Seems like a strange argument, to claim that Nintendo's logotype would even be eligible for a "modernization". The vast majority of logos follow the same mold when they are modernized: they are simplified, rendered in sharp vector art, are made to look good even in monochrome, may use contemporary fonts instead that match this style, and so on. Microsoft's window is an example of this, Firefox is another. The thing about Nintendo's logo is that it already looks like that. Like the logo of IBM, it's already modern, because it's timeless.
I generally agree, but despite this companies still do it sometimes. UPS is a great example. Ditching Paul Rand's timeless logo for what they have today, a real shame.
It looks modern and timeless now in our age of Metro-style flat UIs and graphic design, but in the 90-00's, most companies went through a bevelled, shiny, chromed logo update because of (IMHO) the flashier web graphics that were more easily generated and the chintzy OS UI polishes everyone thought they enjoyed at the time.
Recent articles on the history of the Volkswagen logo [1] [2] and it's retreat back to flatness are a perfect look into this phenomenon.
Nintendo's corporate logo has been consistent and predates the company's pivot to video games. But each console they've released has had its own logo, many of which have incorporated the word "Nintendo". So while this is accurate from a corporate standpoint, Nintendo fans have seen the company rebranded in a variety of fonts over the years. To many gamers' sensibilities, the official logo is actually retro, and reminiscent of the NES era.
> During the recruiting process, Fils-Aimé asked to speak directly with Nintendo of Japan's Global president at the time, Satoru Iwata, before accepting any job. "It is not something they had planned to do," he told Present Value. "I learned later on, it caused quite a bit of issues within Nintendo. 'Who is this person asking to meet with our global president?'" This phone interview with Iwata-san was eventually scheduled and originally meant to last 30 minutes. It exceeded 90, Fils-Aimé said.
Nintendo Japan thought it was weird that a potential President of Nintendo of America would want to speak to what sounds like would be his primary superior? Am I reading that right?
effectively, yes. This was a large part of why nintendo's online strategy was so poor for such a long time. The Switch is the first of their products where they specifically asked the younger employees to lay out what it should look like.
I'll cede that some of Nintendo's online strategy failed, hard, but...outside of a few things, I don't think they did that bad?
Friend codes were actually really neat; they managed to do interesting things in terms of casual online interaction (I still remember being blown away at video chatting with someone half-way across my country on DSi hardware (16MB RAM and ARM processors that weren't even capable of running Linux[1]), in a (first-ish party; Game Freak) video game where it wasn't even a sideshow it was such a small feature), they managed to do pretty painless interaction between your device and a PC in 2010, Flipnote Studio was a really innovative/impressive piece of social media in 2008 (more like Vine than Twitter, really, and first-party), etc.
Like sure, most of their uses of online prior to the Wii U or so were novelty uses, but they were still really well-executed, and at least early-on had a whole lot of genuinely interesting uses of it.
[1] I think there's a port of a very very old version of μClinux that kind of works on the system, so this is only partially true.
When did they introduce friend codes? Couldn't you say "Nintendo's online strategy" (should have) started with the original Wii in 2006 and was basically non-existant for years? :)
Only being half-snarky here, I only own a SNES and a GameBoy Advanced.
The Wii was too early, I think (anecdotally, I remember my family couldn't figure out how to get it connected to the internet), given the market it was aiming for (families).
They introduced friend codes with either the original DS or the DS Lite, I believe.
The Xbox 360 was aimed at a niche of people (college-aged 'gamers'), and I qualified my statement saying that it was too early for the demographic the Wii was targeting.
The GameCube had at least one game that was online only: Phantasy Star Online III. And you're telling me a generation later was still too early? Heck, in Japan, both the N64 and the SNES had online capabilities through additional hardware.
SNES didn't have online capabilities, it had satellite capabilities with specialized and expensive hardware (assuming you're referring to SatellaView).
Anything that requires specialized hardware to access the internet isn't ready for general consumption.
PSOepIII (episode III, not PSO III. It was actually PSO II) was an MMORPG; MMORPGs are aimed at a far different demographic than the group that the Wii was targeted at. Also, weren't PSO ep. I and ep. II released on the GameCube? Pretty sure they were.
