Speaker 1: Technology Stuff from Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. And if thingn't sound a
Speaker 1: little odd today, it's because I'm actually recording in my
Speaker 1: home studio, my home studio which is got a window
Speaker 1: facing out towards train tracks. It's not an ideal situation,
Speaker 1: but it's what I have to work with. And today
Speaker 1: we're going to look at the third part of the
Speaker 1: Nintendo Story, the update to the two part series that
Speaker 1: my former co host Chris Palette and I did way
Speaker 1: back in two thousand eleven. So back then, at that
Speaker 1: point that we you had not yet been released and
Speaker 1: had been announced but not released. So we've got a
Speaker 1: lot to catch up on. And I'm going to pick
Speaker 1: up in two thousand eleven and carry on up through
Speaker 1: present day. Also, I want to get this out of
Speaker 1: the way first thing. There will be a point in
Speaker 1: this podcast at the end of the episode in which
Speaker 1: I talk about stuff relating to gamer Gate. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to say this. I can't be any more clear
Speaker 1: than this, harassment tactics have no place in society, period,
Speaker 1: end of discussion. Now, I believe wholeheartedly that you are
Speaker 1: free to criticize the video game industry and video game journalism.
Speaker 1: That is perfectly fine. It is something that you should
Speaker 1: do if you truly believe in it, if you can
Speaker 1: do it in a way that isn't an attack on people.
Speaker 1: If you think that video game journalism is broken, or
Speaker 1: that the people who oppose gamer Gate that they are wrong,
Speaker 1: that's also fine. That's something we can actually have a
Speaker 1: conversation about. Isn't fine is using bullying tactics, threats, insults,
Speaker 1: dox sing, and other methods to terrify or silence someone.
Speaker 1: That is not fine, period. And if you think I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: unsubscribe to this podcast. I do not want you listening
Speaker 1: to my show, Okay. I don't want people who think
Speaker 1: it's fine to make another human beings life miserable to
Speaker 1: be listening to tech stuff. So if if that's something
Speaker 1: that you think is cool or funny, unsubscribed, I don't
Speaker 1: want you listening to the show. Now. I say all
Speaker 1: that right now, because when I get to the part
Speaker 1: in this episode that deals with gamer Gate, I might
Speaker 1: not be in the right frame of mind to get
Speaker 1: this point across in a civil reasonable way. I have
Speaker 1: no tolerance for people who disregard another human beings, feelings,
Speaker 1: and well being. No one deserves to face that sort
Speaker 1: of of abuse. And if you don't think it's a
Speaker 1: big deal, you are absolutely one percent wrong. Being constantly
Speaker 1: hounded and attacked is a huge deal. It's not cool. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we got my podcast or warning out of the way,
Speaker 1: and keep in mind again, you can disagree with what
Speaker 1: people say. I don't have a problem with that. I
Speaker 1: definitely do not have a problem if you feel that
Speaker 1: the points that gamer gate enthusiasts make are correct. I
Speaker 1: don't agree with it, but I don't have a problem
Speaker 1: with you believing that and arguing that. The problem I
Speaker 1: have is when you attack people. That's the problem I have.
Speaker 1: Although let's be fair, I also think that if you
Speaker 1: are really dead set against women being in the video
Speaker 1: game industry, you are a misogynist. That's just that's the
Speaker 1: definition of misogyny really, or a definition of mysogyny. It's
Speaker 1: just it's something you've got to own. I think it's
Speaker 1: bad and I think it's wrong. But if that's who
Speaker 1: you're gonna be own it because you can't get around
Speaker 1: the fact that you are saying one thing, but you
Speaker 1: don't want to be labeled that thing. All right, let's
Speaker 1: actually talk about Nintendo. Now. We'll get back to gamer
Speaker 1: Gate towards the end of the episode. So when we
Speaker 1: left off, it was Nintendo in two thousand eleven, Nintendo's
Speaker 1: annual report for two thousand eleven, which actually comes out
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve. So Nintendo their financial year. Their
Speaker 1: fiscal year begins in April and ends March thirty one,
Speaker 1: So the fiscal year is not the same as the
Speaker 1: calendar year. So when you talk about the annual report
Speaker 1: of two thousand eleven, that actually comes out after March
Speaker 1: thirty one, two thousand and twelve. Well, in the annual report,
Speaker 1: the company announced it had sold eighty six point zero
Speaker 1: one million units of the Week console worldwide, an incredible
Speaker 1: number of sales, and in fact, that number would continue
Speaker 1: to grow over time. The top selling game for the
Speaker 1: Wei was We Sports with seventy six point seventy six
Speaker 1: million copies, but let's be fair, that game was sold
Speaker 1: with the Wii in most regions. In other words, this
Speaker 1: was the game you would get when you purchased your Wii,
Speaker 1: so automatically those sales should have been pretty high. Seeing
Speaker 1: is how there are eighty six million Wi units sold.
Speaker 1: Mario Karti was the top selling Nintendo title that had
Speaker 1: an iconic character attached at that time. That one had
Speaker 1: sold twenty seven million copies, so significantly viewer. It actually
Speaker 1: shows you that one of the appeeling aspects of the
Speaker 1: WEI was that it had this casual gamer appeal, and
Speaker 1: casual gamers don't necessarily care about iconic characters the way
Speaker 1: quote unquote hardcore gamers do, and that's reflected when you
Speaker 1: see the most popular iconic character title was Mario kart
Speaker 1: We and it had sold twenty seven million copies. That
Speaker 1: tells you something. At any rate, we fit and we
Speaker 1: Fit plus sold about forty million units in total, so
Speaker 1: almost you know, not quite but but definitely more than
Speaker 1: Mario Karte, but not twice as much. Um, still pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: And by two thousand eleven, the Nintendo D S series
Speaker 1: had sold a total of one hundred forty six point
Speaker 1: forty two million units. Now, to be fair, that's across
Speaker 1: the entire family of DS devices you probably are aware of.
