearly all of its neighbors.
| https://asianews.press/2020/06/30/china-has-border-
| dispute-l...
|
| 3. China has threatened military action against western
| allies, like Taiwan.
|
| 4. China has repeatedly violated promises that its made,
| like the Hong Kong handover.
|
| 5. China steals sensitive technology and manufacturing
| plans from foreign companies. It has mandated that
| foreign companies establish joint ventures with Chinese
| companies to do business in China, with unrestricted
| access to all internal company documents and systems of
| the foreign company.
| sidlls wrote:
| The other comment in response covers it, mostly. To your
| second question: the first thing that comes to mind about
| China is "did it happen in modern China or Nazi
| Germany?", not "oh noes whites are not in charge there!"
| mywittyname wrote:
| American companies used to have this attitude. I have always
| wondered what changed.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I suspect a comment above you spelled it out: corporations
| value stock price too highly.
|
| When stock price is all that matters, cutting costs
| wherever they think they can get away with it is the end
| result (over a long enough period, I'd assume this will
| always happen as execs cycle through)
|
| As things (engineering, components, design, UX, etc) are
| cut, customers notice - and switch to brands that they
| percieve as having cut less. One example of this I'd assume
| is Apple.
| pqhwan wrote:
| That's an interesting take, but I was making a different
| point. Corporations will always do what's necessary to
| thrive, and what they need to thrive is largely a
| function of what society demands. If the corporations are
| taking down their nationalist trappings, then it's
| because we no longer demand them. As far as my globalist
| politics is concerned, that's good and well.
| Shlobster200107 wrote:
| Erosion of traditional values through marxism, feminism
| etc. Japan is still holding but not for long.
| bantunes wrote:
| Are you serious?
| danbolt wrote:
| Perhaps you could elaborate a bit? I'm not sure I follow
| how Marxism and Feminism eroded values to change Western
| business practices.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| For the people lost about the connection:
|
| Fascists value:
|
| - corporatism
|
| - nationalism
|
| - "traditional values"
|
| - masculinity / machismo
|
| This guy is arguing that we've been straying from these
| (his) ideals, and corporations that don't stay domestic
| are part of a larger narrative of cultural decline.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| What? Are you suggesting that a lack of fealty to
| corporations is a result of the rise of feminism and
| marxism? Could you give more detail on these connections?
| kaybe wrote:
| Isn't it more a lack of fealty _from_ corporations?
| pqhwan wrote:
| It became unnecessary for survival.
| bitwize wrote:
| Eh, maybe in the past but not so much today. Sony is being
| effectively run from California, which means that their
| standards for appropriate game content are being decided
| according to San Francisco, and not Tokyo, values. The PS5 is
| doing worse than any previous Sony console in the Japanese
| market as a result.
| danbolt wrote:
| What do you feel Tokyo's values would be? Bring Kutaragi back
| and revisit new/different CPU architectures?
| bitwize wrote:
| Eroge make up a large part of the market in Japan, like it
| or not -- and SCE in California are committed to
| eliminating toxic masculinity from their platform, even if
| it means leaving yen on the table.
| danbolt wrote:
| I did some quick Google searches for the best-selling
| PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 games in Japan as those consoles
| were spearheaded by Tokyo. [1][2][3] I didn't see very
| many Eroge games. I do agree that they're a notable
| market, especially compared to the west, but they strike
| me as more niche than a cornerstone genre like action
| games.
|
| > SCE in California are committed to eliminating toxic
| masculinity from their platform
|
| I'd love to understand what you mean a little better
| here. I think I might have an impression from the themes
| of the _God of War_ reboot, but I was curious if there 's
| a Sony policy you might be able to reference and how
| that's influenced their first-party production. I'm
| having trouble understanding the overlap between anime-
| styled erotica and western depictions of masculinity.
|
| EDIT: updated line spacing for readability
|
| [1] https://www.neogaf.com/threads/flashback-sales-top-
| seeling-p...
|
| [2] http://garaph.info/gamesearch.php?titleenglish=&stte=
| 0&title...
|
| [3] https://www.neogaf.com/threads/media-create-
| sales-04-06-04-1...
| rossmohax wrote:
| The PS5 reached the highest launch month sales in US history
| bitwize wrote:
| I meant to say that the PS5 was doing more poorly _in
| Japan_ than any previous Sony console, and have edited my
| comment to reflect this.
| esperent wrote:
| That might have more to do with the state of the Japanese
| economy this year than the location of Sony headquarters.
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| It's actually been a long standing trend since the start
| of the PS3/Xbox360 generation. Iirc Sega had to merge
| with Sammy to weather the storm. Especially after losing
| so much money in the previous generation on the
| Dreamcast.
|
| In that period, the Japanese videogame market shrunk a
| great deal, and many Japanese developers either went out
| of business, merged, or courted western publishers.
|
| https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/222192/Japans_console
| _ga...
|
| So I wouldn't have thought a Microsoft takeover attempt
| would have truly been laughed out the room at that time.
|
| But Nintendo are a very unique company. Much like Ferrari
| in Italy.
|
| Very few brands in the world like it. They would have
| found willing backers that cherished their independence.
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| I'd been interested in this. I primarily wonder if videogames
| have the same cultural weight in Japanese society anymore.
| wil421 wrote:
| From what I see on my Nintendo switch they are interested
| in different types of games. PC and consoles games seem to
| be more action. Nintendo has a ton of more old school types
| of games like JRPGs and platformers. There are also some
| creepy Japanese games I see, not sure what's the game play
| is like. I can't even describe what they are other than
| having flirty Anime type girls.
