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[ChorizoPicozo]

didn't Nintendo limited the amount of games a publisher could release too?

 

[Victor Omega]

By buying big publishers?

I mean what you said is true, Nintendo abused of its dominant position in the late 80's but they didn't have the money to buy the industry just like MS is trying to do right now. They may have been as bad as them but they didn't and don't have, today, the means to hurt the competition as much as Microsoft can and want to these days.

This is coming from someone who doesn't understand basic streaming services like Netflix and Disney plus all having original, exclusive content since he is too high up to realize how the HALO franchise has benefited XBOX as an exclusive.

The market in the 80s didn't have Steam or Microsoft. Sony was still busy selling radio. Yes, they weren't trying to buy studios back then. But they could have organically monopolized the industry.

Microsoft aimed to monopolize it in broad daylight, without exclusives and a confused "are we a hardware or service" platform strategy

 

[Drell]

The market in the 80s didn't have Steam or Microsoft. Sony was still busy selling radio. Yes, they weren't trying to buy studios back then. But they could have organically monopolized the industry.

They could and they did. Or at least naturally in japan and with shitty practices in the US. Europe was dominated by Amiga and Atari with Sega taking the lead in what was left for consoles, with the European NES, while not being a failure, being second to the Master System.

The thing is, that domination didn't last very long. Sega came with the Genesis, good marketing and took 50% of the market to Nintendo in the US, forcing them to stop their exclusivities practices with 3rd parties. Japan was the only country they were still absolutely winning. What I'd like to show there is that the VG industry was only at its beginning and while Nintendo did have a grip on it, it was actually easy to stop them. While i'm not sure it will be the same if Moicrosoft buys big publishers.

 

[Three]

didn't Nintendo limited the amount of games a publisher could release too?

Yes, because they prevented developers from using their own cartridge manufacturers they had to use Nintendos and Nintendo limited the amount of titles that a publisher can order so companies like Konami set up "sister companies" to get around this limit.

 

[supernova8]

They could and they did. Or at least naturally in japan and with shitty practices in the US. Europe was dominated by Amiga and Atari with Sega taking the lead in what was left for consoles, with the European NES, while not being a failure, being second to the Master System.

The thing is, that domination didn't last very long. Sega came with the Genesis, good marketing and took 50% of the market to Nintendo in the US, forcing them to stop their exclusivities practices with 3rd parties. Japan was the only country they were still absolutely winning. What I'd like to show there is that the VG industry was only at its beginning and while Nintendo did have a grip on it, it was actually easy to stop them. While i'm not sure it will be the same if Moicrosoft buys big publishers.

Little known fact that game rentals are not a thing in Japan, mostly thanks to Nintendo. Copyright laws were changed and video game rentals were banned. It's hilarious because the reasoning was people bootlegging games but that bootlegging was of course happening everywhere else, it's just that the Japanese legal system/government was too easy to lobby.

Nintendo tried the same shit in the US and Europe and got nowhere (luckily). Motherfuckers.

Weird thing is that you can still rent (via a chain called Tsutaya) DVDs, CDs, and comics in Japan, which are arguably even easier to pirate.

 

[Victor Omega]

 

[Scotty W]

The low-end hardware, no AAA 3rd support Nintendo you love or hate today, use to be ALOT worst than Microsoft in the 80s.

In the 80s, Nintendo didn't just take "saving the gaming industry" as a 1UP; they used that to control the market.

They were arrogant to developers in what and how games should run on their system and bullied retail stores in what their layout should look like to bottleneck any competitors.

They monopolize gaming or at least saw it in clear view.

But if you think the Nintendo today is an old-fashioned samurai who lost to the likes of Microsoft with online games or Sony with the Playstation having dual analog, no.

Nintendo is more of an Old Yakuza boss looking down on those two today with it 30+ years of protecting its IPs (they may have lost the fight to pirating, but while Microsoft tries to get rid of console exclusives, Nintendo IPs have stood the test of gaming.) But every Yakuza boss, every Company like Nintendo, has a rival that challenges them.

Sega.

While Microsoft today cry bullies its way to power and with money, Sega went to work in the 80s by producing better games and better hardware.

"They have a mascot; we have a mascot; they have a final fantasy; we have Phantasy Star".​

It's that determination that stopped Nintendo's power trip from monopolizing gaming. (and with the recent news that Microsoft actually wanted to acquire SEGA, this theory gives a possible reason why)

(I'm paraphrasing history here for a narrative discussion)

There is more to Japan than samurai and yakuza. A more apt metaphor might be that Nintendo is a retired emperor who seems to do little, but is in fact pulling many strings via intermediaries.

 

[Dorago]

Microsoft is using THEIR time tested strategy of Embrace, Extend, Exterminate.

 

[Victor Omega]

Microsoft is using THEIR time tested strategy of Embrace, Extend, Exterminate.

Wasnt there something inside the current FTC hearing about Microsoft using an "Evangelism strategy"? It would make for a good umbrella term for the Three E's you just mentioned.

 

[ksdixon]

The low-end hardware, no AAA 3rd support Nintendo you love or hate today, use to be ALOT worst than Microsoft in the 80s.

In the 80s, Nintendo didn't just take "saving the gaming industry" as a 1UP; they used that to control the market.

They were arrogant to developers in what and how games should run on their system and bullied retail stores in what their layout should look like to bottleneck any competitors.

They monopolize gaming or at least saw it in clear view.

But if you think the Nintendo today is an old-fashioned samurai who lost to the likes of Microsoft with online games or Sony with the Playstation having dual analog, no.

Nintendo is more of an Old Yakuza boss looking down on those two today with it 30+ years of protecting its IPs (they may have lost the fight to pirating, but while Microsoft tries to get rid of console exclusives, Nintendo IPs have stood the test of gaming.) But every Yakuza boss, every Company like Nintendo, has a rival that challenges them.

Sega.

While Microsoft today cry bullies its way to power and with money, Sega went to work in the 80s by producing better games and better hardware.

"They have a mascot; we have a mascot; they have a final fantasy; we have Phantasy Star".​

It's that determination that stopped Nintendo's power trip from monopolizing gaming. (and with the recent news that Microsoft actually wanted to acquire SEGA, this theory gives a possible reason why)

(I'm paraphrasing history here for a narrative discussion)

No one would mind if XB put some effort in instead of being snakes backed with MS's money. We look at MS/XB and go "SEGA died for these chuckle fucks?"

 

[Celine]

Clueless americans threw the nascent console market in the most crucial area in the World (North America) under the bus due to lack of control and mismanagement.
Japanese copied the american product and popularized the new form of entertainment in their domestic market at first then conquered North America amidst everybody suggesting they were crazy to release a console cause that was just a short lived fad and the present and future for videogames at home would have been for sure computers.

For "americans" I mean people at Atari and for "japanese" I mean people at Nintendo.
It's not a matter of nationality, Sega displayed some very bad business acumen (they quickly rise in popularity with the Mega Drive/Genesis and by the end of the same generation they were already in crisis and just 6 years later out of the console business).

Thank you Yamauchi-san.

 

[Victor Omega]

Imagine for a moment that all of this Xbox Activision Acquisition/Fueding with Sony/industry consolidation/Gaming is a service debacle is over Call of Duty and Starfield... and Nintendo is still doing what it has always been doing for 30 years.

If anything, Nintendo, If I haven't romanticized them enough, is looking at this whole situation like the 80s where Microsoft is Atari and will pick up the pieces afterward.