Speaker 1: The three DS didn't do nearly as well. So what
Speaker 1: was the top selling DS game at that point? Super
Speaker 1: Mario World with twenty six point eight eight million units sold,
Speaker 1: So again, it was a very popular family of handheld games,
Speaker 1: but that didn't necessarily mean that any one title was
Speaker 1: going to have this insanely uh popular run. In twenty
Speaker 1: six point eight eight million, that's a lot. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of of Super Mario World games, but not not
Speaker 1: anywhere close to to what you would think based upon
Speaker 1: the number of units out there. Now, Nintendo had cut
Speaker 1: the sales price of the three D s by the
Speaker 1: end of two thousand eleven, and actually some people think
Speaker 1: that that was While it was probably a necessary move,
Speaker 1: it didn't do the company very many favors because it
Speaker 1: kind of contributed to some rough financial uh data. Moving
Speaker 1: into actual two thousand twelve, keeping in mind that report
Speaker 1: really came out spring of twelve, but in January two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, I actually had the opportunity to play with
Speaker 1: the Wii U before it was publicly unveiled, although it
Speaker 1: had been taught about at that point already, but I
Speaker 1: got a chance to actually get my hands on it
Speaker 1: and play it at c S. Now. Nintendo wasn't exhibiting
Speaker 1: at c S. They had a suite in a nearby hotel,
Speaker 1: and they invited certain members of the press to come
Speaker 1: in and play with it, and somehow they got my name.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how they got my name. I
Speaker 1: am thankful they got my name because I had the
Speaker 1: chance to play the We You before it came out,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was a really clever device. I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was one that I was going to buy,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that is I thought the most
Speaker 1: value from this device would be playing a game in
Speaker 1: a room with other people there, so that you're having
Speaker 1: a group experience playing a game. And I don't have
Speaker 1: people over at my house very frequently, so it was
Speaker 1: wasn't really a big appeal to me. I saw the
Speaker 1: appeal of it. It's the sort of thing that if
Speaker 1: I were at a friend's house at a party and
Speaker 1: they had a We You and they wanted to play
Speaker 1: one of these games, I would totally want to jump
Speaker 1: on board. And I really enjoyed the fact that if
Speaker 1: you had the game pad the controller that has the
Speaker 1: tablet like interface included in it, you had a different
Speaker 1: experience than if you were one of the other players
Speaker 1: using the traditional we controls, and you could do lots
Speaker 1: of cool stuff, like you could do a game of
Speaker 1: pac Man where the person holding the game pad is
Speaker 1: controlling pac Man, and the people with the other controllers
Speaker 1: are controlling the ghosts. And you have two different views.
Speaker 1: You might have a top down view for one group
Speaker 1: and you might have a three dimensional point of view
Speaker 1: view for the other person. It was a really cool
Speaker 1: way to present video games in a new format, a
Speaker 1: new user interface. So I was I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this is interesting. I don't know if it's enough different
Speaker 1: enough from the Wei to convince people who have a
Speaker 1: WE to upgrade to a Wei you because otherwise it
Speaker 1: looked a lot the Week console, and so I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure that it was enough to convince people to buy
Speaker 1: a new console, or if it would just convince people
Speaker 1: who are just getting into the market to buy a
Speaker 1: EU instead of a Week. In February two twelve, Nintendo
Speaker 1: would purchase a company called mobi Clip. Now, if you've
Speaker 1: played a lot of Game Boy Advance games or d
Speaker 1: S games, you've probably seen the mobi clip logo pop up.
Speaker 1: Prior to two thousand twelve, mobi Clip was a company
Speaker 1: that specialized in video compression codex uh so essentially they
Speaker 1: were finding ways to compress videos so that you can
Speaker 1: use it in um in in limited devices devices that
Speaker 1: don't have massive amounts of memory or graphics processing. So
Speaker 1: this acquired company became a new division at Nintendo called
Speaker 1: the Nintendo European Research and Development Division. Mobi Clip had
Speaker 1: done some work for the know for lots of these
Speaker 1: handheld gaming systems, and a job posting actually made it
Speaker 1: clear that Nintendo was thinking of using mobi clip not
Speaker 1: just to continue working in the handheld realm, but also
Speaker 1: to develop technologies that would be used in consoles, presumably
Speaker 1: living room consoles, not handheld consoles. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. It was it was a hint that there
Speaker 1: was another Nintendo console in the works. Uh So, how
Speaker 1: did Nintendo do overall in two thousand eleven? Not great.
Speaker 1: The company experienced an earning loss of five hundred thirty
Speaker 1: two million dollars, and it had a thirty six point
Speaker 1: two percent drop in net sales revenue. This was the
Speaker 1: first time Nintendo had ever suffered an annual earnings loss.
Speaker 1: Quarter by quarter was different, sometimes a quarter might be
Speaker 1: up or down, but overall, Nintendo had always come out
Speaker 1: on the positive side at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: This was the first time that didn't happen. That Nintendo
Speaker 1: had lost five thirty two million dollars as a result
Speaker 1: of the drop in sales and the costs that Nintendo
Speaker 1: had incurred in that year. Sadly, it would not be
Speaker 1: the last time this would happen to Nintendo. Now, income
Speaker 1: from net sales and Nintendo products had actually been on
Speaker 1: the decline since two thousand eight, So that wasn't like
Speaker 1: this was a big surprise, but it definitely wasn't welcome news. Uh.