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| Is that necessarily a good thing though? Sure you'd want to co-
| opt a national identity, when it's suitable. But imagine if all
| the Silicon Valley era companies doubled down on their national
| identity at any point in their history...
| AnHonestComment wrote:
| Could you elaborate?
|
| I'm curious what you believe would have happened if Silicon
| Valley companies doubled down on a US identity.
| hhkb wrote:
| I certainly don't believe it's good or bad. It's more of a
| cultural phenomenon. US is also a cultural melting pot and
| they benefit a great deal from being open commercially as
| well.
| rhacker wrote:
| I used to be of the opinion that Nintendo should just get out of
| the hardware market and just sell Mario/Zelda/etc... on XBox/PS.
| While I wouldn't mind if they did that, the switch has me
| completely convinced they should never get out of hardware.
| bloodorange wrote:
| They held the record for number of handheld consoles sold at
| various times and at one point of time, the GBA was the most
| sold gaming console ever. Usually the hardware also holds up
| well and has good resale value too. Their games are timeless
| and run only on their hardware (with few exceptions). Their
| hardware is sold at a profit.
|
| Why did you feel they shouldn't sell hardware?
| mschuetz wrote:
| Yeah, the switch was the first and last console I bought since
| the PS2. The value proposition of a combined console and
| handheld, coupled with lots of nice games made it well worth
| it. On the other hand, I'm no longer interested in the
| Playstation series due to lack of backwards compatibility. I've
| still got lots of PS1 and PS2 games but no more PS2. If the PS6
| will support them, I'd get it. Otherwise, not.
| mankyd wrote:
| I remember back around 2003 when a friend told me that the
| gamecube would/should be Nintendo's last piece of hardware, (I
| had recently purchased a used one).
|
| They do seem to follow something of an every-other generation
| in terms of critical success for their consoles, at least
| starting with the N64: + N64 - GC +
| Wii - WiiU + Switch
|
| (I loved my gamecube, and it does have a few iconic games, but
| I don't kid myself how it compares to its neighbors in the
| timeline.)
|
| Hopefully they break that cycle with whatever comes next!
| wincy wrote:
| The Switch is a different thing than what came before,
| though, because it represents the merging of their Gameboy
| and TV Console systems into a single machine. It's sort of
| miraculous that it worked out so well. Since the original
| Gameboy they've had the mobile gaming market cornered
| absolutely. Even with the rise of cell phones the "good"
| games aren't there. You can't play The Witcher 3 on your
| Samsung Galaxy Tablet even if ostensibly it's very similar,
| hardwarewise, to the Switch. Interestingly, Nvidia tried to
| make the Nvidia Shield as something like this, but failed and
| I think uses the same/similar GPU chips in the Switch now.
|
| So the Switch is a merger of two branches Gameboy Advance ->
| DS -> 3DS N64 -> Gamecube -> Wii -> Wii U
|
| And now these two markets have collapsed into the Nintendo
| Switch (which isn't a bad thing!)
| jolmg wrote:
| The WiiU wasn't as big an innovation as the Wii, but I found
| the touchscreen controller in the WiiU to enable better
| participation of a less-dexterous little kid in family
| gameplay without them being such a drag on the adults'
| gameplay. Those types of households might have found it a
| more valuable upgrade than others.
| j_m_b wrote:
| I agree. The switch is really an amazing piece of hardware. I
| can be playing on my TV and just pull out the switch and
| continue playing if someone wants to watch something. Nintendo
| has been innovating gaming hardware for years. Microsoft would
| have pretty much said "make CPU go BRRR" and left it at.
| jolmg wrote:
| The multiple Nintendo Labo kits are also an amazing show of
| the versatility of the Switch hardware. From hand-joystick,
| to motorcycle handles or a steering wheel with levers, turn-
| switches, pull-crank and pedal, a piano, fishing rod, etc.
| The controllers can be augmented to so many forms with just
| some cardboard and software. No need for specialized
| controllers like before.
|
| Its ability to accommodate 2 players with a single control-
| set is also amazing.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| "They just laughed their asses off," Bachus said to Bloomberg.
| "Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was
| kind of how that meeting went."
|
| Yes, a piece of junk telling a store staple that it was a piece
| of junk would have that effect
| nether wrote:
| Fun fact: Nintendo of America and MSFT are both headquartered in
| Redmond.
| swebs wrote:
| This is correct. I don't know why its flagged.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| I wonder why they didn't buy Sega.
| anonymousab wrote:
| Late 90s, Sega of Japan probably had too much pride for that.
| Afterwards, if MS was still interested, perhaps Sammy's offer
| was more compelling overall.
|
| I also don't think MS would have had much interest in all the
| other non-home-console-software businesses SEGA was involved
| in.
|
| Could have been an organized crime/liability element too. The
| relationship they did end up having was fruitful enough.
|
| EDIT - Well, looks like I was wrong.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| They thought about it:
|
| > Okawa, who had loaned Sega $500 million in 1999, died on
| March 16, 2001. Shortly before his death, he forgave Sega's
| debts to him and returned his $695 million worth of Sega and
| CSK stock, helping the company survive the third-party
| transition.[188][189][190] He held failed talks with Microsoft
| about a sale or merger with their Xbox division.[191] According
| to former Microsoft executive Joachim Kempin, Microsoft founder
| Bill Gates decided against acquiring Sega because "he didn't
| think that Sega had enough muscle to eventually stop
| Sony."[192] A business alliance with Microsoft was announced
| where Sega develops 11 games for the new Xbox console.[193]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega#Dreamcast_and_continuing_...
