14 DAY TRIAL // Dan Adelman, a former Nintendo executive, provided some very interesting and revealing insight into how the Japanese hardware and software giant goes about business.
Adelman left Nintendo in August last year, revealing that the company had issued some restrictions on his use of social media, following some controversial statements catching the public eye.
He worked as one of the company's most important developer liaisons, helping the indie cause as best as he could, and he's been very open about many of the corporation's policies, especially after leaving the Big N.
Adelman's latest piece of edutainment, so to say, comes from an interview with Dromble, where he explains why Nintendo is so slow to react and adapt to the market, and why it takes so long for new ideas and practices to catch on.
He reveals that the company is very, very traditional, therefore very focused on hierarchy and on group decisions, which harms the overall capacity for innovation, as getting anything done involves a lot of work and overhead. Every new idea has to be audited by bringing different groups on board, and those outside Japan have an insurmountable task ahead of them, facing even more resistance.
Getting new ideas through is very difficult
"They're very traditional, and very focused on hierarchy and group decision making. Unfortunately, that creates a culture where everyone is an advisor and no one is a decision maker – but almost everyone has veto power," Adelman reveals.
He further mentions that one of the reasons why things are the way they are is that some of the higher-ups at Nintendo simply don't understand the ideas being transmitted.
"Because of the hierarchical nature of Japanese companies, it winds up being that the most senior executives at the company cut their teeth during NES and Super NES days and do not really understand modern gaming, so adopting things like online gaming, account systems, friends lists, as well as understanding the rise of PC gaming has been very slow.
"Ideas often get shut down prematurely just because some people with the power to veto an idea simply don't understand it," Adelman concludes.
Nintendo is getting old and lonely
The fact that Nintendo's top brass might no longer be in touch with modern developments, together with the fact that the company doesn't make it advantageous for people to take risks on products, makes it so that innovation and bold ideas are often shut down.
He also addresses the issue of third-party support and how it turned into a veritable thorn in Nintendo's side over the years, from the company not encouraging it to users not trusting third-party products on Nintendo platforms due to previous bad experiences with them and publishers being thus less interested in creating big-budget games for the hardware, and not even porting their multiplaftorm blockbusters.