Speaker 1: At two thousand twelves E three, Nintendo spent a really
Speaker 1: a good amount of time and energy talking about the
Speaker 1: Wii U. So this was them trying to say that
Speaker 1: the WU was going to be the next big thing,
Speaker 1: you know, since the Wei. They were trying to position
Speaker 1: it as the future of the company and a true
Speaker 1: innovation in gaming. But the company ran to some trouble
Speaker 1: with this. A lot of critics were saying that the
Speaker 1: E three presence wasn't a very strong one, and and
Speaker 1: that was partially due to a pre E three event
Speaker 1: in which the president Awatta unveiled the e U and
Speaker 1: a lot of the games involved. So in other words,
Speaker 1: people felt that this pre E three event kind of
Speaker 1: stole the thunder from Nintendo, and thus it didn't make
Speaker 1: as strong as showing at E three. In fact, I
Speaker 1: g N went so far as to say that Nintendo
Speaker 1: lost E three and that going into the event, the
Speaker 1: company could have one E three now lost in win win,
Speaker 1: winning or losing E three. UH. That largely is just
Speaker 1: what we say after the fact, like which company came
Speaker 1: out looking the strongest after E three, and I g
Speaker 1: m s argument was that Nintendo could have come out
Speaker 1: looking the strongest, largely because both Microsoft and Sony we're
Speaker 1: still in the old PS three, Xbox one or Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty rather days, and that neither of them had
Speaker 1: shown a lot of innovation in the space. So it
Speaker 1: was Nintendo's game to lose, and sadly, accordint to I
Speaker 1: g N, anyway, they did lose it now. Late in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, Nintendo announced that the we uh It's
Speaker 1: update to the Week console would hit store shelves in
Speaker 1: the United States on November eight, and in the United States,
Speaker 1: there would be two versions that would be available. One
Speaker 1: was the basic version, which was an eight gigabyte UH
Speaker 1: memory version with game pad, Hdmi cable we use sensor
Speaker 1: bar a c adapter UH for a price of about
Speaker 1: two dollars. Then there was more of a deluxe package,
Speaker 1: which came with a unit that had thirty two gigabytes
Speaker 1: of memory um and all the stuff that the basic
Speaker 1: setup had, plus a game pad charging cradle, a stand
Speaker 1: for the game pad, a stand for the console, and
Speaker 1: a copy of Nintendo Land, which was sort of a
Speaker 1: mini game collection, uh, kind of similar to Watching My
Speaker 1: Find in something like Mario Party. And this version would
Speaker 1: be priced at three forty nine dollars. Interestingly, it was
Speaker 1: launching in the United States first. It actually launched a
Speaker 1: little bit later in Europe and even later still in Japan.
Speaker 1: Now the launch sales figures we're not what Nintendo was
Speaker 1: hoping for. There was about three million units sold by
Speaker 1: the end of two thousand and twelve, so to be fair,
Speaker 1: they had only been on sale for about a month
Speaker 1: and a half. But it was a holiday season, so
Speaker 1: you expect a pretty strong adoption rate around the holidays,
Speaker 1: but Nintendo just didn't see that. Part of that was
Speaker 1: that sometimes we use were hard to find. It was
Speaker 1: similar to the old we problem where you would go
Speaker 1: to a store and they wouldn't have a unit in
Speaker 1: for for weeks, or they would get one or two
Speaker 1: in and they would be sold almost immediately. Nintendo representatives
Speaker 1: later said that they thought the slow sales were largely
Speaker 1: due to a lack of compelling games for the system
Speaker 1: at launch. I can I can buy that. I think
Speaker 1: that if your video game system does not have enough
Speaker 1: compelling titles when it goes to launch, it's got an
Speaker 1: uphill battle ahead of it because the people who adopted
Speaker 1: early will get disenchanted with titles that don't really take
Speaker 1: advantage of the system, and then the word of mouth
Speaker 1: spreads that it's not a very good system. And it
Speaker 1: may be a great system, it may just be that
Speaker 1: the games that best take advantage of it are a
Speaker 1: year or two down the road. Um, it's a tough
Speaker 1: thing to do. You really want to have a strong
Speaker 1: launch library when you go out with a new console,
Speaker 1: and that was the problem we You just didn't have that.
Speaker 1: Now in two the company was starting off the year
Speaker 1: in a pretty rough place, so it operates at a
Speaker 1: loss for the second year in a row. Over the
Speaker 1: fiscal year of two thousand and twelve, the company lost
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty six x million dollars, and remember the
Speaker 1: previous year it had lost five thirty two million here's
Speaker 1: the other thing you have to keep in mind. The
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven fiscal year did not include the launch
Speaker 1: of a brand new console. Two thousand twelve did include
Speaker 1: the launch of a brand new console, and even with
Speaker 1: the new product, the company still lost three hundred sixty
Speaker 1: six million dollars, which to me tells me that it
Speaker 1: would have lost even more money if the wu had
Speaker 1: not come out at all. Maybe, I mean, maybe that's wrong,
Speaker 1: because maybe the cost of developing, marketing, and shipping the
Speaker 1: Weiu was part of that huge loss, And maybe if
Speaker 1: they didn't do the Wi, you those costs, since they
Speaker 1: never would have been incurred by Nintendo, maybe it means
Speaker 1: that they would have lost less money. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not good at finance, y'all. Anyway, Nintendo had projected it
Speaker 1: would sell five million we use by the end of
Speaker 1: fiscal year two thousand twelve. It had later adjusted that
Speaker 1: prediction down to four million we use, but in fact
Speaker 1: they only sold three point for five million, so they
Speaker 1: were aiming for five. Said, maybe that was too ambitious,
Speaker 1: Let's aim for four and still only hit three point
Speaker 1: four five million. The company also experienced week sales with
Speaker 1: the three D s which was performing lower than expected,
Speaker 1: so things were looking pretty bleak across the board at
Speaker 1: the E three that year. At two thousand three, Nintendo
Speaker 1: actually said, you know what, We're not gonna hold a
Speaker 1: press conference at E three the way we've done in
Speaker 1: years past. Typically, when E three rolls around, the big
Speaker 1: big companies like Microsoft and Sony and usually Nintendo each
Speaker 1: hold their own press events, typically the day before or
Speaker 1: two days before the show floor opens, and then you
Speaker 1: also get lots of the bigger name production companies like
Speaker 1: EA or Bethesda doing their own events. Uh this was
Speaker 1: the first time Nintendo said, you know what, we're gonna
Speaker 1: gonna step out. We're not going to do a full
Speaker 1: press event. Instead, they held a small Nintendo Direct event
Speaker 1: before E three started. Now, Nintendo Direct events or things
Speaker 1: that happened fairly regularly back when uh uh Watta was
Speaker 1: the president. He would do these personally and uh so
Speaker 1: it was kind of a way of telling people what
Speaker 1: Nintendo was up to regularly throughout the year. But this
Speaker 1: direct event started before E three. Uh but Nintendo did
Speaker 1: go to E three. They had exhibition space on the floor,
Speaker 1: so they were present. They just didn't hold a press event.
