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Gunpei Yokoi's ethos of "lateral thinking with withered technology" [1] has been an guiding principle within Nintendo since the Game & Watch days: to use "seaso

by polpo 3y ago

Gunpei Yokoi's ethos of "lateral thinking with withered technology" [1] has been an guiding principle within Nintendo since the Game & Watch days: to use "seasoned" or otherwise imperfect technology in creative ways. Using a broken SoC that they probably got a great deal on that still fits their needs fits perfectly in that mindset. [1] https://medium.com/@adamagb/nintendo-s-little-known-product-philosophy-lateral-thinking-with-withered-technology-bac7257d8f4 https://medium.com/@adamagb/nintendo-s-little-known-product-...

ycombinatrix 3y ago
you are misunderstanding his quote. who the hell aspires to utilize "imperfect technology"?
KennyBlanken 3y ago
"little known" "lateral thinking with withered technolgoy" Oh, please. Nintendo is infamous for being cheapasses with their hardware design decisions, working to boost profit margins over all else. The N64 is a great example. Top notch graphics which they spent a small mint on...that was then hobbled by a storage format they could exploit more control over, resulting in ported games having to be chopped up.
- mattl 3y ago
  I think using CDs for N64 games would have sucked. More FMV but crappier games for sure.
- eru 3y ago
  The graphics were good for the time, but the memory was super slow.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    The memory is actually very fast, it just also has large latency, particularly coming from SNES where you essentially had single cycle access to anywhere in memory.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  The argument they made at the time was that the cartridge format was more than just making piracy more difficult. It enabled high speed streaming of data to enable games like Ocarina of time to essentially be seamless when going from location to location. Frankly they have been averse to loading screens for a long time. Even the gamecube had a format that served multiple purposes, having a security advantage(at the time of design) and enabling higher speed data transfers again because they hated those loading screens so much. These days I think the mentality has shifted a bit now that a newer generation is really calling many of the shots there. >Top notch graphics which they spent a small mint on From what I understood the design was a completed SGI design that was originally going to go to Sega but they passed on it and it went to Nintendo. This was the advent of 3D Graphics in the consumer video game market and so of course they were going to make mistakes. Its questionable how much Nintendo was involved in the low level design but they did end up providing a very decent graphics solution at a reasonable price point. Hell the PSX has that terrible fixed point integer based calculation so it causes polygons "snapping into place" that causes the wobble effect so its not like they were the only ones making decisions that made the final product not as good as it could have been. >resulting in ported games having to be chopped up Maybe your thinking of it the wrong way. Software was more custom tailored back in the day to better take advantage of the custom abilities of the hardware because there just wasn't any breathing room for more generic ports. Just imagine all of the n64 software that didn't even make it at all to the PSX because it was completely out of the question. Why should Nintendo be blamed for choosing what they felt were specific features to make their games the way they wanted? If other software does not fit the paradigm that the N64 provides then it is the fault of the software.
  - incahoots 3y ago
    >It enabled high speed streaming of data to enable games like Ocarina of time to essentially be seamless when going from location to location I recall reading this very same statement in a game mag during that time. It made a lot of sense considering how often the PSX would need to load in the map. Resident Evil 2 comes to mind, then MGS. MGS got away with the loading because it hid it behind the various FMVs. >Hell the PSX has that terrible fixed point integer based calculation so it causes polygons "snapping into place" that causes the wobble effect so its not like they were the only ones making decisions that made the final product not as good as it could have been. Yeah, then there was this. To be fair to Sony, I think they went cheap on the initial PSX as it was uncharted territory and I'm certain the finance gurus had pumped the brakes on being too lofty out the gate. Now the "wobbly" graphics are viewed as an aesthetic lol.

by polpo 3y ago

ycombinatrix 3y ago

you are misunderstanding his quote. who the hell aspires to utilize "imperfect technology"?

KennyBlanken 3y ago

"little known" "lateral thinking with withered technolgoy" Oh, please. Nintendo is infamous for being cheapasses with their hardware design decisions, working to boost profit margins over all else. The N64 is a great example. Top notch graphics which they spent a small mint on...that was then hobbled by a storage format they could exploit more control over, resulting in ported games having to be chopped up.

mattl 3y ago
I think using CDs for N64 games would have sucked. More FMV but crappier games for sure.
eru 3y ago
The graphics were good for the time, but the memory was super slow.
- monocasa 3y ago
  The memory is actually very fast, it just also has large latency, particularly coming from SNES where you essentially had single cycle access to anywhere in memory.
nebula8804 3y ago
The argument they made at the time was that the cartridge format was more than just making piracy more difficult. It enabled high speed streaming of data to enable games like Ocarina of time to essentially be seamless when going from location to location. Frankly they have been averse to loading screens for a long time. Even the gamecube had a format that served multiple purposes, having a security advantage(at the time of design) and enabling higher speed data transfers again because they hated those loading screens so much. These days I think the mentality has shifted a bit now that a newer generation is really calling many of the shots there. >Top notch graphics which they spent a small mint on From what I understood the design was a completed SGI design that was originally going to go to Sega but they passed on it and it went to Nintendo. This was the advent of 3D Graphics in the consumer video game market and so of course they were going to make mistakes. Its questionable how much Nintendo was involved in the low level design but they did end up providing a very decent graphics solution at a reasonable price point. Hell the PSX has that terrible fixed point integer based calculation so it causes polygons "snapping into place" that causes the wobble effect so its not like they were the only ones making decisions that made the final product not as good as it could have been. >resulting in ported games having to be chopped up Maybe your thinking of it the wrong way. Software was more custom tailored back in the day to better take advantage of the custom abilities of the hardware because there just wasn't any breathing room for more generic ports. Just imagine all of the n64 software that didn't even make it at all to the PSX because it was completely out of the question. Why should Nintendo be blamed for choosing what they felt were specific features to make their games the way they wanted? If other software does not fit the paradigm that the N64 provides then it is the fault of the software.
- incahoots 3y ago
  >It enabled high speed streaming of data to enable games like Ocarina of time to essentially be seamless when going from location to location I recall reading this very same statement in a game mag during that time. It made a lot of sense considering how often the PSX would need to load in the map. Resident Evil 2 comes to mind, then MGS. MGS got away with the loading because it hid it behind the various FMVs. >Hell the PSX has that terrible fixed point integer based calculation so it causes polygons "snapping into place" that causes the wobble effect so its not like they were the only ones making decisions that made the final product not as good as it could have been. Yeah, then there was this. To be fair to Sony, I think they went cheap on the initial PSX as it was uncharted territory and I'm certain the finance gurus had pumped the brakes on being too lofty out the gate. Now the "wobbly" graphics are viewed as an aesthetic lol.