| dustinmoris wrote:
| Because they laughed Microsoft in the face, too. :P
| tristor wrote:
| I think many people over-focus on GPU and CPU capabilities and
| the raw horsepower of console hardware as the basis for
| determining console hardware superiority. As an avid gamer on PC
| and console, I've never thought of it that way, a PC will pretty
| much always be better on horsepower than a console. What consoles
| excel at is hardware that enhances the user experience or moves
| forward the technology focused on the act of gaming.
|
| I am incredibly happy that Nintendo said "No." to Microsoft here,
| because the Nintendo Switch is the single greatest console device
| ever made. The way it handles docking/undocking, game switching,
| updates, sleep, the controller design of the removable joycons,
| it's an unprecedentedly good user experience in a way that's
| going to be incredibly difficult to top. I have been interminably
| sad that Sega stopped making consoles because prior to the
| Switch, the Dreamcast pushed the envelope in every possible way
| for what it meant to be a gaming console. The Xbox One did
| something great by improving controller design significantly, but
| realistically the majority of consoles released in the last few
| decades have not been pushing the envelope in the way that the
| format allows.
| wil421 wrote:
| My only complaint is the switch has low resolution and many of
| the ports do not run that well. Skyrim and Witcher 3 are ports
| I didn't buy because of the graphics. The Final Fantasy ports
| were decent but they were older games that had remakes in
| between. Dark Souls has decent reviews but I haven't played the
| originals, remakes, or ports.
|
| When a beefier switch comes along I'm jumping on it. The switch
| has been the funnest and most engaging gaming I've had in a
| decade.
| [deleted]
| yosser wrote:
| Of course Microsoft bought Rare Ltd., so I guess they thought
| they might as well acquire some Nintendoish IP one way or
| another.
| nixass wrote:
| Imagine if this happened. Japanese, traditional, inovative, and
| somehow slow/reasonable paced company, who basically invented
| gaming as we know it, versus typical American quarter-to-quarter
| profit chasing MBA clueless zombies, who made no progress in
| gaming, invented nothing, but rather trying to buy competitors.
| Ridiculous
| viridian wrote:
| A lot of Nintendo's business decisions in 2019 and 2020 seem
| like the exact types of decisions empty suits make though, and
| their glassdoor reads very similarly to one of the big banks.
| Nintendo has, with the exception of the switch hardware and
| possibly labo, played the entire decade in a very conservative
| fashion. Microsoft and Sony aren't exactly innovative
| powerhouses either, but even they beat out Nintendo in
| innovation on the software side.
|
| If you want real innovation in the industry though, you
| basically have to play indie games.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I'm glad Microsoft didn't get the chance to buy Nintendo and
| _Nokia_ it.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this
| happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion. They've been
| successful for far longer than Microsoft have existed.
|
| I don't know what Nintendo would get out of being acquired, and
| I'm not certain that Microsoft would be able to put together a
| convincing acquisition deal.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| To me the interesting play would be to acquire Nintendo, move
| the Xbox division into the Nintendo division, and then spin
| that off into a new independent gaming company. Might be good
| for shareholder value in the end and put Microsoft in a better
| position to focus on their core enterprise cloud business while
| receiving fair value for its Xbox assets.
| dtech wrote:
| > Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this
| happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion.
|
| _Now_ they are successful, after the huge hits of the Wii, DS
| and Switch. Even with that the company was in a lot of trouble
| during the Wii U period in 2014, with executives taking 50% pay
| cuts.
|
| When this played out in 2000 it was during the N64 era, with
| GameCube being close to launch. While those were not failures
| per se, they were very, very far behind the PSOne and PS2 in
| terms of popularity.
| stopFalse wrote:
| They have successfully brainwashed a generation. Fanboys
| think every Zelda game is the greatest of all time.
|
| I understand why Nintendo thinks they are in a strong
| position. They can sell low quality games and the people
| don't know better.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| _Everything_ lagged far behind PS1 &2. Many even predicted
| the death of PC gaming during the PS2 era, so great was its
| dominance. PS2 still outsold PS3 for a long time after the
| latter console was released. Nintendo survived that era, Sega
| did not (as a console manufacturer).
| SilasX wrote:
| You could probably cite similar figures about Netflix and
| Blockbuster when the former approached them.
| paxys wrote:
| Netflix didn't approach Blockbuster to acquire it, but rather
| to get acquired.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| Nintendo would hopefully become higher quality under Microsoft,
| that's what they'd get out of it. Microsoft has shown they can
| culture a good developer ecosystem, Nintendo is awful for third
| party developers. Nintendo also struggles with new technology,
| their systems are always a step behind and they were critically
| late to having games on the app stores (the extreme success of
| Pokemon Go after a decade of thinking smartphones weren't worth
| it is an egg on the face of the Nintendo leadership).
|
| They really just have a strong brand, that's about all Nintendo
| has going for it. Microsoft can steward the brand like they did
| for Minecraft and it wouldn't lose any value, we'd just get
| higher quality games and hardware.
| bloodorange wrote:
| Nintendo made so many brilliant games in the Mario franchise.
| Likewise with Zelda (and Metroid and there will be more if
| you look closely). Their consoles are typically robustly
| made. The controller-drift issue with Switch being a notable
| recent exception.
|
| As for their systems being "behind", the xbox and playstation
| motion sensing controllers came _after_ the Nintendo Wii made
| them popular. The Switch came with a new idea of a console
| which is both a handheld and one connected to a television.
| The 3DS came with a lenticular 3D display. Unless you measure
| being ahead/behind in the sole axis of computational power,
| they are setting trends and taking gaming to new places.