Speaker 1: So you could go to E three if you were
Speaker 1: part of the industry. E three is currently an industry
Speaker 1: only event, so you could go to E three and
Speaker 1: you could go to the Nintendo section and see what
Speaker 1: they had to display, But they didn't have a big
Speaker 1: press event unfolding all of that at E three. One
Speaker 1: of the things they showed off at this Nintendo Direct
Speaker 1: event was the We Party U, which allowed you to
Speaker 1: use the w U game pad for tabletop style games.
Speaker 1: They also showed off other games at E three. Not
Speaker 1: all of these would be aimed for a release, so
Speaker 1: they showed off Super Smash Brothers, Super Luigi U, Yoshi's
Speaker 1: New Island, The Legend of Zelda, Windwalker HD, the Pokemon's
Speaker 1: games X and Y, and yes, I know I'm saying
Speaker 1: it wrong, and yes I know it's not funny. Moving on. Also,
Speaker 1: they showed off Mario Kart eight. In August two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: Nintendo announced that they had a new handhold console. They
Speaker 1: were going to release the two d S, so they
Speaker 1: were working backwards. The three d S had been out
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. Now they're going to d S,
Speaker 1: so the two DS is essentially a dumbed down three DS.
Speaker 1: It has largely the same hardware, except it doesn't have
Speaker 1: the three D screen. It has the two screens, and
Speaker 1: it's also in a slate form factor. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's a solid, almost tablet like form factor. It's just
Speaker 1: a tablet that happens to have two screens separated by
Speaker 1: by a bezel like a case. Uh. It doesn't close.
Speaker 1: It's not a clamshell design like the other DS systems,
Speaker 1: where it's it's solid. Some people like that and some
Speaker 1: people hated it. I was indifferent because I have not
Speaker 1: held had a handheld system and so long apart from
Speaker 1: my phone, my phone is my handheld system. Actually, that's
Speaker 1: a huge issue for Nintendo. So in the fall of
Speaker 1: two thirteen, Nintendo purchased a twenty eight percent interest in
Speaker 1: another company called p u X Corporation. Now pu X
Speaker 1: Corporation started off as a division inside Pana Sonic, but
Speaker 1: then panas On expund it off as its own company.
Speaker 1: And what it does is work in voice and face
Speaker 1: recognition software as well as audio and video processing. So
Speaker 1: again Nintendo is trying to beef up its ability to
Speaker 1: deal with voice and face recognition. It tells you a
Speaker 1: little bit about the sort of stuff the company was
Speaker 1: thinking about developing into the future. So now we're up
Speaker 1: to two thousand fourteen. Guess what didn't start off very
Speaker 1: well at all. Reports of falling profits prompted Nintendo CEO
Speaker 1: Wata to announce he would take a fifty percent cut
Speaker 1: in his salary. He said, you know, if if the
Speaker 1: company is doing this poorly, I cannot be rewarded for it.
Speaker 1: So I will take a half cut in my salary.
Speaker 1: I would make half as much this for the next
Speaker 1: six months or five months. Uh and other executives received
Speaker 1: cuts in their salaries between twenty Wata he saved the
Speaker 1: biggest cut for his own salary, and he said that
Speaker 1: the reduction would last for five months and then the
Speaker 1: company would revisit the issue in June of two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: And this was a pretty interesting move. I like the move.
Speaker 1: I like I like executives taking ownership for a company's performance,
Speaker 1: not doing well and saying, look, if if we are
Speaker 1: rewarding ourselves at full salary, whether we're doing well or not,
Speaker 1: where's the incentive to do well. Now you've created an
Speaker 1: incentive to do well because you're not making nearly as
Speaker 1: much money. From April two thousand thirteen to December. Uh,
Speaker 1: the company had only sold two point four million we
Speaker 1: U units. Uh. Now, the company had adjusted protected sales
Speaker 1: from April two thousand thirteen to March two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: Remember that's that's a fiscal year for Nintendo. April through March.
Speaker 1: They wanted to sell two point eight million units. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's that's how many. They sold. Two point eight million
Speaker 1: units from April two thousand thirteen to March two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: But that's not what they were hoping for. Originally, they
Speaker 1: were aiming to sell nine million units, so their goal
Speaker 1: was nine million, and they hit two point eight million.
Speaker 1: They didn't even get thirty three percent of the way there.
Speaker 1: That is dreadful, dreadful performance. And the annual report was
Speaker 1: pretty graham. It was the third straight year of losses
Speaker 1: for a Nintendo. This time the damage came to four
Speaker 1: hundred fifty seven million dollars and losses. So still not
Speaker 1: as bad as two thousand eleven. That was five thirty two.
Speaker 1: Two thousand twelve was three hundred sixty six something like that,
Speaker 1: and then two thousand thirteen was four hundred fifty seven million. Yikes. Now,
Speaker 1: at the two thousand fourteen E three, Nintendo again decided
Speaker 1: not to have a full press conference, and this was
Speaker 1: a little confusing because when they decided to skip the
Speaker 1: press conference in two thousand thirteen, Nintendo representative said, this
Speaker 1: is a one time thing. We're skipping this year, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we're done with E three. We're just
Speaker 1: skipping this year. We'll be back again, don't worry. Two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, they skip it again for the press event,
Speaker 1: so instead Nintendo held a video presentation called the Digital Event.
Speaker 1: It was actually really cute. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever watched it, but it is worth watching because it's
Speaker 1: it's very silly and Nintendo pokes fun at itself in
Speaker 1: a way that is refreshing. However, that does drag. It's
Speaker 1: it's about I think forty five minutes long, and it
Speaker 1: could have been half an hour easy, maybe less, because
Speaker 1: there's some stuff that drags on. I literally started skipping
Speaker 1: ahead at some points. Anyway. At E three, during this
Speaker 1: Digital Event, the company announced that me Characters, that's M
Speaker 1: I I, the little characters you could create in Nintendo.
