Bear with me on this one...

Half a decade ago I was certain that Apple would get into the video game market via console. Instead they did something far more innovative and profitable and indirectly did it their way.

When it comes down to it Nintendo and Apple are quite similar when it comes to their business strategy and ironically, this is why it would not work. There is a concept called "Red Ocean/Blue Ocean". It is a business strategy model that applies to every corporate entity and organization. Apple and Nintendo are both considered "Blue Ocean".

https://www.boundless.com/management/concepts/introduction-to-red-ocean-and-blue-ocean-strategy-0-11304/

http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/concepts/bos-tools/red-ocean-vs-blue-ocean-strategy/

It is a predator/prey allegory. Businesses are sharks. Some sharks see blood in the water and fight each other over the red in the water (Red Ocean), then there are the sharks that say "fuck this, I'll go find my own food!" (Blue Ocean). Both are potentially viable and profitable strategies, it's just a matter of innovation (do something different) vs iteration (do it better than the last guy).

On the Bell Curve Nintendo currently deviates to the left, whereas Apple is far to the right and is currently the most valued company on the planet. I honestly believe it comes down to cultural differences in conflict with the personalities that lead to the initial success of both companies.

Apple: Steve Jobs made it the company it is today and he did it twice. He created the personal computer, not Bill Gates or IBM. Sure, he is a legendary asshole but that is exactly what made him so successful. He exploited Wozniak in making the first PC, abandoned his daughter Lisa (which he named a failed project after), he "invented" the mouse when Xerox, the actual creators failed to see its potential, took what we know as modern day UX/UI (first introduced on the Mac) and Object Oriented Programming from PARC ( Palo Alto Research Center). This is all pretty Red Ocean but I will argue it is less black and white than what it seems.

"Great artists steal"

Eventually he gets fired from his own company for instigating violence between two project teams while high on acid and in consequence Apple struggled for a decade and nearly went bankrupt in his absence. So Steve does his own shit in the meantime (including creating Pixar) until Apple throws in the cards and brings Jobs back. Then what happens? He reinvents the music distribution industry, creates the modern day smart phone and the tablet.

They say there are three common traits among CEOs in the US; tall, white and male. The fourth most common trait is sociopathic tendencies. Steve is the epitome of this. People were scared to get into the elevator with the guy because he would randomly fire people on the way up just for kicks. Point is this is Zeitgeist in American companies and incompatible with Japanese culture.

Nintendo: Shigeru Miyamoto is what made Nintendo a household name. Originally hired as an arcade box artist that went on to create Donkey Kong, and consequently Jumpman (Mario) and invigorated the failed video game industry in the early 80's. He goes on to create Zelda stating the inspiration for it being his propentancy for exploring caves as a child. Then in later life Pikiman due to his love for gardening. All of his games are inspired by his immense imagination and creativity. Also, all of his early games are the very definition of using hardware limitations to your advantage (this is why Mario looks the way he does to this day). He had a large role in the creation of the Wii (Epitome of Blue Ocean considering the console landscape when it was released). However, Japanese culture does not value this type of personality. Hard to explain without making this post even longer but an example:

There was a study done regarding artists from Japan compared to US art students. Each nationality were given the simple task of drawing an apple. The students in the US created very different versions of an apple, some were just pictures of apples and some were abstract "paint it red" bullshit apples but all were very dissimilar. The Japanese students on the other hand, they basically created what could be considered photocopies of each other's work as all of the drawings were nearly identical. This is fascinating but the reason for this is the Japanese prefer conformality to creativity (IE Anime).

Miyamoto does not conform or fit into this mold and indirectly this is exactly why the Japanese video game industry is failing. His career has suffered overtime due to this and now Nintendo is where it is today. This guy is the yin to the yang of Steve Jobs.

So anyways, No! Nintendo, Capcom or any other Japanese company should not be involved in anyway with Disnay/Viacom or any other U.S. entity as they are not compatible Blue Ocean/Red Ocean or not.

