If I was only concerned about managing Nintendo for this year and next year — and not about what the company would be like in 10 or 20 years — then I’d probably say that my point of view is nonsense. But if we think 20 years down the line, we may look back at the decision not to supply Nintendo games to smartphones and think that is the reason why the company is still here.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, in a post-E3 interview with WSJ (though I’m linking to The Verge because of the WSJ’s ridiculous paywall — funny how content finds a way to live outside paywalls).
This is the argument that comes up time and again as to why Nintendo shouldn’t (and won’t) bring their games on the popular smartphone platforms. The next step is always for people to point to Apple as an example of a company that stood their ground, and when they didn’t — when it was attack of the clones time in the 1990s — it almost killed them.
I just view this as a very different circumstance. Apple nearly died because of incompetence. Nintendo is bleeding because the world has completely changed around them. And I cannot see how it changes back.
Nintendo needs to adapt. Which, by the way, Apple did as well. They did not become the most valuable company in the world because they continued making Macs.
blackswaneuroparedux