"There were multiple companies in the 60s that had mainframes that didn't even work very well; are you telling me that your average family wouldn't be ready for computing back then?"
Focusing on internet connectivity on the Wii would have harmed the Wii, yes. The Wii had Wii Shop and a few titles that could interact online. Making it the core feature in many of them would harm the console, because not only would many people have difficulty setting it up, there were also significant portions of even the United States that were almost entirely decrepit of even moderately decent internet connections.
Wii had online play, and friendcodes. You could play Mario Kart Wii online, and share your time trial ghosts with your friends. (if you exchanged friend codes)
>I'll cede that some of Nintendo's online strategy failed, hard, but...outside of a few things, I don't think they did that bad?
Netplay on Nintendo consoles has been terrible. I admit that they did some interesting social things with the handheld consoles, Miis, and leaving comments (Mario Maker, Mario 3D World), but playing anything against another player was almost always terrible.
Smash Brothers has been one of their biggest competitive titles across many generations. Yet on the Nintendo Switch, the 5th iteration of Smash is still unplayable unless you're on a wired connection. Even then, you can still feel the lag in Smash more so than any other fighting game. Street Fighter 5 is notorious in the FGC (Fighting Game Community) for having terrible netcode. Yet I can still have high quality matches on a wireless connection.
You can't share digital games or DLC across accounts bound to the same consoles in a sane manner. Even if you specify that the accounts belong to the same family, it doesn't matter. Nintendo somehow made buying digital assets on a Switch more restrictive and a bigger headache than physical copies.
Don't get me wrong, there's some definite novelty in some of Nintendo's online offerings, but they are definitely stuck in the past.
>the 5th iteration of Smash is still unplayable unless you're on a wired connection
For what it’s worth, I always play Smash Ultimate’s online on Wi-Fi (NAT type A) and practically never have problems with it. Though I guess the average player’s wireless connection might not be very good, and most players don’t use a wired connection as it requires an adapter.
They made some impressive technical achievements, but their overall platform and infrastructure was awful. For example, no unified friend system, different online services for different consoles, no SSO for games.
I think for casual play like Mario Kart, Pokemon, etc, it worked fine. It absolutely hamstrung more complicated efforts like Smash, Metroid, and third parties were forced to all heavily build out their own infra or not build the feature at all.
These were problems that plagued much more powerful systems (Wii, 3DS - until very late in the lifespan of the console, Wii U, and even the Switch)
Nintendo of America is sort of ignored by Nintendo of Japan. It's more surprising to me that he was able to advocate for the Wii Sports bundle in America and Europe, and even there, he emphasizes that it wasn't actually his decision to make.
I worked for Nintendo of Europe and I don’t think it’s true that NOA is ignored by NCL (Japan). NOA has had a good amount of creative and strategic leeway and NCL listens to them since the 80s. Hell, even NOE who is clearly third in the pecking order is treated with quite a bit of respect.
Bundles are a clear example where territories have pretty good leeway to call their own shots. “Not his decision to make” means he needed to approve it with NCL but, well, isn’t it normal that the corporate HQ would want to have final approval on such matters?
I watched this 'documentavideo' a few months ago. Goes into a bit of detail of the history of Nintendo of Europe and one guy who helped it spread. I'd assume relations between the various branches have pretty strong interplay.
I highly recommend checking out the book "Console Wars" by Blake Harris. It provides an insider's perspective of the Sega v. Nintendo battle during the 80s and 90s. Among other interesting elements explored are the strange and sometimes downright competitive dynamics between the Japanese and American arms of these companies. After reading this, I came away thinking that a lot of the reason for Sega's demise (as a console-maker, anyways) were the stuck-in-their-ways Sega of Japan executives.
> Nintendo Japan thought it was weird that a potential President of Nintendo of America would want to speak to what sounds like would be his primary superior?
In 2003, he was interviewing for the position of VP Sales & Marketing. He wouldn't become president of NoA until 2006.
Prior to Reggie, NOA was just a distribution company. They handled orders and collected their middle-man fees. A vanishingly small percentage worked on actual games.