|
| They are a serious pain when it comes to how they hound
| fanmade products which might feature any of their IP, have a
| substandard system for online play, or a poor developer
| experience but being of sub-par quality is definitely more in
| microsoft's department than Nintendo's.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| It's not good for a platform developer to be the only one
| making killer games. This is a lack of diversity that is a
| weakness. The titles you mention are the only good
| franchises on Switch, third party titles have not had the
| same success. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had huge third party
| success for their platform with Call of Duty and other
| publisher titles.
|
| No doubt Nintendo has been innovative with the control
| schemes for their systems, but nothing has really stuck.
| The 3D display was a gimmick, they even released a second
| version without it because it was so gimmicky.
|
| I'm not impressed with making a robust console in 2020 as a
| selling point. I have an iPhone, my expectations for
| robustness are higher now. The Switch is cheap and clunky
| and the screen is low res. Great, it can handle falls -
| welcome to 2005 electronics.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > It's not good for a platform developer to be the only
| one making killer games.
|
| [Citation Needed]. Nintendo has clearly earned a
| reputation for first party games above any other
| manufacturer. Nothing really competes with their first
| party games like BotW, Animal Crossing, Smash Bros, and
| so on.
|
| I can get Call of Duty on PC, Xbox, Playstation. I don't
| really see how that's a compelling case for the Microsoft
| platform. The latest Xbox seems better than the PS5 in my
| opinion on hardware and price, but the PS5 still seems
| like a better buy because they have exclusive games and
| the Xbox Series s/x does not.
|
| I'd say among gamers it's pretty universally agreed that
| the Switch is not a competing console with
| PC/Xbox/Playstation. It's an "And" console. You don't get
| a switch as an alternative to one of the above consoles,
| you get it as a supplement to the others. Unless you're a
| casual gamer, in which case you probably just get the
| Switch.
| filoleg wrote:
| Fully agreed. Nintendo has a very differentiated market
| of game offerings on their platforms, and that's the
| reason people buy it. They don't buy Switch for the
| (underpowered compared to competitors) hardware, or
| something else.
|
| That's imo the biggest problem Xbox console is facing.
| Does it have good third party games? Plenty. Does it make
| sense to buy Xbox if you already own a PS4/PS5 or a
| gaming PC? Not really, since the overlap of third party
| games available on all of them is giant. The only game I
| know people care about that is Xbox exclusive is Halo
| series. I don't know a single person who owns a
| PS4/PS5+Xbox or even gaming PC+Xbox. I know tons of
| people owning a PC+PS4/PS5, and I know a ton of people
| who own either a PS4/PS5+Switch or gaming PC+Switch (or
| all 3 of them). And that's Nintendo's unique offering,
| being an incredible complement to other consoles, not a
| direct competitor, while also being a great product of
| its own that doesn't just function as an add-on.
|
| Mind you, I am not saying that Nintendo shouldn't
| increase the number of third party games present on their
| platform, quite the opposite. The increase of third party
| games on Switch is a really welcome development. However,
| under no circumstances should they decrease the number of
| first party games, otherwise they would end up in a
| losing position.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _[Citation Needed] Nintendo has clearly earned a
| reputation for first party games above any other
| manufacturer._ "
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/nintendo-reliance-on-
| first-p...
|
| I mean this isn't controversial within the games
| industry. Having diverse sources of revenue matter to
| support themselves if their first party games take a
| stumble for whatever reason is critical. It's not like
| Nintendo hasn't had downturns in the past, e.g. the Wii U
| era.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Maybe it handles falls so your phone doesn't have to?
| ionwake wrote:
| I disagree with most of your points and your conclusion.
| Especially the "create a good developer ecosystem". You
| provided no examples either, which makes me think you have
| never been involved with Microsoft as a member of the game
| development community. My experience, was poor. To say the
| least.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| I'll look for the article to link here (which I probably
| initially read on HN) but it was a blog post that described
| a developer's experience slogging through Nintendo docs and
| working with Nintendo and it being very slow and difficult.
| He went on to describe that he had none of these problems
| when dealing with Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Sony).
| ionwake wrote:
| Ah I remember. Thanks for the reply sorry if I sounded
| too negative.
| subsubzero wrote:
| As a huge fan of Nintendo I am glad this never happened. A few
| years later Nintendo released the Wii console which was
| revolutionary in allowing users to go beyond a physical
| joystick and incorporate movements in videogames.
|
| Also companies acquired by microsoft don't usually have a happy
| ending(layoffs, product stagnation) see - skype, linkedin,
| yammer etc
| im3w1l wrote:
| 132 year old? So are some random family restaurants. How does
| $10bil of money matter either way? Microsofts market cal is
| north of $1T, while Nintendos is less than $100B. And finally
| the question is not what Nintendo would get out of it. The
| question is what _their shareholders_ stand to gain.
| thedmstdmstdmst wrote:
| $10 bil of money means Nintendo has all the money they need
| on hand to continue to develop for their markets or new
| markets so what impetus is there to be acquire or merge?
| Nintendo is not a very big company comparatively.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Ah, merging to get access to money, yes I suppose they
| don't need that. My uneducated guess is that the reason for
| a merger would rather be merging the xbox with the switch,
| and merging the game libraries too. Can't say I know
| whether that's a good idea.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > The question is what their shareholders stand to gain.
|
| thankfully, not the whole world thinks like that.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| In a sentimental way, I guess so. But if Nintendo is a
| public company, they probably committed some kind of
| fiduciary wrong in not consulting their stockholders.
| [deleted]
| ChrisSD wrote:
| They don't have to consult stockholders in order to make
| business decisions. They just have to be honest with
| them.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| I feel this is more of an American capitalistic
| perspective.