IMO

P.S. I had passive relationship with Steve Jobs back when I lived in Cupertino (also with Woz who would visit my high school often and now teaches computing). I used to skateboard at Apple and would often see Steve and we would casually say "hiya" to each other. The security guards would constantly harass us until one day I mentioned it to Steve. Never got approached by a security guard after that. =)

Also I had the privilege of meeting Miyamoto at a GDC.

sidewaydriver wrote:

I've never looked into Steve Jobs so I had no idea he was such a cunt. I'm glad I never purchased any Apple products. Yeah, I own a Zune still to this day, come at me bro. Also, he probably had that guard taken to the iDungeon and fed to a colony of fire ants.

Damn your Zune! I'm posting on my iDungeon device at the moment. The only thing I ever Bing is Google. =)

Microsoft is embarrassing bad at marketing and branding. Really, what are they going for with four letter words like Zune and Bing? They might as well use Fuck, it would get them more page views I guarantee.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY

But honestly, Microsoft is far from innocuous. Bill Gates prefers Mosquitoes to fire ants...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2FvVRSjMdw

sidewaydriver wrote:

Whoa, don't misinterpret me as Microsoft guy. I bought the Zune off a guy back in 2007 who was going through a divorce and selling a bunch of stuff on the cheap. I also got my PS3 from him. So yes, my primary music device is still a fucking Gen 1 Zune. Deal with it

I'm just playing, but honestly if you are at all interested in this sort of thing I would recommend the book Fire in the Valley, it's fascinating. Also just google "Steve Jobs is an asshole". He was a phenomenal douchebag.

I don't know, I ended up buying an iPad 2 back in the day when initially going into a Best Buy with the intention of purchasing a Kindle. Ever since then I have been hooked, and have bought the iPad 3 and now use iPad Air 2 and I will buy the 12 inch screen iPad Pro when it is released.

Maybe I am lazy but dammit, it's a pretty convenient all purpose device. I love it and often find myself using it more than my laptop. I spent nearly 2,500$ on a laptop I barely even use over the 800$ the iPad cost me.

I have always hated the hipster bullshit culture that Apple tends to instill but I love my iPads.

jprime wrote:

The-Excel wrote: Probable Muppet wrote: Miyamoto does not conform or fit into this mold and indirectly this is exactly why the Japanese video game industry is failing. His career has suffered overtime due to this and now Nintendo is where it is today. This guy is the yin to the yang of Steve Jobs. What do you think Nintendo will be like once Miyamoto is gone? Unfortunately, he's probably the lynchpin keeping Nintendo from sharing a state with Capcom post-Inafune.

The Japanese game industry and frankly IMO Japan itself is a broken culture. Don't get me wrong I love the Japanese but they have become non-competitive due to their culture.

The Japanese are a paradox. Some examples:

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Racism/Xenophobia ingrained into Japanese culture:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/22/american-teacher-in-japan-under-fire-for-lessons-on-japans-history-of-discrimination/


View on YouTube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Japan
Back in WW2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

In the early 2000's one of the best selling books in Japan is roughly translated as "Bed Bug/Lice or Jews".

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Low Birth rate:

On top of this Japan currently has the lowest birth rate on the planet. It is a real problem for the Japanese and partly due to academia (or the academic pressure that is imposed upon young Japanese students required for higher education). They are actually building robots in fear that their workforce might not have other candidates, no joke.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/24260/20150103/japanese-birth-rate-hits-record-low-and-theres-no-easy-way-out.htm

It gets sad when this sort of thing exists due to their lack of intimacy:
http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/strange-world-of-male-hosts-in-japan

This is the same culture that has vending machines containing panties from little girls yet censors its porn of genitalia but have no problem with pedophilia in anime or said censored porn of people shitting on each other (WTF). The Yakuza are responsible for all uncensored porn in and out of Japan. Puritanical/hypocritical?

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High Suicide Rate:

It is still quite common for the Japanese to commit suicide in very strange ways, such as walking directly into the ocean wearing your business suit. Then there is the "Suicide Forest" Aokigahara.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara

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Corporate Policy:

I mentioned this in a previous post but meh...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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One last thing before I actually get to the point. I had a friend in art school that was stationed in Japan (Air Force). He told me a story about a shady Japanese club he went to while on leave. Sitting on a stage was a naked girl. He was confused because all of a sudden a bunch of Japanese business men started betting on something. Then a goat comes on stage and begins to fuck the girl and it turns out that these men were betting on how long it would take for her to start bleeding out. Unbelievable...