Speaker 1: We that they would start to show up and smash
Speaker 1: Brothers games for the three d S and for We You,
Speaker 1: So for the first time, you could actually create your
Speaker 1: own Smash Brothers character to fight against the iconic characters
Speaker 1: of Nintendo like Mario and Link and Zelda and Samus
Speaker 1: and those sort of characters or Sammu's I honestly don't
Speaker 1: know how to say her name. I apologize. Nintendo also
Speaker 1: introduced at that digital event the Ambo How Ambo's are
Speaker 1: a brilliant idea. It's not the first time anyone's come
Speaker 1: up with this idea. There's Disney's characters have this, and
Speaker 1: then there's the Skylander characters that have this. These are figurines,
Speaker 1: physical figurines you can go out and buy, and they
Speaker 1: can interact with a we U game pad. You set
Speaker 1: the figurine on top of the game pad and there's
Speaker 1: a chip inside the figurine that then communicates wirelessly to
Speaker 1: your game pad and allows you to import certain characters
Speaker 1: into in too compatible games. It also the chip inside
Speaker 1: the Wei you uh amibo also can record information, so
Speaker 1: you can beef up a character over time and use
Speaker 1: it to play against other people, for example. There's a
Speaker 1: really interesting idea. And of course by creating a new product,
Speaker 1: a new physical product for people to buy. It gave
Speaker 1: a new line of revenue for Nintendo, so it was
Speaker 1: a really interesting way to try and go about this
Speaker 1: this decline in sales. They also showed off several games,
Speaker 1: including Yoshi's Wooly World, Captain Toad, Treasure Tracker, a few
Speaker 1: of the Pokemon's games. Mario Maker was shown off for
Speaker 1: the first time. Really, it was just a tease that
Speaker 1: was shown at this digital event, and a tease for
Speaker 1: the new Legend of Zelda game, which as of this
Speaker 1: recording still hasn't come out yet. It was supposed to
Speaker 1: come out in two thousand and fifteen, but then it
Speaker 1: hit a delay, and so we're still waiting for this
Speaker 1: new Legend of Zelda game to come out. A collection
Speaker 1: of good games started to show up on the Wii
Speaker 1: You and that actually gave a little bit of a
Speaker 1: boost to we use sales, and three DS titles started
Speaker 1: to do well as as at the same time. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the figures were spectacular. They were just
Speaker 1: better than they had been, So it wasn't a a
Speaker 1: Grand Slam home run, but it was a move in
Speaker 1: the right direction. Now, starting in two thousand fifteen, when
Speaker 1: Amibo's actually began to hit store shelves, and by hit,
Speaker 1: I mean they would gently land on a store shelf
Speaker 1: for a split second before someone bought them. This became
Speaker 1: a huge problem for Nintendo pr nightmare really, because the
Speaker 1: Amibo figures had relatively small production runs, meaning there weren't
Speaker 1: a whole lot of them made, and that meant that
Speaker 1: only a few would end up going to any given
Speaker 1: store in a region. So if you have lots of
Speaker 1: different stores in your area, one of them might get
Speaker 1: a few of a certain generation of Ambo, and once
Speaker 1: they're gone, they're gone. Nintendo's idea was that they were
Speaker 1: going to produce small runs of figurines, and when you
Speaker 1: when all of those were gone, instead of replacing them
Speaker 1: with new versions of the figurine, they would come out
Speaker 1: with all new characters, all new figurines that had brand
Speaker 1: new ones that had nothing to do with the old ones,
Speaker 1: because they had so many characters, uh dozens of characters
Speaker 1: that they could go through. And so the idea was
Speaker 1: that they were going to cater to a certain group
Speaker 1: of fans. Those fans would buy the figurines, and then
Speaker 1: new figurines would come out and they'd buy those, but
Speaker 1: Nintendo would not go back and make tons and tons
Speaker 1: and tons of the older figurines because they didn't anticipate
Speaker 1: demand being as high as it was, and that was
Speaker 1: a huge mistake because demand was through the roof. People
Speaker 1: were camping out to buy amibo's and you couldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: get them online either. As soon as they would show
Speaker 1: up in stock online, people would buy them and they'd
Speaker 1: be gone again, and it became very frustrating for a
Speaker 1: lot of collectors and a lot of gamers who legitimately
Speaker 1: wanted these amibo to play with in their games. In fact,
Speaker 1: some of them, they weren't collectors. They had no interest
Speaker 1: in buying all the different amibos. They had a specific
Speaker 1: one they wanted, and then it would get and it
Speaker 1: would get purchased, it would be unavailable, and people were
Speaker 1: having trouble finding them. It ended up creating a secondary market.
Speaker 1: So these figurines, which for retail price were at twelve
Speaker 1: dollars and cents, were sometimes being sold for more than
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars on various auction sites because he couldn't
Speaker 1: find them anywhere else, and it was creating a real
Speaker 1: sense of frustration among the fans and Nintendo and the
Speaker 1: company started to address this by increasing the production runs
Speaker 1: so that they were producing more units per generation. But
Speaker 1: as far as I know, there's been no announcement of
Speaker 1: going back and producing new versions of the older Amibo figures,
Speaker 1: so those are still scarce. And it's not It wasn't
Speaker 1: like it was a manufactured scarcity on purpose. Nintendo wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily setting out to create a scarce resource because Nintendo
Speaker 1: does not benefit from that. Nintendo is selling them at
Speaker 1: the at the standard price. It's resellers that are marking
Speaker 1: the price up. Nintendo does not benefit from the marked
Speaker 1: up price. And that's a real issue UH for the
Speaker 1: company and for its fans, because it gives the company
Speaker 1: a black eye. It says, uh, yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: messed up, but deal with it, and the fans say, no,
Speaker 1: that's not cool. So Amibo's have been without blessing and
Speaker 1: a curse. Now, in the spring of two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: Nintendo announced it would bring some of its games to
Speaker 1: mobile platforms, which is something it had never ever done before.