| ksk wrote:
| Why is that so bad? Shareholders are the owners of the
| company.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| It's a common misunderstanding that the only purpose of a
| company is to make shareholders happy.
| greatgirl wrote:
| It's not a misunderstanding its how companies work. If
| you make shareholders unhappy you simply risk them
| leaving. Thats why on average companies do things that
| make them happy. Oh, also the shareholders pick the board
| and the board does things for the company. You can see
| the relationship now?
| Ma8ee wrote:
| I know how companies are governed, and it is of course an
| empirical fact that most large listed American companies
| are run to maximise stockholder value. But that does not
| mean that it is the purpose of all, or even most
| companies. People run companies with a variety of
| reasons, including things like having fun or making the
| world a better place. More importantly, companies have
| moral obligations not only to stock holders, but to the
| employees, the environment, and the communities they
| operate in.
| ksk wrote:
| You're right - that is a misunderstanding. I think you
| accidentally replied to the wrong comment seeing as I
| didn't say or imply that.
| epistasis wrote:
| Shareholders are known for optimizing for short-term
| liquidity or value gain, because even if some
| shareholders have a long-term view, shorter-term holders
| can buy in and force their views.
|
| However, in many cases this is in direct conflict with
| much larger value growth that requires a longer
| investment term. Or in conflict with valuing greater
| long-term stability over a quick short-term gain.
| ksk wrote:
| Yeah, that's how the game works. Its like democracy -
| people can and do vote for idiots.
|
| When you accept outside funding in exchange for shares,
| control gets shared. Honestly, do we really need to
| debate this?
| epistasis wrote:
| You are the one who asked why it was bad. Why ask a
| question if you _don 't_ want to know or debate it? Was
| it purely rhetorical?
| ksk wrote:
| No, what I'm saying is not up for debate is the fact that
| control gets shared when you take someone else's money.
| Its a known framework in which everyone operates.
|
| Your "shareholders are known for" is simply a BS talking
| point. Every person who has a 401K is probably a
| shareholder somewhere. All those hundreds of millions of
| people value long term stability too. Nintendo is not a
| penny stock.
| im3w1l wrote:
| It's a different thing to say "I value long term
| thinking" and acting that way, and rewarding long term
| thinking. It may be that people are simply too stupid to
| see that the ship is being hacked up for fuel, and thus
| they put their faith in the captain doing so.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yes, and especially not Nintendo, which was a family-owned
| company at the time. Imagine Papa Gino's going to a family
| pizzeria offering to buy them out and being told "no, and
| also fuck you".
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| Hiroshi Yamauchi took Nintendo public in 1962. He was the
| largest shareholder until his death in 2013. In 2008 he
| owned 10% of the shares, and as of 2020, all japanese
| individuals total share was under 5% [2].
|
| Here's a financial statement from 2000 [1].
|
| I can find no evidence Nintendo was a family-owned
| company at any point in recent history. Have a source
| showing even majority shareholder status by some family
| combined?
|
| [1] https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2000/001122e.pdf
|
| [2] https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/information/in
| dex.htm...
| speeder wrote:
| Just to add on that... the original founder put a rule in
| the company that it must remain a family business, to the
| point that when they didn't had a heir, the guy adopted
| someone and gave him the family name, to keep the family
| going.
|
| Only reason the company is not with a family CEO right
| now, is because the last family CEO personally gave the
| greenlight to the shift, because he genuinely believed
| Iwata (the person that would replace him) was more
| skilled than he was at managing the company... Yet seemly
| he still paid close attention to the company even after
| retiring.
|
| Right now the children of the last CEO that theoretically
| own Nintendo biggest share block, but seemly nobody is
| sure of that, only information I found is that seemly one
| of them sold the shares to Nintendo itself (thus
| increasing the shares the other members had of Nintendo,
| percentage-wise).
| mywittyname wrote:
| > I don't know what Nintendo would get out of being acquired,
|
| Money. Old companies are merged, acquired, or spun-off all the
| time.
|
| It's completely possible that Nintendo would prefer to spin off
| portions of their business which, while profitable, no longer
| align with their primary markets. Consider companies like
| General Electric; they started off producing equipment around
| electric power generation, installation, and use (lightbulbs
| and appliances), then they got into television, radio,
| computing, jet engines, health insurance, etc. Over the years
| they've spun off many of these divisions and today's GE looks
| nothing like OG GE.
| stakkur wrote:
| Japanese corporate operations are quite different,
| historically, than the US. For example, Japan has over 33,000
| companies that are over 100 years old. Many are several
| hundred years old. The oldest is around 1300 years old, I
| think. Continuously operating.
|
| Obviously most of these are not 'technology' companies, but
| the culture of corporate creation/destruction/merger is
| somewhat different.
| SEJeff wrote:
| One of the things that really sets them apart is
| Keiretsu[1]. Seemingly competing firms often work together
| for their common benefit in the name of Keiretsu. It is
| very "foreign" and strange from a US cultural standpoint,
| but it is also why so many Japanese companies last as long
| as they do.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu
| Danieru wrote:
| It is important to note that the Keiretsu are split
| vertically, no two companies within a keiretsu should be
| direct competitors.
|
| At least such was the case. A major counter example is
| Mitsui and Sumitomo. The Mitsui and Sumitomo banks
| merged, which triggered partial merges of other Keiretsu
| companies: except the real estate. Mitsui Real Estate and
| Sumitomo Real Estate still operate as competitors. Both
| developing new housing complexes and office towers.
| Impossible wrote:
| Nintendo did sell a business that didn't align with their
| primary markets, Rare. Rare generated hits for Nintendo (like
| Donkey Kong Country), but iirc, Miyamoto never liked them.
