How Nintendo Changed Society Forever

Nintendo used to be the face of video games their dedication to Quality and joy produced mountains of Classics over a span of decades whole Generations can look back on fond memories of their games and because of this Nintendo became one of the most adored companies in the world but recently all the Goodwill they generated from Decades of work has gone down the drain and that's why in just a few years Nintendo has destroyed their relationship with fans who love their games for decades throwing Nintendo into a downward spiral but that begs the question what were the key actions that caused this change in their reputation and how did this make them feel so dramatically well to understand why we need to know what made them so special in the first place you see Nintendo's Story begins over a century ago in the late 1800s headed by the yamachi family the company first found its footing in Japan as a manufacturer of hanafuda a type of Japanese playing card the handmade cards were a massive success and the company soon expanded to keep up with demand and over the next 60 years Nintendo became one of the largest playing card manufacturers in Japan but in 1949 the company's chairman unexpectedly died leaving his grandson to take the reins happening halfway through his university education Hiroshi yamachi was suddenly put at the head of the family business but he wouldn't let the task was inexperienced daunt him instead he made the company's own employing new Innovations like the first plastic playing cards ever made in Japan everything was running like normal however just a few years in and Hiroshi would make a trip that would change history forever it all started when he went to visit the United States playing card company with the purpose of sealing a deal with the largest card company in the world the United States playing card company was what Hiroshi thought was the beacon of their industry and yet when he got there he found it relegated to a tiny office it became very clear to him that there was no room for proper expansion in the car business the industry which is completely saturated with very limited opportunities to scale up and this terrified Hiroshi he knew that if he didn't do something soon his whole family business his family reputation would crumble into the ground he knew that he needed to make some drastic changes to save his family's name so instead Hiroshi decided to Pivot the company towards New Horizons and this pivot would work extremely well with his first major success coming in 1959 when he licensed Disney characters to include Nintendo's designs this brought the company massive success with Nintendo selling over 600 000 car packs in just one year and whilst everything seemed great just around the corner with the Nintendo company realized the bubble they were in and in the following years this bubble would burst horrifically and that was when hiroshi's fears about the car business were proven to be true you see in the 60s it was clear to everyone that the card business was completely oversaturated and when investors pulling out and the market dwindling this led to a massive decline in value for Nintendo causing the company to be on the verge of collapse and after seeing all the successes they had in the 50s Hiroshi couldn't face the consequences of This Disaster and so he did everything to keep Nintendo afloat and I mean everything they tried making instant food and vacuum cleaners but all of these ideas just didn't catch on there was no substance to them and it looked like time was up for Nintendo that wasn't in Hiroshi finally found the niche he was searching for toys after initially finding some success in the Toy Market Nintendo would quickly become one of the preeminent toy manufacturers in Japan an industry that hadn't really been tapped into across the continent and so Hiroshi went all there finding particular success with electronic toys and after doubling down in the industry they would find gold in 1970 after releasing their new light gun to massive Acclaim but this wasn't the only smash hit there was also the programmable drum machines and toys like the ultra hand extendable grabbing device and soon Nintendo were involved in an exciting New Field becoming one of Asia's top toy manufacturers but this wasn't enough and he had to innovate his company to continue Nintendo's success and that's when he noticed something video games in the early 1970s were slowly developing from a niche hobby into a worldwide sensation he'd seen that people were Addicted by video games such as pong with a host of machines designed to just play this single game and he could see that the world was hungry for more as the video game Market was completely unsaturated unlike his previous card Niche and so to tap into this massive industry Hiroshi knew that Nintendo would have to create new Innovations to be at the top but Nintendo at the time had no one experienced in the video game Market it was a completely new Fields with no one understanding the industry that was until Hiroshi found the perfect man for the job gumpe yokoi gunpai had first come to prominence Nintendo when he designed the popular Ultra hand this Creative Vision is what would separate Nintendo from their competitors Hiroshi wanted to use his vision and scale it across the world and luckily for roshi this was all happening at the exact perfect time because the magnoch's Odyssey has just started picking up in popularity and Hiroshi keenly noticed this as it was one of the first game consoles to support games other than pong and that was when Hiroshi realized that Nintendo needed to play the game and so using their previous light gun design they would make a version for their new games console and this was probably one of the greatest decisions the Nintendo company could ever make with the move being so successful that Nintendo sounded deal to distribute the console to Japan themselves but Nintendo weren't happy just being a supporting role Hiroshi understood the potential in video games and he would make sure Nintendo would be at the front of the race as he originally planned