NOA started taking some cues from Microsoft, and started moving some technology competency into NOA. NCL (the japanese acronym for Nintendo of Japan), of course, saw this as a threat. Even 5 years ago, when I was last there, the entire office had a hidden resentment for the Japanese office. The US office had pulled off some amazing feats, and it resulted in most of the interesting technology projects being yanked back to Japan.
Like Sony, I find that Nintendo's logo is pretty much timeless.
I think that the very nature of being employed to do a job makes it harder than not to resist doing anything. I mentioned this the other day with regards to A B testing. It feels odd to do all that work and conclude with: do nothing.
I think this is exactly why you need someone like Reggie at that level of the process. As an executive he's more resilient to the sense of need to do something, anything, given how much time and money you put into the project. This is also why you need someone who lives and breathes your product. Not just generic executive cog in a suit.
I had three arborists in my forest last year. They all had opinions on what to do and they were all different. Probably because I'm paying them to have an opinion and "don't do anything" feels like you're cheating someone of their cash.
Reminded me of the referendum to change New Zealand's flag. They picked a favourite with one referendo, and then had a second referendum that allowed you to veto the whole thing.
I was a bit saddened when Sony showed off the PlayStation 4 (as well as later slim versions of the PlayStation 3) and took out the little coloured logo. I loved how it also could be rotated for the upright orientation too. It helped instill a small feeling of magic with the product.
The Switch's design is a pretty big innovation, and has been wildly successful despite all of the many, many hurdles in both the hardware and software implications of its various modes.
They're the only ones trying anything at all in terms of hardware; Sony and MS have always just targetted being a locked-down PC.
And in terms of games, it's also the same case; most first party games are evolutions or reiterations in Sony and MS universe, whereas Nintendo both does rehashes as well as dramatically different designs in each of their staple series.
That they're flawed innovations (turning them into gimmicks), perhaps, but looking at the big 3, they're the only hope of change. The innovation you expect from MS and Sony boils down to media center and absurdities like disks being shipped with only the data necessary to tell your Xbox where to download the game..
they hit that sweet spot of folks who like to play games but aren't into the graphics as much as spec-heads. you can argue all you want about frame rates and resolutions and shaders, but at the end of the day, smash brothers is consistently more -fun- than any other game. that's why nintendo is basically able to keep selling us the same games over and over with each generation: they're all -fun- to play.
Also pretty much the last refuge of video games as a social activity offline. Everyone on the couch playing together.
For PS4, Xbox, and PC I never find someone with enough controllers for 4+ players. Even if indie developers make these games people don't buy the gear to play them. They're almost designed for single player and only online multiplayer.
On the other hand almost every Nintendo console will always have many controllers. They company produces high quality party games, and in the case of the switch they're literally selling joycons two at a time which means indie developers can rely on players having 4 or 6 or even 8 controllers.
I honestly think the revival of board games is because of this gap that video games created when this type of play was abandoned in favor of online experiences and graphics.
I'm not sure that it is? The article uses the word "racetrack" but I assumed that was the author's term. Has it ever been defined as a racetrack by Nintendo?
It actually used to be an elongated hexagon[1] before the rounded rectangle design. Whether it's called a "racetrack" now, the rounded rectangle is a simple evolution of the original hexagon.
They even play on it in Nintendo Direct, having the King of the Koopas appear in a tie to discuss strategy for the upcoming year, only to be upstaged by the real Doug Bowser.
A quote from Steve Jobs on the design of the NeXT logo:
"Most companies have their logo as just a logotype. And every once in a while a company has a logo that's sort of a little jewel, a symbol, that can be used independently of the logotype." [1]
Personally, I think Nintendo's logo is somewhat the Mickey Mouse symbol of video games. I'm glad they didn't change it, because when I see it I associate it with the quality and holistic design they're known for.
