4 ms·

This is the secret to Nintendo’s success. Despite being a very traditional Japanese company, iterative, agile development is in their DNA. They experiment with

This is the secret to Nintendo’s success. Despite being a very traditional Japanese company, iterative, agile development is in their DNA. They experiment with a lot of different game mechanics that might be fun, test them early on other people in the office, and then when they find a core mechanic that seems like a game can be built around it, they start fleshing that out, add other mechanics that work as sweeteners, and build up iteratively. Only when they have a good picture of the game do they start piecing together some sort of story or setting that makes the mechanic make sense. Even the IP might be swapped entirely to something that better jives with the mechanic, or just to stick on a brand that will help it sell. That’s why their games stay fresh and fun and they can maintain their innovative edge.

kqr 3y ago
> Despite being a very traditional Japanese company Huh, isn't the idea of agile development to lift lean from manufacturing to development? And lean is very Japanese, at least in some sense!
- aikinai 3y ago
  No, the philosophies are completely orthogonal. “Lean” might be a shared buzzword, but the meaning is completely different in manufacturing vs software. Toyota Production System, just-in-time manufacturing, and such are about making a running process more efficient and lean over time, but agile software is about being flexible as you develop something brand new, and Japanese companies are still terrible at it. They love waterfall, huge spreadsheets, and explicitly defining absolutely everything up front, often years in advance. None of this is incompatible with the other version of “lean” in manufacturing. * Many (most?) say they do “agile” software now, but that just means breaking the massive waterfall spreadsheet into predefined two week “sprints.”

kqr 3y ago

> Despite being a very traditional Japanese company Huh, isn't the idea of agile development to lift lean from manufacturing to development? And lean is very Japanese, at least in some sense!

aikinai 3y ago
No, the philosophies are completely orthogonal. “Lean” might be a shared buzzword, but the meaning is completely different in manufacturing vs software. Toyota Production System, just-in-time manufacturing, and such are about making a running process more efficient and lean over time, but agile software is about being flexible as you develop something brand new, and Japanese companies are still terrible at it. They love waterfall, huge spreadsheets, and explicitly defining absolutely everything up front, often years in advance. None of this is incompatible with the other version of “lean” in manufacturing. * Many (most?) say they do “agile” software now, but that just means breaking the massive waterfall spreadsheet into predefined two week “sprints.”