3 ms·

This is an interesting story about Turkish region locking with a strange "Nintendo isn't actually the worst" message tacked on.

tinco 4y ago
It's posted on a Nintendo fansite. Amongst Nintendo fans it is known that amongst all the awesome creative products Nintendo has created and enabled, it has also always been ruthlessly controlling of its ecosystem. It basically invented the walled-garden strategy that was later copied by all other capital intensive hardware manufacturers like Apple. And even amongst those Nintendo is known to be particularly strict. You should read this article as being tongue in cheek seen in that context. It allows a Nintendo fan to go "Well technically.." as a joke, because obviously some minor Atari reseller in Turkey is not really relevant on the global scale.
Root_Denied 4y ago
I was going to say, it's an historically interesting tidbit but as a consumer I'm so constantly baffled by Nintendo's bad business decisions and anti-consumer practices that I kind of don't care.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Nintendo is smart. They saw a near crash in Japan on the Famicom (no lockout) and what happened to Atari/etc in the US (also no lockout). They wanted to be very sure they didn’t run into that. So with the US launch they controlled publishing, licensing, lockout chips, the “Nintendo Seal of Quality”, etc. They were trying to avoid another disaster. And it worked. So they stuck to it. Combined with being very conservative and opinionated (for better or worse) it continues to this day. Yes, they’ve loosened compared to the NES days, but that’s why. Sony and MS came along MUCH later to a very different industry. By that generation consoles were normal and gaming was there to stay. The risks were different.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Nintendo's bad business decisions Do you mean bad like you think they're bad people, or do you mean bad like you think they left money on the table?
  - Root_Denied 4y ago
    I do indeed mean bad as in "left money on the table" - or possibly "pissed off their fanbase" which tends to lead to reduced revenue and loss of respect. The former they don't see to care about as much as the latter. I probably should have used a word like poor instead of bad.

tinco 4y ago

It's posted on a Nintendo fansite. Amongst Nintendo fans it is known that amongst all the awesome creative products Nintendo has created and enabled, it has also always been ruthlessly controlling of its ecosystem. It basically invented the walled-garden strategy that was later copied by all other capital intensive hardware manufacturers like Apple. And even amongst those Nintendo is known to be particularly strict. You should read this article as being tongue in cheek seen in that context. It allows a Nintendo fan to go "Well technically.." as a joke, because obviously some minor Atari reseller in Turkey is not really relevant on the global scale.

Root_Denied 4y ago

I was going to say, it's an historically interesting tidbit but as a consumer I'm so constantly baffled by Nintendo's bad business decisions and anti-consumer practices that I kind of don't care.

MBCook 4y ago
Nintendo is smart. They saw a near crash in Japan on the Famicom (no lockout) and what happened to Atari/etc in the US (also no lockout). They wanted to be very sure they didn’t run into that. So with the US launch they controlled publishing, licensing, lockout chips, the “Nintendo Seal of Quality”, etc. They were trying to avoid another disaster. And it worked. So they stuck to it. Combined with being very conservative and opinionated (for better or worse) it continues to this day. Yes, they’ve loosened compared to the NES days, but that’s why. Sony and MS came along MUCH later to a very different industry. By that generation consoles were normal and gaming was there to stay. The risks were different.
pessimizer 4y ago
> Nintendo's bad business decisions Do you mean bad like you think they're bad people, or do you mean bad like you think they left money on the table?
- Root_Denied 4y ago
  I do indeed mean bad as in "left money on the table" - or possibly "pissed off their fanbase" which tends to lead to reduced revenue and loss of respect. The former they don't see to care about as much as the latter. I probably should have used a word like poor instead of bad.