Topic: A Post-"Please Understand" Company: Nintendo After Mr. Iwata's Passing

[broodwars]

So yeah, it pretty much confirms up what many of us assumed.  The younger management (most likely Takahashi) that Iwata wanted to take his spot aren't ready for the job yet so they picked the old business man that can safety keep things moving before they're ready.

Yeah, it makes sense. My main concern, though (and I talked about this on our Nintendo Free Radio episode about Iwata's passing), is that Nintendo can't get caught in the trap of "what would Iwata have done?"  It's the trap that Disney fell into with the passing of Walt: its leaders so caught up in "What Would Walt have done?" that they spent decades chasing after projects they didn't really believe in because it's something they thought Walt would have approved. That, on top of a number of other screw-ups like EPCOT, nearly drove the company into bankruptcy until Eisner, a guy who didn't give a **** what Walt would have done, saved the company.

So here we have Kimishima, who's stated purpose as President of Nintendo is to basically sit in a chair and go "What would Iwata have done, based on the initiatives he started before his death?" For all we know, this could end up being much more of a long-term presidency than it seems at the outset, depending on just how raw the prospective candidates are. I wonder at what point Nintendo stops being led by a dead man.

[Adrock]

Nintendo's current plan with mobile, NX, etc. is not exclusively Iwata's, even if he greatly influenced it. Hiroshi Yamauchi admitted while he was president that he was outvoted by the board which was the entire point of instituting that system.

In the short term, it's likely Nintendo's course is set, and it doesn't make sense to deviate from it. The further away the company gets from what Iwata was involved with, the stronger Kimishima's influence will be. I don't share the same concerns over Nintendo asking what Iwata would do. It restructured management and the internal development teams. Kimishima was chosen for stability. He's a seasoned businessman, and the logical, shot-term choice. Iwata was a very different president than Yamauchi, and Kimishima will be a very different than Iwata. Look at what he's already said in his first week. Those are things Iwata never would have said in public.

I think Nintendo knows it can't run a company based on Iwata's memory. I'd liken it to Apple. The iPhone 4S launched shortly before Steve Jobs passed, and subsequent models were very much in line with Jobs' choices. The years passed and the company matched forward. We have larger screen iPhones, a mini iPad, a ginormous iPad with a stylus. Those aren't Steve Jobs' decisions. It takes time to move away from past leadership and institute a new culture. Nintendo has been through this before albeit not as abruptly.

[Luigi Dude]

Iwata originally said Nintendo was against their series appearing on mobile because it'd cheapen the brands but the Dena deal to make Nintendo mobile games happened while he was still alive and President.  They also changed their licensing agreements for there franchises during Iwata's final year as well, something they used to be way more protective about as well.  This logic that Nintendo will spend the next couple decades trying to run it like Iwata would have makes no sense when Iwata himself was constantly changing things all the time and personally made some huge changes during his final years.

Hell, that's the reason why he wanted a younger person to succeed him since he felt a younger member would be more in touch with the actual gaming market and would make better decisions based on said changes in this market.  The last thing Iwata would have wanted is for someone to try and literally be like him when if you read Iwata Ask interviews, he was always in favor of the younger generation of developers trying to experiment and do new things.  No surprise it looks like Takahashi was Iwata's main choice and is still being groomed for the role years from now.  SPD was the division behind more new IP's then any other Nintendo division under Iwata's Presidency, and was the studio that dealt directly with more third parties during the development of Nintendo funded third party projects as well.

[Ian Sane]

Iwata's legacy is that he alienated the traditional gaming market in favour of mainstream casuals that dug Nintendo's product as a fad and then went on to something else, leaving the Wii U struggling to find an audience.  He burned bridges with the only audience in a post-smartphone market that will support a dedicated videogame machine.  So if Nintendo plays "what would Iwata do?" that will lead them to ruin.

Though he certainly was talking it up like he was going to change course. And we all kind of know that the Wii U is getting replaced next year, right?  There isn't time for the new president to overhaul everything for next gen.  Whatever Iwata had cooking has to go through unless Nintendo wants to sit on the unhealthy status quo for a bit longer to rethink their strategy.  I don't trust Iwata's vision, whatever it is, because I had no faith in him, but I can't see any other course of action than to stick with his short term plans.