| From the DKC wikipedia entry:
|
| _In the years following the game 's release, rumours spread
| that Miyamoto disliked Donkey Kong Country and found it
| amateurish, provoking him to create the hand-drawn art style
| of Yoshi's Island. He was allegedly quoted as telling
| Electronic Games magazine in 1995 that "Donkey Kong Country
| proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as
| long as the art is good"._
|
| Again according to wikipedia, DKC was one of the top selling
| SNES games, only Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars
| are higher on the list
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
| selling_Super_Nin....
| atdrummond wrote:
| Rare was never owned by Nintendo - they were only ever a
| second party developer. Nintendo did provide them with
| significant financial resources and autonomy, however.
| erk__ wrote:
| Another example of a company could be Game Freak and
| Creatures, the developers of Pokemon. Though it is now
| created with a joint-venture like company "The Pokemon
| Company" that is owned mostly by those three companies,
| with Nintendo owning 32%.
| nineteen999 wrote:
| Interestingly enough, Nintendo studio acquisitions seem
| to be "rare" enough that they make news headlines, like
| the recent acquision of Next Level Games (makes of
| Luigi's Mansion 2 & 3), which will move from second-party
| to first-party:
|
| https://micky.com.au/nintendo-acquires-bc-video-game-
| develop...
| meddlepal wrote:
| As others mentioned, not owned by Nintendo, but also Rare
| was sort of spent as a creative force by the time they were
| purchased in 2002.
|
| They lost a lot of developers to Free Radical.
|
| I'm not sure what Microsoft acquired with Rare because
| besides Viva Pinata and Sea of Thieves the company has
| basically produced junk over the last eighteen years.
| They're not even in control of their main IP: Perfect Dark
| as Microsoft has parcelled that out to another studio for
| the reboot.
| adrian_mrd wrote:
| Rare did align with Nintendo's core business - and was an
| exclusive Nintendo64 developer - but even Tim Stamper, co-
| founder of Rare, is apparently none-the-wiser...
|
| > "One of the most interesting parts of the interview is
| Stamper's view on Rare's sale to Microsoft, and the
| question that seems to eternally be on everyone's lips: why
| didn't Nintendo snap up the studio beforehand? Nintendo
| owned almost half of the UK company, but for reasons
| unknown never tried to buy Rare outright, despite the fact
| that the Stampers were clearly on the lookout for buyers.
|
| Stamper is at a loss as to why Nintendo didn't step in and
| open up its chequebook:
|
| I've no idea why they didn't do that. I thought we were a
| good fit." [1]
|
| [1] https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/08/rare_co-
| founder_ha...
| epalm wrote:
| Is it really fair to count Super Mario World in the best-
| seller list considering it came with the console?
| snuxoll wrote:
| Why not? Everyone counted Wii Sports as the best-selling
| game of all time despite being a pack-in (and even today
| it's #4 having only been outdone by Minecraft, GTAV and
| Tetris Mobile).
| esperent wrote:
| Rare was funded by Nintendo but I don't think it was ever
| owned by them.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_(company)
| nolok wrote:
| You might want to check the "portions" of Nintendo business
| to realize why not. Even in core console gaming, they're
| notorious for not actually owning many studios, including
| some you would assume they do given how long they're worked
| together.
|
| Notoriously, Nintendo didn't own Rare (who was a big studio
| for Nintendo bound games), didn't want to buy when they
| wanted to sold, and they ended up at Microsoft which is an
| acquisition that's very hard to spin as a success.
| Danieru wrote:
| No kidding, Nintedo doesn't even own Intelligent Systems
| and those guys used to develop the Devkit tooling.
|
| Get this: IS used to work from inside Nitendo's own
| factory.
|
| Granted, while Nintendo does not own these companies they
| have strong control. Just last year Nintendo moved all
| their developers in Tokyo into a single tower.
| imbnwa wrote:
| I wonder if this is related to what someone mentioned
| above in the thread whereby Japanese firms seem to value
| implicit, mutually beneficial behavior
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Likely a lot of old school politicking behind the scenes
| too. Especially as they're a Kyoto company.
| sfifs wrote:
| > Over the years they've spun off many of these divisions and
| today's GE looks nothing like OG GE.
|
| That's why today's GE is close to bankruptcy and easily
| threatened by corporate raiders. Arguably if they has stayed
| focused on their core competency of high quality cutting edge
| engineering instead of stupid financial engineering, they'd
| have stayed releva6ans powerful.
| manojlds wrote:
| Nokia was founded before Nintendo.
|
| Nintendo was at its lowest point not long back with the WiiU.
| In 2000 they were looking at lacklustre performance with N64
| and Gamecube. (and already fallen behind Sony)
| [deleted]
| mankyd wrote:
| I am more curious about context here. Nintendo was (and is) a
| public company. Presumably Microsoft new what a reasonable bid
| would look like. This sounds like they weren't just laughing at
| the offer itself.
| mikestew wrote:
| They could have been laughing at "your hardware sucks, why
| don't you do software and Microsoft will do the hardware?"
|
| And when you look at the giant-ass (and noisy-ass) box and
| controllers that were the first Xbox, I'd argue that Nintendo
| weren't too far off laughing Microsoft out of the room. Of what
| little I know about Nintendo, there's no way they were sticking
| their name on that.
| city41 wrote:
| As far as I know, the Switch Joy Cons drift problem is the
| only hardware issue Nintendo has ever had.
| dharmab wrote:
| N64 controllers had reliability issues due to games like
| Mario Party wearing out the sticks. Some of the DSes had
| hinges that would break from normal use.