Speaker 1: In fact, Nintendo representatives before that point had been adamant
Speaker 1: that there was no interest or desire to end up
Speaker 1: going over to the UH mobile side that they would
Speaker 1: never really do that they would instead focus on their
Speaker 1: own platforms, But two thousand fifteen showed a change of heart,
Speaker 1: and the company also announced that a new console code
Speaker 1: named in X, was in development. So this was the
Speaker 1: company acknowledging that there is another console on the way.
Speaker 1: This was back in two thousand fifteen, but there weren't
Speaker 1: that many details other than the company claiming that this
Speaker 1: was a brand new direction. It was not just a
Speaker 1: new iteration of the Wei or the Wei U. It
Speaker 1: was a new model for sould gaming for Nintendo. We
Speaker 1: don't necessarily understand what that means yet. It might mean
Speaker 1: that it's a hybrid, that it's something that bridges both
Speaker 1: the living room experience and the mobile experience, but we
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, and we won't know for a while,
Speaker 1: probably maybe not too long as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast, but nothing official has been announced. Uh So.
Speaker 1: News also broke the Nintendo was partnering with Universal to
Speaker 1: create theme park attractions, and I know that got a
Speaker 1: lot of people excited. The idea of visiting a theme
Speaker 1: park that has Nintendo style rides or experiences, characters, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. It could be a huge hit, and
Speaker 1: I gotta admit I would love to see some really
Speaker 1: cool interactive theme park attractions that are based on Nintendo properties.
Speaker 1: I know that there have been people who have recreated
Speaker 1: things like Mario levels using bungee chords and trampolines and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, so that you can kind of
Speaker 1: run a course that is inspired by a level in
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers. I would love to see something like
Speaker 1: that done with a universal theme park budget. That would
Speaker 1: be amazing. Um, So hopefully that is something we will
Speaker 1: see in the future. Now, Nintendo's E three and two
Speaker 1: thus fifteen showed off some of the games that had
Speaker 1: been announced the year before, so they started to really
Speaker 1: show off things like Mario Maker and Yoshi's Wooly World.
Speaker 1: But those are games that we got a peak at.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fourteen. Nintendo also announced a partnership
Speaker 1: with Skylanders, which would allow certain Nintendo amibo to enter
Speaker 1: the Skylanders world. But in general, a lot of people
Speaker 1: felt that that E three was a pretty quiet one
Speaker 1: for Nintendo. They didn't really come out and announce anything
Speaker 1: groundbreaking or truly surprising at that E three. Now in July,
Speaker 1: that's when we get to the really sad part of
Speaker 1: this story. The gaming world was shocked when Nintendo announced
Speaker 1: that Nintendo president Saturo Iwata had died from bile duct cancer.
Speaker 1: He was just fifty five years old. He had previously
Speaker 1: undergone treatments for his cancer, including a surgery in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, and this death was pretty sudden. I
Speaker 1: get the sense that people did not know that this
Speaker 1: was coming. It was a very kind of unexpected thing
Speaker 1: to happen. Uh. Genio Takida and Shigiro Miyamoto took over
Speaker 1: the company as interim replacements. They were leading the company together,
Speaker 1: and the industry as a whole grieved over a Watta's death,
Speaker 1: and lots of sympathetic messages came in from companies like
Speaker 1: Microsoft and E A lot of luminaries in the gaming
Speaker 1: industry spoke highly of Awata and warned his loss, UH
Speaker 1: and our loss with his passing. It was a very
Speaker 1: heavy time. And keep in mind, this is also happening
Speaker 1: while Nintendo was struggling. They're having issues because the We
Speaker 1: You just was not selling very well compared to earlier console,
Speaker 1: certainly not as well as the We. The We sold
Speaker 1: about a hundred million units overall. The Weiu was not
Speaker 1: doing that well and that made shareholders antsy, and then
Speaker 1: to see the president pass away, it was really a
Speaker 1: rough moment. On September two thousand fifteen, Nintendo named Tatsumi
Speaker 1: Kimishima as the new president, with a Takeda receiving a
Speaker 1: title called Technology Fellow, and Miyamoto got a title called
Speaker 1: Creative Fellow. Kimishima was the former president of Nintendo North America.
Speaker 1: Even before that, he was the president of the Pokemon's division.
Speaker 1: Uh So, he had been when Nintendo for more than
Speaker 1: a decade and uh now was assuming the leadership role
Speaker 1: of the overall company. He had even been the managing
Speaker 1: director of Nintendo before becoming the president. Nintendo also changed
Speaker 1: up its organizational structure at that point, consolidating several game
Speaker 1: development teams and and shifting things around, really in an
Speaker 1: effort to redefine its corporate structure and its strategy. And finally,
Speaker 1: now we're getting to the story I alluded to at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this episode pretty soon. First, I guess
Speaker 1: I should say before I get into that Nintendo, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of spectator speculation that Nintendo is going to
Speaker 1: show off the n X console at E three this
Speaker 1: year in two thousand and sixteen, with a goal of
Speaker 1: potentially having it on the market by holiday two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: A lot of analysts say that their their bed thing,
Speaker 1: this is going to happen, that Nintendo feels it is
Speaker 1: necessary for it to happen in order to turn things around.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are a lot of shareholders who feel
Speaker 1: the same way. UM. I don't know if that's realistic.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the n X is going to
Speaker 1: be unveiled and launched this year. It's possible that we'll
Speaker 1: get a tease and a launch next year. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's also possible that Nintendo has its ducks in a
Speaker 1: row and it's ready to move on this because it
Speaker 1: would be a way of reinvigorating the company. If they've
Speaker 1: made the right choices with their new hardware, that's gonna
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen. We'll just have to keep
Speaker 1: our eyes out and that comes up. E three happens
Speaker 1: in June, and it is currently April as I record this,
Speaker 1: so we'll just have to watch and find out what happens. Now,
Speaker 1: let's get to the story I talked about at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the episode. The Gamer Gate related episode or
Speaker 1: related story. Uh, this is a complicated story, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things I need to kind of
Speaker 1: explain in order to to really give you guys the
Speaker 1: the context of what's happening. So there was a Nintendo
Speaker 1: employee named Alison rap and Allison was the was a
Speaker 1: marketing employee. She worked in a marketing division for a
Speaker 1: Nintendo so her job was to, uh, to do marketing
Speaker 1: for Nintendo products. She was also the target of a
Speaker 1: massive harassment campaign that was absolutely insane. It made no sense.