and so a year later Nintendo would release their first ever video game called EVR race and after seeing how popular they these games were Nintendo would then release more consoles to widespread success and it wouldn't take long for the Nintendo company to reach New Heights after they developed Donkey Kong an arcade game which gave the company worldwide Fame recognition and success last year in the United States home video game sales hit 1.1 billion dollars driven by The Game's popularity among 8 to 14 year old boys actually my dad plays a lot too urashi had finally made it this was when the Nintendo company would change forever which is why by the early 1980s Nintendo had become one of the biggest names in video games in Japan but they weren't going to stop at Japan's borders they wanted to expand globally however there was trouble Brewing across the ocean because you see in America video games were getting oversaturated they were cheap to make so lots of companies began shoveling out releases by the truckload and soon enough everyone was just sick of the masses of cheap bad games it was like Nintendo's car business was repeating all over again and with his experience in the car markets Hiroshi knew how truly damaging this oversaturation would be and his fears manifested themselves after ET took off in theaters but the game adaption completely flopped the whole video game audience was just sick of the constant disappointment and the constant cash grabs and the ET video game was the final straw causing demand for games to dry up overnight with a massive recession in the video game markets causing 97 of the market to vanish in just a few short months Hiroshi knew things were bad but because Nintendo had cemented themselves at the top of the video game Market they knew they had some sort of Leverage and that was when Nintendo found the perfect opportunity to escape this recession instead of marketing their products as video games Nintendo would Market their new console as an entertainment system also that they could avoid the bad publicity associated with the crash and this console would be the NES one of the biggest successes in the company's history outstanding all of his competitors by Insane margins and with the console came some of the most acclaimed games in history Super Mario Zelda Metroid they just kept on coming and in total Nintendo would sell over 60 million of these consoles around the world but it wouldn't stop there the successes just kept on going next it was the Game Boy in the Super NES all of which kept up with the insane popularity of the NES Super Mario World is new it's one of the new generation of Nintendo games it comes only with Super Nintendo and it's like nothing ever based and that's why throughout the late 80s and early 90s Nintendo would only build upon their great reputation earning the massive success and an avid fan base Millions grew up in Nintendo and throughout the changing fortunes of the video game markets Nintendo was always at the top and over the years games consoles and competitors came and went but at the hearts of it Nintendo and the reputation for greatness remained it seemed like Nintendo was Unstoppable year after year they saw their growing success and reputation especially in the early 2000s when Nintendo really hit their strike commercially releasing both the Wii and the DS which both sold over 100 million units and the reason for their success was plain to see they paid so much attention to the customer in the fan base these consoles were incredibly designed easy on a budget and the games were just purely fun the Wii's motion controls were a particular draw and in another genius move Nintendo bundled the console with Wii Sports a game that was incredibly intuitive and saw critical reclaim around the world everyone was playing this game and it wasn't just the way the DS was also a massive hit Nintendo pretty much cornered the handheld Market with it its dual screen design and Mass of library of games gave it immense staying power and most of all Nintendo was loyal to their fans and thus the fans were lower to Nintendo with their reputation in the industry showing to new heights this was the golden age for Nintendo and it seemed like the sun would never set on the company that was until the 2010s when the time for the next generation of consoles began and due to the huge success of the Wii and the DS Nintendo obviously had a very hard time following up to their success they released the Wii U which featured a separate touchscreen or controller but a tank in sales in the end it only sold 10 percent of the amount of the Wii did this poor performance nearly capsized Nintendo and a few years later they were operating at a loss of nearly 15 million every quarter but if Nintendo had proved anything it was their resilience and they hit back with Nintendo switch which sold way better than the Wii U and the company is still today riding on a success however Nintendo didn't just survive because of the switch the company wasn't safe because of One console in fact over the years Nintendo's made lots of very expensive mistakes but every time they do and the company isn't Dire Straits they've been able to rely on their core fan base and in their Golden Age Nintendo treated their fans and customers with the utmost respect however something changed and in the last few years Nintendo's growth and their reputation has been tanking and it seems that Nintendo starts to alienate Their audience but before we continue I want to tell you about our friends at the epoch times recently they released several new exciting documentaries available on Airport TV Epoch TV is a censorship-free video platform with original news programs and documentaries investigating critical issues not covered anywhere else 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subscribe that's watch epoch.com moon now one of the first signs of this was that Nintendo had a reputation for throwing around lawsuits for years infamously they tried to go after Blockbuster for video game rentals and also tried to block fan games but to be fair this came from a genuine position if Nintendo