| derefr wrote:
| I think the N64 Mario Party titles would have worn out
| literally any analog stick used to play them. The fault
| was more in the game-mechanic design, not realizing
| exactly what they were asking of the hardware, and not
| thinking through that the minigames involving rotating
| the stick would be replayed ad nauseam, thousands of
| times, for years.
| majormajor wrote:
| My N64 sticks wore out through Goldeneye, Zelda, and
| Mario Kart, no Mario Party needed. It was just a first-
| gen stick design that didn't hold up.
| asdff wrote:
| Ehh I guess it depends on how long until you expect a
| hardware issue. The directional pads on gameboys and DSs
| tend to fail, as well as the sticks on n64 and gamecube
| controllers
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| There was the Virtual Boy. It was ugly, it was painful to
| play, and the overall experience was disappointing. I
| haven't heard of any reliability issues with it, but
| considering how massive a failure it was it might be that
| no one ever played one long enough to find out.
| btschaegg wrote:
| Well, the N64 controller's analog stick had a tendency to
| get really clunky after some time of use (it amassed some
| kind of "frictiony" feeling in its joint).
|
| But then again, the my old console is still going strong.
| OTOH, my original Xbox refused to boot some years ago...
| city41 wrote:
| Ah yeah, I forgot about that one. Interesting two of
| their issues were both related to analog sticks.
| zeeZ wrote:
| I have the opposite problem. After many games of Mario
| Party, the analog stick would be very loose, flopping
| around without much friction.
| jaywalk wrote:
| They were probably referring more to how powerful it was,
| not quality issues. And in that way they're still correct
| to this day, although Nintendo has figured out how to
| thrive with significantly less powerful hardware than
| Microsoft and Sony.
| derefr wrote:
| Nintendo _chooses_ to use old components in their
| hardware, though. It 's not like they don't have the
| industry contacts to source more powerful stuff if they
| want. They just want to have a positive profit margin on
| selling console hardware. They want hardware sales (and
| sales of first-party "killer app" software enabled by the
| hardware) -- not third-party software license fees -- to
| be their main revenue stream.
|
| Each console or handheld Nintendo puts out follows a
| formula:
|
| * Choose key components (CPU cores, screens on portables,
| etc.) that are two-to-five year-old, one-or-more
| generations-behind tech at design time, such that they're
| in wide manufacturing and easy to source as parts / cheap
| to license to build themselves.
|
| * Add in novel in-house-developed IP cores/ASICs, which
| allow developers to build games that "do" a lot more than
| the key components would seem to allow.
|
| * Wrap the whole thing in a novel interaction method that
| makes the console's hardware performance relative to its
| "console generation" kind of illegible (e.g. the Wiimote,
| the two screens of the DS, the portability of the Switch,
| etc.); which de-facto locks in games developed to target
| the hardware, making them much harder to port away; and
| which acts as a neato whizz-bang selling point in the
| form of enabling new "killer apps" (e.g. 3D first-person
| games with the N64 analog stick; Wii Sports with the
| Wiimote; Brain Training and other pre-smartphone "apps"
| with the DS stylus.)
|
| Nintendo are at their best (i.e. most profitable) when
| they double down on this strategy, releasing a seemingly-
| new hardware "generation" that's really just the same
| existing hardware but with new/updated IP cores. The
| Gameboy Color is just an overclocked Gameboy with a
| better PPU. The Wii is just an overclocked Gamecube with
| an ARM coprocessor embedding wi-fi/bluetooth/SD card
| support. Etc.
|
| The Switch is a departure from this strategy, in that the
| Tegra X1 wasn't actually all that old at the time of the
| Switch's release, and so likely bit into Nintendo's
| profit-margin on the Switch pretty heavily. I'm sure
| Nintendo would rather have used a slightly-older part.
| But there just wasn't anything like the Tegra X1 (in
| terms of GPU power per watt) until the Tegra X1 -- no
| viable competitors, and no previous generation of the
| chip to lean on. _And_ they were constrained by wanting
| to port Wii U games to the Switch, which demanded
| basically the X1 's level of power.
| bitwize wrote:
| In 2000, "your hardware sucks" didn't really hold water.
| The N64 was a cut-down SGI machine -- it had texture
| filtering, a Z-buffer, and perspective correct texturing.
| Things the PlayStation didn't have, because in the
| mid-90s the state of the art in Japanese 3D hardware was
| to modify sprite blitter chips to do 3D with affine
| transforms. Nintendo contracted with the American SGI to
| get SGI tech into the N64, a savvy move. The PlayStation
| had more polys on the screen at once, but they looked
| worse. And they had a CD-ROM, which let them undercut
| Nintendo on the price of games.
|
| But the N64 didn't _suck_. Neither did the Gamecube,
| which was superior in capability to Sony 's sixth-gen
| offering (though not Microsoft's).