Speaker 1: It was just mean spirited, vicious, and vile. And here's
Speaker 1: what happened. So Nintendo had made a decision to tone
Speaker 1: down the content of certain Japanese games when being adapted
Speaker 1: for the Western market. And that's a very general thing
Speaker 1: to say. So what's actually happening. Well, most of the
Speaker 1: content had to do with depictions of sexuality or sexual characteristics,
Speaker 1: particularly in young female characters. So the Japanese versions were
Speaker 1: a little more explicit and sexualized, and some representatives at
Speaker 1: Nintendo apparently felt that this was not a good approach
Speaker 1: for Western video game audiences, and so the move was
Speaker 1: made to tone that down. Um. Now, some people who
Speaker 1: associate themselves with the gamer Gate movement, felt this was
Speaker 1: another example of video games being ruined by people. They're
Speaker 1: ruining the video games. That's not the way the video
Speaker 1: game was meant to be played. Uh. They identified rap
Speaker 1: Alison Rapp as a target for their frustration, largely because
Speaker 1: Alison Rapp worked for Nintendo and she had posted about
Speaker 1: feminism and feminist issues on Twitter in the past. So
Speaker 1: they leapt to the conclusion that somehow Alison Rapped one
Speaker 1: was responsible for toning down these games, and two didn't
Speaker 1: share their opinion that this was a bad thing, and
Speaker 1: so therefore she should be targeted and harangued and harassed
Speaker 1: and bullied and threatened. And that's exactly what started. Now.
Speaker 1: First things first, like I said at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode, this is never a justified course of action.
Speaker 1: It is wrong to harass people in this way. It
Speaker 1: is wrong both ethically and legally. It is against the
Speaker 1: law to harass people in this way. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: You are a bad person. If you do that, don't
Speaker 1: be a bad person. Be a good person. Even if
Speaker 1: you disagree with someone, be a good person. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean just let the thing happen. You can voice your opinion,
Speaker 1: just do it in a way that's not an attack
Speaker 1: on another human being for goodness sakes. So that's the
Speaker 1: first thing. It's wrong on the face of it. But
Speaker 1: the second thing is that rap had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the localization of products for Nintendo. In other words,
Speaker 1: she was not responsible. She had no input on changing
Speaker 1: the content of a game from the Japanese version to
Speaker 1: the American version. Nothing, not even input into that area.
Speaker 1: So holding her responsible for something that she did not
Speaker 1: do is crazy. Third, raps own history, her own writing,
Speaker 1: her Twitter history suggests she felt pretty much the same
Speaker 1: way as a lot of the gamer gate folks felt
Speaker 1: that she did not see the need to alter games,
Speaker 1: that she didn't see the set realization necessarily as wrong. Uh.
Speaker 1: Not to put words into her mouth, but a lot
Speaker 1: of her writing suggests at least that taking the Japanese
Speaker 1: culture for what it is is what you should do.
Speaker 1: You should not apply the ethics of one culture to
Speaker 1: the Japanese culture. That was kind of her perspective. So
Speaker 1: she wasn't even advocating the changes that people attacked her for,
Speaker 1: So she wasn't responsible for it. She didn't advocate for it.
Speaker 1: She just happened to be female, and she happened to
Speaker 1: have voiced her opinion on some feminist issues and that
Speaker 1: was enough for her to be targeted and bullied and harassed.
Speaker 1: So they actually at that point when once it was
Speaker 1: even clear that Alison Rapp had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the problem, the attackers didn't back off. They doubled down.
Speaker 1: They found an essay that Alison Rapp had written in college,
Speaker 1: which was not hard to do. It was linked on
Speaker 1: her linked in profile, and in that essay, Rap essentially
Speaker 1: argued that Japanese cultural norms are different from Western cultural
Speaker 1: norms and it's wrong to apply the moral perspective of
Speaker 1: one culture to another culture. And she was specifically talking
Speaker 1: about the sexualization of teenagers, which is a pretty taboo
Speaker 1: topic here in Western culture, especially the younger teenagers. It's
Speaker 1: a very taboo subject, and Alison Rapp has been pretty
Speaker 1: vocal about supporting the Japanese culture side to a point
Speaker 1: where some people are actually offended by it, and her
Speaker 1: attackers began to use that against her. They began to
Speaker 1: send messages to Nintendo executives saying that Alison Rapp was
Speaker 1: supporting UH pedophiles, that she was in favor of this
Speaker 1: from happening, that she thought that things, you know, laws
Speaker 1: regarding pedophilia should be removed, and that was putting words
Speaker 1: into Alison Rapp's mouth. But they were essentially using her
Speaker 1: own own writing against her in this case, which is
Speaker 1: weird already, not that I you know, it's weird because
Speaker 1: the original argument the attackers made was that they did
Speaker 1: not want changes made to the video games they wanted
Speaker 1: to play. They wanted to have the access to the
Speaker 1: content that Nintendo representatives had identified as being inappropriate for
Speaker 1: Western audiences. And now they're using in an argument that
Speaker 1: that same argument that Nintendo representatives used in an effort
Speaker 1: to get Alison Rapped fired. So, in other words, they're
Speaker 1: using their own the thing that they hate as an
Speaker 1: attack against the person that they've identified as the appropriate target.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind she had nothing to do with any
Speaker 1: of this. Now here's the next step. Nintendo fired Alison
Speaker 1: rap This adds another complication to the story. Now the
Speaker 1: company claims that the reason that they fired her had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the harassment she had been enduring
Speaker 1: and the the threats that had been leveled at her
Speaker 1: and the pr problem that this was creating. They said, no,
Speaker 1: We're aware of that, but that's not what this is about.
Speaker 1: The reason we fired her is because she was working
Speaker 1: a second job that went against Nintendo's corporate culture. Now,
Speaker 1: Alison Rapp has admitted that she did do some moonlighting
Speaker 1: work in a secondary gig using a totally different name.