doesn't draw the line somewhere then it makes it harder to fight actual rip-offs later on so most people accepted that Nintendo were overly protective and it didn't really impact their reputation too much however all of this would change in 2019 when Nintendo's American Branch took on a new CEO Doug Bowser now other than having a very fitting name Bowser seemed like a good choice because of his experience at the company but just a year after his appointment things would start to spiral out of control with Nintendo doubling down on their policy of litigation but not against rival companies and competitors instead Nintendo's recent decisions have been targeted at their fans and the group they've been targeting the most has been Super Smash Bros players in 2001 Nintendo released the long-awaited Super Smash Bros meaty and the game was absolutely despite seeming simple on the surface the game had incredibly intricate controls and an incredibly High skill ceiling and this made it perfect for play at the competitive level even two decades later the game enjoys a massive following at the professional level and you would expect Nintendo to be overjoyed with this and support this continued appreciation of their game but instead they took a very hands-off approach he never hosted their own tournaments and instead turned a blind eye as the community came together to keep the sports alive but whilst these tournaments grew Nintendo still decided to stand their name on them giving the tournament some legitimacy but it wasn't concrete and Nintendo could pull the plug at any time but by 2020 the smash team had grown into one of the world's biggest Esports but still it seemed like Nintendo weren't going to do anything about the bare minimum when the pandemic hit the community adapted the annual tournament the big house was planned to be held online but this required players to use third-party software in order to play as it was the only option and keep in mind that all the players had enjoyed the game for years and had nearly definitely bought it at least once in the past add to this the free publicity and exposure for Nintendo's games and it didn't seem like a bad deal for the company most most people expected Nintendo to keep up their policy of non-intervention but what Nintendo did next shocked everyone in its stupidity as Nintendo sent the tournament organizers a cease and desist letter Nintendo had supported the tournament from the sidelines for years but in an insult to fans they called the whole tournament off now legally Nintendo was within their rights the emulators were third-party software and Nintendo didn't have to let it go ahead but it was still a shocking and hostile decision with seemingly no benefit to Nintendo at all and the Scandal left a sour taste in one of the most dedicated fan bases that Nintendo has the community did their best to petition Nintendo to let the tournament go ahead the hashtags free medie and Sage smash started trending online and fans would hold this resentment for a long time however Nintendo weren't just disappointing their fans with the Smash Bros Community taken care of for now Nintendo turned their attention to another of their games Splatoon during the Fallout of the smash Scandal the Splatoon Community had taken notice it also happened to coincide with the rare Nintendo ran tournament for the game and so in protested Nintendo's treatment of the fans around 30 percent teams rename themselves to show their support support for the fans that have been targeted by Nintendo themselves however Nintendo weren't going to let the community get the last word and so in another desperate Act of whitewashing Nintendo canceled the live stream for the tournament so that nobody would see the names now the move obviously did nothing to dissolve the tensions in fact it just had Nintendo's reputation even more but this time it was an entirely different group of fans instead of just limiting the damage Nintendo was only making things worse now you would think that Nintendo would keep their league with threats under control considering all the damage this had done to their reputation but Bowser wouldn't stop there just days after the smash and platoon scandals Nintendo were getting involved in another one you see Attica was a beloved and popular streamer in the smash Community but in 2019 he tragically passed away after a long battle with mental illness and to honor his memory one fan designed a custom shell for the Nintendo switch controller and occurred to the proceeds for every cell was supposed to be donated to the Jed Foundation a charity which aims to protect young people's mental health and after a successful time on Kickstarter it looked like the campaign was going to be successful that was until Nintendo learned about about it and after learning about the situation they send the Creator a cease and desist letter ordering them to store production and sell immediately even though the campaign was for mental health Charities and the product didn't actually infringe on copyrights it was still forced to shut down with Nintendo using all of their Financial Muscle to bully their fans becoming clear that since Bowser became CEO Nintendo was getting out of control they were so concerned about copyright that they went out of their way to stomp on a charity campaign this stingy penny-pinching bullying that was targeted to their fans was making Nintendo one of the most unpopular game companies in the world clearly though Nintendo didn't think that the law goes both ways as just a month after the Scandal Nintendo themselves would caught stealing intellectual property and to make it even worse it had been designed by a fan in January of 2021 Nintendo released promotional images for a new website but one of the pictures of Mario they used was actually made in 2017 by fan in blender the fan art looks nearly identical to the official version which is especially egregious given Nintendo's policy on copyrights and lawsuits you wouldn't have to think that Nintendo a multi-billion dollar company wouldn't have to turn to the internet to find a picture of Mario but what definitely