“ We should give them an award! The “not as big of a jerk as you could have been award!” - Katara
Institutional capitalism vs shareholder value capitalism
Glad Nintendo doesn’t pay its CEO ludicrous sums and tries to avoid layoffs. Their legal team has still put me off buying their products, though.
This is just how the industry used to be, no? Like I remember Final Fantasy VII being a really big deal because it had like a 90-100 person team behind it.
Japanese companies are notorious for never changing things unless they absolutely have to
Absolutely groundbreaking 🗿
“Three entertainment industry has-beens who haven’t made anything original in this century.”
and gaming companies realized that they can make way more money if they never drop the price of old games. when i was growing up, i remember year-old games would be a fraction of the price of a new game (~$25 vs. $65 Canadian). Like, if Call of Duty 4 came out this year, then Call of Duty 3 GOTY Edition would be $30 at Wal-Mart… But now, games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate and BOTW will be pushing a decade old and still sell for $85 at the store - nevermind the newer games in the series or even the newer consoles that have released since.
FWIW that’s been the case for first party nintendo games going back to at least the gamecube. Smash Bros Melee never depreciated, and I think the same was true for Sunshine.
separately from nintendo’s greed, physical retailers discount stuff because shelf space has value to them. without that incentive online prices of old cods and stuff like it are kept high because last year’s game competes with this year’s game
Yet another reason I’ll never feel guilty pirating games. I’d gladly throw $5 down to pick up a copy of some old game from my childhood but fuck paying $60+ for a game that came out 20+ years ago, especially in an age of digital distribution. I can understand physically copies getting more expensive due to rarity but digital scarcity isn’t real I’m not fucking paying 2026 AAA prices for a game that came out when the ps2 was still cutting edge
I’ll grant that for Konami, but Capcom released Pragmata earlier this year, and the Monster Hunter series is from this century. For Nintendo, Splatoon is only about a decade old, they’ve had a few new titles in the Switch 1/2 era, and if anything they’ve been novel to a fault sometimes with console design.
the wii u is a fine console and i will die on this hill
Does Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance count as original? It sure isn’t an MGS game.
It should what an incredibly goofy and cool game
It’s made by Platinum Games who’s not Konami if we care about actual development and not just publishing stuff.
i think it counts as a devil may cry spinoff
That’s not true, Nintendo made Pikmin back in 2001.
Nintendo spends all their money on lawyers to sue emulator creators.
I just — you’re telling me now for the first timethat guy deserves not to be thrown around like that outside of the FalseAntisocial posts we quote here. he’s not a cuddly affable comic relief character
You’re right, its not like this website was formed on dark humor about making fun of fascists or anything
We’ve moved on, ascended. There are no jokes allowed on the games board on hex bear dot net
i apologize for my crass humor. i realize now this haven of gamers… was actually a necessary safe space from fascism. Only here, in c/games, could we allow ourselves to forget that a fascist has immense power over our lives and be safe from joking about it. I will remove myself from this sub. Have a good day
fuck off
You know this site has been referring to him as “our Big Wet Boy” for years, right? Have you seen the emojis?
and so on and so forth.What really doesn’t belong here is your unwarranted hostility.
DAMN . We got dem experts in here. WHAT ELSE YOU GONNA TELL ME . You EXPERT
At the risk of sounding Orientalist here, the Japanese seem to have a way of running stable, long-lasting businesses. Look at this list of oldest companies in the world. The top 5 oldest are in Japan. The oldest is a construction company (purportedly) founded in 578 AD. It was a family-owned business for over 1,400 years. Nintendo itself was founded in 1889. Maybe there is some other historical explanation for this?
A long history of isolationism and protectionism might contribute, they didn’t have to compete with foreign enterprises for much of their existence, and even when they did open to trade they’ve had a focus on building up their own productive forces as a way to avoid being carved up like other east asia states/groups. Plus post ww2 America had a vested interest in rebuilding them as a bulwark in East Asia against communism so keeping local enterprises going makes sense as a way to get/keep local bourgeoise on their side
Good points, thanks. Those definitely sound like contributing factors. I wonder if another one was the Black Death having a major impact in Europe in the 1,300s but leaving Japan apparently untouched.
That’s another good point, they’ve also been largely isolated from destabilizing events like foreign invasions. Plenty of internal conflict, sure, but no slate-clearing table-flipping upheaval that comes from outside invasion and occupation. As far as I’m aware (not an expert) aside from the American occupation following ww2 the last time Japan was even threatened by an outside force would have been the mongols and that was in the 1200s
True too, thanks.
I work for a [my country, not the US btw] subsidiary of a large Japanese conglomerate that’s been going since before the turn of the last century, I’d say we’re well run mainly because my line manager is a former dev who still pitches in dev work, his boss the boss of our local office tends to leave us alone and then the only time I’ve interacted with the people above them is when they came over to sample the occidental delights of Dominos, basically there’s no micromanagement so people just crack on with what needs to be done.
But idk how it is the divisions actual based in Japan, in general the country is known for very rough culture of overwork(they even have a recognised medical term for death by overwork there: karoshi, not to say that doesn’t happen elsewhere but that they codified it seems like its more common than elsewhere), and Nomikai: the expectation that you have to go out and get smashed with your boss then still work the next day, maybe things have improved in general in recent years though
Interesting, thanks for the perspective.
If you drink your boss under the table, do you get to keep his liver as a trophy?
Yes, but the tough part is transplanting it into your own body so you get his position
From what I recall, these family owned companies survive because they don’t aim to maximize growth, but aim to have sustainable growth over years. The owners (apparently) are concerned with legacy for their heirs. They don’t take massively leveraged financialized capital investment, which introduces the need for short term returns.
Don’t they also adopt large adults sons to leave them the company or something?
Thanks, I think I’ve read similar. It makes sense. So perhaps it is cultural after all, and not directly related to history.
I think it has more to do with the fact that 99% of the countries in this list are colonizers
Could be.