Obviously I'm not happy he died but the real time to have replaced Iwata was when that disastrous financial report came out that more or less confirmed the Wii U as a flop.  That was the time to try someone new.  They didn't and if Iwata was in good health they wouldn't even consider replacing him until after the NX had come out and had been given some time to assess it's success or failure.  I highly doubt if the NX flopped that Iwata's job would have been safe.  So Nintendo might as well act as if he hadn't died and was given the chance with the Wii U successor that Nintendo's board had given him.  Then act like he was planning on retiring after seeing where the NX goes and then transition to his successor.

[Luigi Dude]

Iwata's legacy is that he alienated the traditional gaming market in favour of mainstream casuals

Once again the 3DS shows you're full of **** and have no idea what you're talking about.  Many of Nintendo's traditional series on the 3DS are just as popular as they were before the Wii and DS with the gaming market so these people clearly didn't get your memo.   The traditional market you keep talking about is the casual Halo/Madden/GTA dudebro home console lovers who were never with Nintendo in the first place outside of the maybe the NES as a kid.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/3ds.html

It doesn't matter what your definition is, because the actual facts show Nintendo is still releasing some of the highest selling games on a dedicated gaming system in a post-smartphone world that are selling just as good or better then many of their pre Wii and DS systems as well.  The Wii U's biggest problems have nothing to do with adult men being butthurt Iwata allowed Wii Sports to be made.

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo consoles are seen as casual fluff and that more than anything is why the Wii U has sold like crap.  Iwata completely destroyed Nintendo's console reputation and no one but the most dedicated Nintendo fan was willing to give the Wii U the time of day.

[TOPHATANT123]

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/3ds.html

[Shaymin]

I get the feeling Ian and the rest of the world are talking at cross purposes here.

[Evan_B]

Nintendo's consoles are seen as casual fluff by morons.

Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, XCX, Zombi U, Hyrule Warriors and such don't give off much of a casual image.

But, you know, the majority of the gaming population can't tell the difference between casual and accessible, so I guess the moron banner should stick.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo consoles are seen as casual fluff and that more than anything is why the Wii U has sold like crap.  Iwata completely destroyed Nintendo's console reputation and no one but the most dedicated Nintendo fan was willing to give the Wii U the time of day.

Iwata was playing the hand he was dealt. If he's the one who ruined things he must have had access to a time machine, because that situation was bad well before he took over. The fact is, Yamauchi burned a lot of bridges with third parties, and the lack of their support is what has hurt Nintendo consoles the most.

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo consoles are seen as casual fluff and that more than anything is why the Wii U has sold like crap.  Iwata completely destroyed Nintendo's console reputation and no one but the most dedicated Nintendo fan was willing to give the Wii U the time of day.

Iwata was playing the hand he was dealt. If he's the one who ruined things he must have had access to a time machine, because that situation was bad well before he took over. The fact is, Yamauchi burned a lot of bridges with third parties, and the lack of their support is what has hurt Nintendo consoles the most.

Nintendo was "kiddy" before Iwata but no one was ever called "casual" until the Wii.  Yamauchi also never had a console sell better than everything else but have the WORST third party support because the hardware was so out-of-date that ports were near impossible.  In fact no videogame company in history ever has done that except Iwata-led Nintendo.

[NWR_insanolord]

Fine, if you narrow the criteria down that specifically, it was all Iwata's fault. In reality, though, the difference between being labeled "kiddy" and being labeled "casual" is mostly semantic, and the only way Nintendo was able to be the highest seller in that generation was to appeal to the casual "rubes" you're so fond of disparaging. If they'd stayed with the model you want they'd have had the commercial success of the GameCube all over again instead of just the hardware.

[Ian Sane]

Fine, if you narrow the criteria down that specifically, it was all Iwata's fault. In reality, though, the difference between being labeled "kiddy" and being labeled "casual" is mostly semantic, and the only way Nintendo was able to be the highest seller in that generation was to appeal to the casual "rubes" you're so fond of disparaging. If they'd stayed with the model you want they'd have had the commercial success of the GameCube all over again instead of just the hardware.

My approach is more "Gamecube without the easily avoidable screw-ups" which I think would have sold better than the Cube ever did.  The Cube was conventional compared to the Wii and Wii U but it had lots of dumb typical Nintendo goof-ups.  Nintendo hasn't done a console where they didn't handcuff it with their own stupidity since the SNES.  Nintendo needed someone to clean up all the bad habits and clueless stupidity that was holding Nintendo back and if anything I feel Iwata doubled-down on those bad habits.  The Wii U is the exact sort of disaster you would expect if the sort of stupid idiots in Nintendo that thought making their console look like a purple purse and not going online when everyone else did were good ideas were calling the shots.