wasn't a mistake was Nintendo's campaign against the channel gilva Sana since 2010 the channel has been uploading old Nintendo game music onto the channel Gilbertson and never monetized these songs they did it all for free and in the videos it's clearly stated that he doesn't own them lots of these tracks have been lost to time they were only accessible by playing the old games and navigating to where the song plays and no one offered any other surface for this Nintendo certainly didn't and yet they chose to block hundreds of the songs once in 2019 again in 2020 and once more in 2022 the move was futile of course as the soundtracks just got re-uploaded by other users anyway however it showed Nintendo's contempt for the fanbase and how far they will go to Target fans enjoying the Nintendo brand it was these sort of spiteful gestures by Nintendo that further eroded their reputation with their biggest fans although it wasn't just the fans anymore Nintendo was targeting their workers now in the past few years lots of video game Giants have been under intense scrutiny for their exploitative practices long and hard crunch periods in common as our exhaustion and burnout Nintendo certainly weren't able to keep their name clean on this issue either because in early 2022 it came out that Nintendo had allegedly fired employees that were working on unionizing the complaint alleges that Nintendo illegally watched intimidated and fired employees that were involved with a potential Union but until more information comes out these claims can't be used as facts but if recent evidence against other game companies like blizzard are considered this might be the beginning of a long and damaging controversy for Nintendo one similar to the controversies surrounding Amazon's treatment of their workers but with Nintendo the hypocrisy just reeks especially considering Doug Bowers previous comments in fact he once said that Blizzard's World culture was quote distressing and disturbing and that they run counted to my values as well as Nintendo's beliefs values and policies and yet Nintendo seems to be one of the worst games companies for their treatment of workers although to be fair around the same period at the start of 2022 it did seem like Nintendo were putting the pieces back in their reputation because finally Nintendo were working towards rebuilding their reputation with this Mass Community they got involved in a more direct fashion sponsoring an official tournament they made the announcement in late 2021 Within Nintendo forming an official partnership with the company Panda Global now Panda has been organizing unofficial Smash Bro tournaments for years and Nintendo chose them to begin with their new relationship with the smash Community but despite the new official circuits Nintendo made promises that it wouldn't interfere with other community-run tournaments and in Nintendo's absence these tournaments have flourished the 2022 smash World Tour was slated to be the biggest Community tournament yet with a prize pool of over 250 thousand dollars and after communication with Nintendo the smashboard tour organizers seemingly had nothing to fear it seemed like Nintendo and their fans were coming back together again that was until Panda Global CEO Dr Alan bunny had other ideas and the community would find out about these ideas just the day before Thanksgiving when the smash World Tour announced that Nintendo had informed them the tournament was off this was incredibly short notice flights have been booked the arrangements were made and it was all just canceled so in the Fallout the organizers of the smash World Tour released a statement explaining what had happened and in the statement they alleged that bani had told tournament organizers and players that the smash World Tour wasn't happening months before the shutdown but he had also made threats to broadcast broadcasters telling them that he would shut down the smash team with Nintendo's help if they didn't cover his tournaments and whilst all of this was going on Nintendo assisted to the smash World Tour organizers that Panda didn't speak for them and that they could still host their tournaments and yet out of the blue Nintendo shut down the event clearly being convinced by Alan Bonnie to try and make panda the only tournament in town this eventually caused the smash world to hundreds of thousands and did irreversible damage to the community the fans had been betrayed yet again and this was the straw that would break the camel's back because immediately prominent members of the smash Community boycotted the panda cup tons of players streamers and casters dropped out of the event crippling the company's ability to host the tournament Panda later fired Albanian response all but proving the allegations against him and on top of this Nintendo took tons of flack for their role in the Scandal they had enabled behavior that damaged the community and canceled a popular tournament at the last minute yet again YouTubers commentators people like moist critical discussed the Scandal and got millions of views within days Twitter exploded with renew course to 3 million saves smash because not only did Nintendo ruin their reputation with fans they also burned bridges for future reconciliation and the smash Community will never forget the times the Nintendo stepped in to damage their community and these controversies have been spread into the wider core fan base now sure Nintendo are doing okay financially today but when the company NeXT faces hardship like they have in every other decade they won't be able to turn into the strong base of support that it has so many times in the past by severing the nostalgic and emotional connection that so many fans have with the company Nintendo has put their future into Jeopardy so if dog Bowser doesn't take some serious steps to repair the community soon then Nintendo will rot to the Core

Channel: Moon

Views: 404,990

Keywords: nintendo switch, nintendo, nintendo business, nintendo business model, nintendo business practices, nintendo controversy

Id: T29FVkMZdh8

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022