Anyways, someone like Miyamoto comes along once in a lifetime. He is a god when it comes to game design in my opinion is out of his element culturally for a number of reasons. When he is gone Nintendo still has a number of very talented second party developers (HAL Laboratory, Sora Ltd., Game Arts, Game Freak, Creatures Inc., Genius Sonority, Ambrella, Hudson Soft, Intelligent Systems) but they are nothing compared to him. It will survive without him but it will suffer.

I believe that Japanese game development has always been a bit skewed. The difference is that it used to work to their advantage but they have failed to evolve.

One example of how it worked to thier advantage in the past is was due to subtle outsourcing of developers back in the golden age of the NES/SNES days. When you get a job in japan you are expected to stay for life. To get around this developers would often outsource themselves to other developers to avoid this (and headhunting) by using aliases. Look at the credits of any NES game for evidence. IE Suda 51 (Goichi Suda) still prefers to be called by his alias and Hideo Kojima used to be known as Bug1 ect ect...

Edit: also read Freakonomics for an interesting take an police corruption in Japan.

sidewaydriver wrote:

Probable Muppet wrote: One last thing before I actually get to the point. I had a friend in art school that was stationed in Japan (Air Force). He told me a story about a shady Japanese club he went to while on leave. Sitting on a stage was a naked girl. He was confused because all of a sudden a bunch of Japanese business men started betting on something. Then a goat comes on stage and begins to fuck the girl and it turns out that these men were betting on how long it would take for her to start bleeding out. Unbelievable I've read that Miyamoto gets his game ideas from his hobbies. Who knows, maybe we'll get a goat fucking simulator soon.

Um, it's already been done. If that's your thing then:

Goat Simulator:


View on YouTube

Cattivo wrote:

Cameron wrote: Cattivo wrote: sidewaydriver wrote: Yeah, I own a Zune still to this day, come at me bro. Same here, lol. Listening to my ZuneHD at work right now. My gen 1 is in my car, but I think the Chicago cold killed it; can't seem to turn it on anymore. I just have a stubborn desire to be different. Everyone buys an ipod, I buy a zune, naturally. It's weird, but it's how I am, heh. My 80 GB Zune that I've had for three years died recently (well sort of; the battery is so shot that it'll only play about nine minutes of music before it dies). Saddest day of my life. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do when my ZuneHD finally dies. I mean, I can just use my smartphone eventually, no big deal. But, I have all my mp3s archived on my PC, where I use the Zune player. I have everything reorganized and renamed there the way I like it, especially, Smashing Pumpkins Rarities. I have Amazon Prime, so I have begun using their Music app on my phone, but for my personal library, it only has the music that I've bought through them. I've been wondering if I can somehow show them what other music I've purchased over the years to allow free, permanent access to the stuff I own from there, through a UPC/SKU code or something. Don't want to have to take the time to do that, though. Speaking of those SP rarities, I bought the first few SP album reissues a long time ago, but haven't bothered unwrapping them. Simply don't have the time or interest to compare the rarities released on them to the bootlegs I got from the old SP archive online and see which ones are better or worth keeping. The Melloncollie and Aeroplane ones were just too expensive to buy too. I know I'll buy the Machina II one whenever Corgan gets around to doing that one. So tired of the poor quality vinyl rips that are only available for that. And Muppet, I know I've said it before, but thanks for the continued stories. So damn interesting.

You are a Smashing Pumpkins fan? I don't know why but this surprises me. I love their first five albums but Billy Corgan has unfortunately become an asshole and has burned too many bridges. He is very talented but sometimes ego transcends talent. Smashing Pumpkins is a studio band and are absolutely shit live. Have you ever seen them play live? He is incapable of performing live.

I previously mentioned my relationship with Henry Nicholas III in another thread. I introduced my uncle (Nick's lawyer and financial advisor who was nearly thrown out of a Lear jet by Nick at 30,000 feet) to SM and Henry Nicholas had them staged at one of his birthdays. It was a train wreck, they are horrible at live performances. Despite this, I still own a "Zero" T-shirt to this day, but WTF Billy Corgan? He needs to make himself relevant again by humbling up and needs to drop the megalomania.