As silly as graffiti Nintendo logos seem to us now, when the brand is nearly as stable in the West as IBM or Chevrolet, back in the 90s Sega was eating Nintendo's lunch with its focus on being edgy and extreme and lax attitudes to violent and other content. Nintendo capitulated on the content standards, and for a time it would have been canny business strategy to add edge to the brand also. The 90s were very, very weird. A timeless brand turned out perhaps to have been the wiser decision after all, as Sega left the console market and became part of a pachinko conglomerate. And they still can't get Sonic exactly right.
Japanese logos tend to be quite "timeless", mostly because they're so minimalist (think Mitsubishi logo). Even towns and prefectures have very simple emblems instead of a complicated coat of arms.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadAnother example is Library of Congress logo designed by C&G, timeless until it lasted and Paula Sher(Pentagram) destroyed it. https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_log...
Recent articles on the history of the Volkswagen logo [1] [2] and it's retreat back to flatness are a perfect look into this phenomenon.
[1] https://www.motor1.com/features/369759/vw-logo-history/43475...
[2] https://medium.com/content-shailee/evolution-of-the-volkswag...
0: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/77bodv/the_n64_logo...
Nintendo Japan thought it was weird that a potential President of Nintendo of America would want to speak to what sounds like would be his primary superior? Am I reading that right?
effectively, yes. This was a large part of why nintendo's online strategy was so poor for such a long time. The Switch is the first of their products where they specifically asked the younger employees to lay out what it should look like.
Friend codes were actually really neat; they managed to do interesting things in terms of casual online interaction (I still remember being blown away at video chatting with someone half-way across my country on DSi hardware (16MB RAM and ARM processors that weren't even capable of running Linux[1]), in a (first-ish party; Game Freak) video game where it wasn't even a sideshow it was such a small feature), they managed to do pretty painless interaction between your device and a PC in 2010, Flipnote Studio was a really innovative/impressive piece of social media in 2008 (more like Vine than Twitter, really, and first-party), etc.
Like sure, most of their uses of online prior to the Wii U or so were novelty uses, but they were still really well-executed, and at least early-on had a whole lot of genuinely interesting uses of it.
[1] I think there's a port of a very very old version of μClinux that kind of works on the system, so this is only partially true.
Only being half-snarky here, I only own a SNES and a GameBoy Advanced.
They introduced friend codes with either the original DS or the DS Lite, I believe.
Which, coincidentally, is why Wii and DS online no longer work; Nintendo never built a replacement service after GameSpy shut down in 2014.
Anything that requires specialized hardware to access the internet isn't ready for general consumption.
PSOepIII (episode III, not PSO III. It was actually PSO II) was an MMORPG; MMORPGs are aimed at a far different demographic than the group that the Wii was targeted at. Also, weren't PSO ep. I and ep. II released on the GameCube? Pretty sure they were.
"There were multiple companies in the 60s that had mainframes that didn't even work very well; are you telling me that your average family wouldn't be ready for computing back then?"
Focusing on internet connectivity on the Wii would have harmed the Wii, yes. The Wii had Wii Shop and a few titles that could interact online. Making it the core feature in many of them would harm the console, because not only would many people have difficulty setting it up, there were also significant portions of even the United States that were almost entirely decrepit of even moderately decent internet connections.
Not sure if it used the Internet, however.
If I remember right, which I might not, XBAND used the phone system but didn't use the internet.
https://youtu.be/Dkxxd3uH1ZY
Pretty sure it had a browser and a store.
Netplay on Nintendo consoles has been terrible. I admit that they did some interesting social things with the handheld consoles, Miis, and leaving comments (Mario Maker, Mario 3D World), but playing anything against another player was almost always terrible.
Smash Brothers has been one of their biggest competitive titles across many generations. Yet on the Nintendo Switch, the 5th iteration of Smash is still unplayable unless you're on a wired connection. Even then, you can still feel the lag in Smash more so than any other fighting game. Street Fighter 5 is notorious in the FGC (Fighting Game Community) for having terrible netcode. Yet I can still have high quality matches on a wireless connection.
You can't share digital games or DLC across accounts bound to the same consoles in a sane manner. Even if you specify that the accounts belong to the same family, it doesn't matter. Nintendo somehow made buying digital assets on a Switch more restrictive and a bigger headache than physical copies.