Speaker 1: So she was using a different name doing a different job.
Speaker 1: That's all the details we have. We don't know what
Speaker 1: the job was, what she was doing. You know, how
Speaker 1: was this in violation of Nintendo's corporate culture. None of
Speaker 1: that has been revealed as of the recording of this podcast. Now,
Speaker 1: she maintains that it was the controversy around the harassment
Speaker 1: that led to her being fired. In other words, she
Speaker 1: says Nintendo never would have fired her even with the
Speaker 1: second job issue, unless they also felt that there was
Speaker 1: all this other brew haha going on. So if the
Speaker 1: brew haha wasn't happening, Nintendo would have just turned a
Speaker 1: blind eye and Alison Rapp could have continued to work
Speaker 1: for Nintendo and have this secondary job. Now, is that true,
Speaker 1: We can't say for sure one way or the other. Honestly,
Speaker 1: if Rap was violating company policy, I don't hold Nintendo
Speaker 1: at fault for acting on that. If she's violating corporate policy,
Speaker 1: Nintendo has every right to act on that, though personally,
Speaker 1: I think it makes it much more sense. It's much
Speaker 1: more appropriate to have a conversation with Alison Rapp to
Speaker 1: to maybe reprimand her or say hey, this is in
Speaker 1: violation of our corporate policy. You have to make a choice.
Speaker 1: Either you work here or you do something else. But
Speaker 1: you cannot do this other job and work here. It's
Speaker 1: against our policy. But that's not what happened. They fired her.
Speaker 1: There wasn't this step of let's talk to her first,
Speaker 1: but it just went straight to let's fire her. So
Speaker 1: if reps secondary gig was in violation of Nintendo's policy,
Speaker 1: and if Nintendo makes it a standard procedure to fire
Speaker 1: employees who violate this part of the policy, I don't
Speaker 1: think Nintendo's at fault necessarily because they're just doing what
Speaker 1: they always do. So if this is something that happens
Speaker 1: to any employee that has found to be working a
Speaker 1: secondary gig, then that's that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Speaker 1: That's the corporate policy. I don't necessarily agree with it,
Speaker 1: but if that's the corporate policy, you gotta abide by that.
Speaker 1: Or you suffer the consequences. But if Nintendo rarely enforces
Speaker 1: this rule, that's another matter, because it brings up the question,
Speaker 1: if you don't enforce this rule all the time, why
Speaker 1: did you enforce it in the case of Alison Rap. Now,
Speaker 1: Rap maintains that Nintendo was aware that she had this
Speaker 1: secondary gig and that the policy that they are citing
Speaker 1: is not typically enforced. Again, I don't know the truth
Speaker 1: of that, and I also want to make it clear
Speaker 1: that my personal opinions and wraps point of view about
Speaker 1: the morality issue, those ideas aren't in alignment. I don't
Speaker 1: really agree with her on this, and maybe that's just
Speaker 1: because I'm old, but I disagree with her perspective. I
Speaker 1: understand where she's coming from. I disagree somewhat with that,
Speaker 1: but that's fine. Adults can disagree and they can have
Speaker 1: conversations about this. But my main objection is that she
Speaker 1: was targeted, harassed, threatened, and bullied for no reason. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: have happened at all, and it's deplorable that it happened
Speaker 1: for no reason and Nintendo didn't do more to protect
Speaker 1: her and defend her and speak up for her. So
Speaker 1: even if the reason she was fired was purely because
Speaker 1: of this corporate policy. It still remains that the company
Speaker 1: did not take a firm stand to say it is
Speaker 1: wrong to treat anyone this way. It is a wrong
Speaker 1: message to send that women have a place in the
Speaker 1: video game industry. They should not be run off, they
Speaker 1: should not be treated like they aren't human beings. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't be persecuted. And that's the real issue I have
Speaker 1: with Nintendo and this particular story. Personally, I hope that
Speaker 1: more of the story unfolds and that Nintendo takes the
Speaker 1: opportunity to really establish a much more firm anti discriminatory,
Speaker 1: anti harassment stance on the issue. I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of companies have been very careful about this because
Speaker 1: they don't want to run off their audience. But I
Speaker 1: also think those companies need to take a hard look
Speaker 1: at what that audience is demanding and how that audience
Speaker 1: is behaving and ask themselves, is it a responsible thing
Speaker 1: to not speak up about this. That's why I'm speaking up,
Speaker 1: because I really think there are better ways to go
Speaker 1: about getting your point across to support your arguments than
Speaker 1: to try and destroy the person who feels differently about it.
Speaker 1: Than you do that. I truly believe that. And if
Speaker 1: you don't believe that, don't listen to my show. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna be happy. So just go listen to something else.
Speaker 1: It's okay. I won't miss you. For those of you
Speaker 1: who remain, I love you guys. I very much looking
Speaker 1: forward to having conversations with you. That being said, if
Speaker 1: you want to have a conversation with me, you need
Speaker 1: to write me. My email address is tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff arts dot com. Now I know I haven't
Speaker 1: responded to many of you for a long time, and
Speaker 1: here's the reason why, because I found out about it
Speaker 1: today Outlook. Microsoft Outlook has very helpfully moved almost all
Speaker 1: the listener mail into a clutter folder. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: it's like a spam filter. In other words, most of
Speaker 1: the listener mail has been going into this clutter folder.
Speaker 1: So I didn't see that I was getting mail. I
Speaker 1: didn't see that listeners were writing in. So I'll be
Speaker 1: going through the backlog of listener mail and trying to
Speaker 1: answer as many of those as I possibly can, and
Speaker 1: I apologize for that. I did not realize it was
Speaker 1: happening until today, So do write me. Know that I
Speaker 1: will be looking at that clutter folder, and I will
Speaker 1: be reading and answering emails. I look forward to hearing
Speaker 1: from you again. That email address is tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can always drop
Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle on
Speaker 1: both of those platforms is tech stuff H s W.
Speaker 1: And I'll talk to you again really soon. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com