Comment by Dig1t | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dig1t | Hacker News Reader

There are a few “Apple of X industry” companies out there, I think it’s pretty interesting that you can generalize the things that make them what they are.

Disney is the Apple of movies.

Nintendo is the Apple of video games.

They are usually the types of companies that tightly control almost all of their product, are at a premium price point, and have an “elevated” sort of brand recognition.

For example Nintendo is intent on tightly controlling their product experience. They use boring tech in creative ways and charge a premium for their content.

Disney is the same, they are the only theme parks with imagineers that custom make all the rides and experiences in their parks, they make their own software for the most part, and tightly control how their characters are used, etc etc

The biggest takeaway is that the companies have an intense focus on the quality of their product and that makes them the longest lasting and most elevated brands.

LEGO belongs in this group because they have a similar focus on quality I think. At least WRT their toys. I don’t care much for their theme parks..

Its interesting, you find quality with these brands.

I'm certain these brands advertise they have quality, but I think they fall far short of the competition constantly. Nintendo? Disney? Apple? When I think of their actual quality compared to the best in the business you are talking B- quality.

Sure you never get a C or a D like when I get a random Android phone for $100, but you are never going to get a Baulders Gate 3 from Nintendo.

Although now that you mention it, all of these brands have total fanatics that border on cult worship. I wonder if this is natural, or some unethical psychology their marketing departments use.

> compared to the best in the business

Huh? They are among the best. Disney is among Big 5 major movie studios. Lego is top 4 toy companies, largest by revenue among them. Apple is top-3 company in the world by market cap.

Quality is very subjective, but the fact that you personally prefer Baulders Gate to Mario just shows that Nintendo plays it in a different niche, not that latter is somehow objectively worse / has less quality than the former.

In my opinion, what sums up all these companies are the things they don’t do:

  - they don’t focus on “power users” or similar niche segments, unless these segments gain enough popularity
  - they don’t cater to cheaper segments of mass market
  - they don’t build their business models around copying competitors
  - they don’t delegate or outsource critical pieces of their value chain

This is what leads to unique and pricey products that sometimes polarize general public. (Although personally I’d narrow Disney down to only Pixar in OPs list, due to Disney’s poor fit with #3 and #4).

>Quality is very subjective

And these companies pump the marketing and psychology tricks to an 11/10.

We could use objective quality metrics, but that would embarrass these groups. Why is it all of these groups are not the objectively the Top? They are B- when you use objective metrics.

I don't agree that it's just marketing. I'm not saying their products are perfect, they certainly have flaws. But the maniacal focus on quality is palpable in their products.

Play a Nintendo game start to finish, you will be very hard pressed to find ANY bugs or glitches. Like you have to hunt really hard to try to find them, they are usually an extremely polished experience. The same cannot be said for most other developers. I LOVE BG3, but it's certainly not as bug-free as a Nintendo game. Same with their hardware + system software, it never crashes, and has a very controlled "walled garden" feel.

There's a reason people use the term "Disney-quality animation". Because it's extremely polished and looks miles better than the competition. Watch the Family Guy episode where the drew part of the episode in Disney style and you can see the difference in action.

> Because it's extremely polished and looks miles better than the competition.

Disney's animation style is sterile and formulaic. It's to the point of uncanny valley and overacting.

There's something to be said about how animation with tiny imperfections and errors improves the experience. Your brain is more ready to accept that it's seeing something fake rather than something failing to be real.

> you will be very hard pressed to find ANY bugs or glitches. Like you have to hunt really hard to try to find them, they are usually an extremely polished experience.

Has this ever been true? Or maybe its true, but the games are so mediocre that no one cares that 'Pong doesnt have any bugs'.

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