[BlackNMild2k1]

OMG... I am so out of the loop... I had no idea that Iwata had passed away....

I was wondering why there was talk of a new president. This saddens me.
I'm gonna go think on this for a little bit. But hopefully the next president has just as much passion for the product and and the creation of. I'm sure I missed lots of nice words around here on the subject.

RIP Iwata.

[ThePerm]

the casual hardcore stuff seems thrown around these forums a lot. I don't know about other forums..they're usually messes.

Wii U is a system for hardcore gamers. Wii was not.

The perception of Nintendo is not because of Nintendo. Its because of everyone else. Everyone lives in their own version of reality. Most people live in the Sony Xbox reality where Conkers Bad Fur Day, Perfect Dark, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil: Remake, Resident Evil 4 like a year exclusive for GCN never existed. Some of these people don't all know about Wii U. Some think its an add-on for wii u.
You could show them a mature game, tell them that its exclusive for a Nintendo system and their next question would be "when can I play it on my Xbox?" These people are in a feedback loop and it does not include free or credible information about Nintendo.

Speaking of Idiots. I was at a video store like 2 months ago and this guy was having a conversation with his girlfriend about H-DVD vs Bluray. This guy looked like meth city. Anyhow, he was talking to his girlfriend and this guy seemed like he had been living under a damn rock for like 5 years. We got into a conversation about it, just because I couldn't let it go and I explained to him HD-DVD has been dead for like 5 years. Bluray overtook it. Bluray won. His next question for me was which gaming systems do I like better "Xbox or PlayStation?"

[Enner]

Time talked a bit with Kimishima.
http://time.com/4129171/nintendo-tatsumi-kimishima/
Exclusive: Nintendo’s New President on the Icon’s Future

http://time.com/4131306/nintendo-kimishima-interview/
14 Things Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima Told Us

Reading the new articles, I have a better sense of Kimishima. He's looking to be the best-possible leader for Nintendo now.

[michaelbaysuperfan616]

the casual hardcore stuff seems thrown around these forums a lot. I don't know about other forums..they're usually messes.

Wii U is a system for hardcore gamers. Wii was not.

The perception of Nintendo is not because of Nintendo. Its because of everyone else. Everyone lives in their own version of reality. Most people live in the Sony Xbox reality where Conkers Bad Fur Day, Perfect Dark, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil: Remake, Resident Evil 4 like a year exclusive for GCN never existed. Some of these people don't all know about Wii U. Some think its an add-on for wii u.
You could show them a mature game, tell them that its exclusive for a Nintendo system and their next question would be "when can I play it on my Xbox?" These people are in a feedback loop and it does not include free or credible information about Nintendo.

Speaking of Idiots. I was at a video store like 2 months ago and this guy was having a conversation with his girlfriend about H-DVD vs Bluray. This guy looked like meth city. Anyhow, he was talking to his girlfriend and this guy seemed like he had been living under a damn rock for like 5 years. We got into a conversation about it, just because I couldn't let it go and I explained to him HD-DVD has been dead for like 5 years. Bluray overtook it. Bluray won. His next question for me was which gaming systems do I like better "Xbox or PlayStation?"

Game Cube was called kiddie because it looked like a toy and many of it's flagship titles were slightly more kid friendly than previous entries rather than just neutral as in the past, especially Sunshine and Toon link. Wii earned the casual label there is really no denying that, but Wii was a success as a casual machine it failed as a traditional core or hardcore gamer console which is why Wii U is struggling because Wii U has an identity crisis and a severe lack of proper 3rd party support. Wii U might appear to be more focused on traditional gamers but it launched with too much "Wiiness" seeping through. Also despite the Game Pad being in many ways better than just the default Remote and Nunchuck of Wii, the buttons are too far spaced out and the analog sticks don't feel quite right.

I remember Game Cube days being able to talk to people about it and it was always something little that kept them from getting one, but it wasn't hard to bring them over and invite them to play a game or two and show how wrong their misconceptions were. This is not the case with Wii U pretty  much it is what people say it is, a barren wasteland with a select few ultra-conservative appeal only to the super loyal fans first party titles. It has little room to grow beyond those of us who bought it just for the one game or another that we got it for.