Hacker News Reader

Comment by zitterbewegung | Hacker News Reader

Nintendo figured out when the xBox came out that if you weren't Sony and or Microsoft you would have a really hard time competing in the space so they tried just to focus on making consoles that had some kind of gimmick and optimizing on having fun and they had a clear domination over the mobile space.

I would say that the Switch is their response to Apple as being off balance on the mobile space and they were easily defeated by just focusing on a fun and portable console that also can be plugged into a TV. Really the Switch has a NVIDIA Tegra 1 and the rest of the console is Nintendo's design.

View on HN

Way before xbox, this has been their strategy since before they were making video games. Gunpei Yokoi, who came up with the idea (and practically nintendo's entire electronics division), called it "lateral thinking with withered technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...).

Classic example of this:

Sega Game Gear: full-color screen, $150, 4hr battery life

Nintendo Game Boy: monochromatic screen, $90, 30hr battery life

Yup the game gear was technically better but the cost difference meant the Gameboy was more ubiquitous and so that's what sold.

Also for the switch, a lot of kids who had Gameboy's when they came out are now working and can afford a souped up handheld alongside their main console.

Technically more powerful. Better… well, not with no battery life, it wasn’t.

Honestly I think the games library is why gameboy outsold game gear, and why nintendo continues to dominate the mobile console market

The two feed on each other.

Nintendo bootstraps this with with a cheap console and their great IP.

Once the console starts to outsell because of this, other game designers focus primarily on that console which drives sales and the cycle repeats.

I think my favorite summation is that Nintendo laughs about being second-rate all the way to the bank.

To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

> To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

The latter is why I hate gaming on my iPhone. And battery life after a year or two as the apps update to handle the newest and best specs, leaving older phones behind. I do enjoy some of the ports, but I can also buy a lot of those on my Switch anymore, so there's no need.

I think the switch just runs a modified freebsd for an OS too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com