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| Lack of CD-ROM was a gigantic problem, though. Doesn't
| matter if you have better hardware if you can't fit all
| the content. Square moved to PlayStation for specifically
| this reason.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It was a tradeoff. Cartridges cost a lot more but they
| made piracy a lot harder and loading times nonexistent.
| In retrospect it seems like a bad move but it could have
| gone the other way.
|
| Ironically, thanks to FPGAs we can now pirate cartridge
| games on the original hardware easily and without
| modification, while the situation with disc-based
| consoles is somewhat trickier. Meanwhile, physical
| console game distribution has swung back to solid-state
| media since optical discs simply can't match the capacity
| or speed.
| Danieru wrote:
| My theory is residuals from that SGI contract is what
| allowed SGI Japan to stay alive. They later renamed
| themselves to to Silicon Studio. Now best known for
| developing Bravely Default.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Japanese public companies have been known to do a "poison pill"
| strategy to avoid foreign takeovers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCOJ_2007_No.30
| rawgabbit wrote:
| The wiki article seems like a reasonable defense to prevent
| corporate raiders from taking over and loading it up with
| debt while walking away with a fortune for basically
| crippling a once successful company. See KKR's takeover of
| TXU electric.
| microtherion wrote:
| Evidently nothing came of the proposal, but I find it very
| difficult to believe that the executives of a Japanese company
| would "laugh" a proposal like this "out of the room". I imagine
| the scene played out with a lot of tea, carefully calibrated
| bows, and apologies about the timing of this excellent proposal
| not being auspicious.
|
| patio11 probably could provide a more accurate projection of a
| sarariman reaction to the MS offer.
| jvzr wrote:
| They may have met with Nintendo of America? Which would make
| this story plausible
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Nintendo of America is headquartered in the same city as
| Microsoft (Redmond WA), so this is definitely plausible.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I was going to say Nintendo is across/down the road from
| Microsoft, but checking again, Microsoft surrounds them:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nintendo+of+USA/@47.65105
| 2...
| Zelizz wrote:
| With Go rules, they'd already be ours!
| boogies wrote:
| alternative map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?que
| ry=428818970#map=16/...
| franklampard wrote:
| You have such a naive stereotype about Japanese people
| yongjik wrote:
| Clearly, there should have been a young brash Nintendo VP
| tearing the printed proposal in half, then in quarters, then
| in one eighths, until all is left is pieces falling like
| cherry blossoms, all the while looking at the MS exec in the
| eyes and making a five-minute impromptu address on what it
| means to be Nintendo and why money-counting accountants will
| never understand it, until the MS exec runs out of the room
| crying, punched by the sheer verbal force of the righteous
| anger.
|
| Yes, everything I learned about Japan, I learned from
| Japanese dramas, why do you ask?
| pesfandiar wrote:
| That and it's apparently making fun of Japanese accent
| ("sarariman"). It's a pity that this is the top comment on HN
| right now.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| That's the correct romanization of the Japanese word
| sarariman, which, according to the Wikipedia article on it,
| is a loanword whose usage dates back to before the 1930s:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman
| jbay808 wrote:
| It's clearly a direct transcription, rather than a
| translation, of sarariman. I doubt any mockery is intended.
| pesfandiar wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying that. I might have been wrong about
| their intention then, but mockery seemed plausible given
| they were also painting a very stereotypical picture of a
| business meeting.
| microtherion wrote:
| Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt!
|
| As for stereotyping... maybe! But isn't "laughing a
| proposal out of a room" a stereotype as well?
| subsubzero wrote:
| Apparently you don't know about katakana, its a form of the
| Japanese alphabet that is specifically used for foreign
| words translated to Japanese. The pronunciation of these
| words sounds similar to their foreign counterparts. think
| sararimam == salaryman, hanba-gu == hamburger, terebijon ==
| television and so on.
|
| katakana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
| ezoe wrote:
| If he really knows kana, he should write it as sarari-man
| as the third vowel is long vowel.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Is it a hyphen? Or would it be saraiiman? I actually
| don't know.
| panda88888 wrote:
| Your form is correct based on faint recollection of what
| I learned in college Japanese class.
| mparkms wrote:
| Sarariman (adapted from the English salary man) is the
| Japanese term for white collar worker.
| krapp wrote:
| Native English speakers tend to just say "salaryman" when
| speaking to other English speakers. Adopting a faux
| Japanese accent, particularly in print, is extremely
| cringeworthy.
| anchpop wrote:
| Sarariman is a Japanese word, the original commenter
| wasn't adopting a false Japanese accent. Here's an
| article from the economist using the term:
| https://www.economist.com/special-report/1999/11/25/who-
| want...
| microtherion wrote:
| Yes, my intent was not to mock a Japanese accent, but to
| adopt what seemed to me the most plausible spelling. In
| this particular case, the Japanese concept has far
| eclipsed the original English word, and the term was more
| or less a Japanese creation in the first place[0], so
| that's why I spelled it that way.
|
| In other cases, the English spelling is still dominant,
| so using a back-transliterated katakana spelling (e.g.
| "Rabu Hoteru" instead of "Love Hotel") would be just
| weird.
|
| [0] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=salary+
| man%2Cs...
| earthboundkid wrote:
| I lived in Japan for years. I have never seen English
| speakers write "Sarariman" instead of "Salaryman" when
| talking about the phenomenon.
| jbay808 wrote:
| The English word "cookie" is derived from Dutch "koekie".
|
| If some Dutch people bring back Oreos as souvenirs from
| the US and call them "cookies" instead of "koekjes", are
| they adopting a cringeworthy faux-American accent? Making
| fun of how English butchers their language? Or just
| calling them the way Americans do, without any further
| judgement?
| krapp wrote:
| Possibly, yes.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Native English speakers tend to just say "salaryman"
| when speaking to other English speakers.
|
| We don't tend to use salaryman at all. There's white-
| collar, businessman etc. By contrast sarariman had been
| popularly coined in the 90s by the Japanese.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I believe the parent meant we would say 'salaryman' when
| speaking of the Japanese conception of the term. Which in
| my experience is true. It could be because 'sarariman',
| though a reasonable approximation of the Japanese
| pronunciation, does sound like a racist caricature, but I
| think it is equally likely it just feels awkward to the
| native-english-speaking tongue.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Nintendo's total value is definitely limited due to their
| hardware lock. If they went hardware agnostic their value would
| triple overnight.
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