Don't get me wrong, there's some definite novelty in some of Nintendo's online offerings, but they are definitely stuck in the past.
For what it’s worth, I always play Smash Ultimate’s online on Wi-Fi (NAT type A) and practically never have problems with it. Though I guess the average player’s wireless connection might not be very good, and most players don’t use a wired connection as it requires an adapter.
I think for casual play like Mario Kart, Pokemon, etc, it worked fine. It absolutely hamstrung more complicated efforts like Smash, Metroid, and third parties were forced to all heavily build out their own infra or not build the feature at all.
These were problems that plagued much more powerful systems (Wii, 3DS - until very late in the lifespan of the console, Wii U, and even the Switch)
1. Trading phone numbers is easier than adding Friends on a switch
2. No voice chat service
3. No built in streaming
4. No game invite system
Bundles are a clear example where territories have pretty good leeway to call their own shots. “Not his decision to make” means he needed to approve it with NCL but, well, isn’t it normal that the corporate HQ would want to have final approval on such matters?
I suppose that's still less contentious than Sega of Japan vs. Sega of America.
> It's more surprising to me that he was able to advocate for the Wii Sports bundle in America and Europe
It's not like the decision was without precedent for Nintendo: the NES came with the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge.
https://youtu.be/SKgL8u4CPJ8
https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generat...
In 2003, he was interviewing for the position of VP Sales & Marketing. He wouldn't become president of NoA until 2006.
NOA started taking some cues from Microsoft, and started moving some technology competency into NOA. NCL (the japanese acronym for Nintendo of Japan), of course, saw this as a threat. Even 5 years ago, when I was last there, the entire office had a hidden resentment for the Japanese office. The US office had pulled off some amazing feats, and it resulted in most of the interesting technology projects being yanked back to Japan.
I think that the very nature of being employed to do a job makes it harder than not to resist doing anything. I mentioned this the other day with regards to A B testing. It feels odd to do all that work and conclude with: do nothing.
I think this is exactly why you need someone like Reggie at that level of the process. As an executive he's more resilient to the sense of need to do something, anything, given how much time and money you put into the project. This is also why you need someone who lives and breathes your product. Not just generic executive cog in a suit.
I had three arborists in my forest last year. They all had opinions on what to do and they were all different. Probably because I'm paying them to have an opinion and "don't do anything" feels like you're cheating someone of their cash.
I think most gamers would consider any innovation since a gimmick or a terrible executed idea.
I don't think Nintendo could invent a new logo or new game. They seem like an antiquated company with a big marketing budget and high margin products.
They're the only ones trying anything at all in terms of hardware; Sony and MS have always just targetted being a locked-down PC.
And in terms of games, it's also the same case; most first party games are evolutions or reiterations in Sony and MS universe, whereas Nintendo both does rehashes as well as dramatically different designs in each of their staple series.
That they're flawed innovations (turning them into gimmicks), perhaps, but looking at the big 3, they're the only hope of change. The innovation you expect from MS and Sony boils down to media center and absurdities like disks being shipped with only the data necessary to tell your Xbox where to download the game..
plus, my switch can play skyrim, so...
For PS4, Xbox, and PC I never find someone with enough controllers for 4+ players. Even if indie developers make these games people don't buy the gear to play them. They're almost designed for single player and only online multiplayer.
On the other hand almost every Nintendo console will always have many controllers. They company produces high quality party games, and in the case of the switch they're literally selling joycons two at a time which means indie developers can rely on players having 4 or 6 or even 8 controllers.
I honestly think the revival of board games is because of this gap that video games created when this type of play was abandoned in favor of online experiences and graphics.
[1]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/f/f5/Ni...
"Most companies have their logo as just a logotype. And every once in a while a company has a logo that's sort of a little jewel, a symbol, that can be used independently of the logotype." [1]
Personally, I think Nintendo's logo is somewhat the Mickey Mouse symbol of video games. I'm glad they didn't change it, because when I see it I associate it with the quality and holistic design they're known for.
[1] https://youtu.be/qw7VrZSAUEU?t=41
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emblem_of_Fukushima_...