Let’s start with an oft-repeated question: why hasn’t Nintendo started producing games for iOS?
By itself, the answer is simple, and for no different reasons than why they don’t develop software for the Xbox or PlayStation: their games sell hardware, and Nintendo, like Apple, is ultimately a hardware company. And also like Apple, their biggest successes have come from products where hardware and software are intimately linked. Many people bought Wiis only because they came with Wii Sports, a game that couldn’t have been the success it was on any other console. Sell games separately and you take away the magic that the Wii and DS uniquely add, and that magic is what drives people to buy Nintendo products.
But now let’s extend it farther: what would happen if Apple acquired Nintendo?
It goes without saying that such an acquisition would be big for Apple. Certainly financially, but even culturally, within the company the only rival for the title of most influential acquisition would be NeXT.
Consider Nintendo’s assets, all of which would be undoubtedly major gains:
Hardware, and related engineering experience.
A massive, and massively popular, library of games.
Game design talent.
The Nintendo brand.
But the idea also gets thrown around because it’s very romantic. Apple and Nintendo share a lot of characteristics that few technology companies rarely do — a complete integration of hardware and software, and a refusal to allow software to run on outside platforms. A passion for intuitive, distinctive, and usually excellent product design that is critically acclaimed and financially successful. Extremely strong brands and fan bases. A willingness to be innovative with technology and make tradeoffs that sometimes attracts vocal critics. Without giving it too much thought, an Apple-Nintendo collaboration sounds amazing.
But I see no future where Apple and Nintendo could intimately work together — which would be the only way either company would do it — without sacrificing what makes Nintendo special.
Apple’s entire business is built around creating tightly-integrated hardware and software under their brand. When they acquire products, they’re transformed so thoroughly that they become Apple products.
Consider Apple’s acquisition history. Do any of those companies operate independently anymore? Apple acquires companies for their assets, not to utilize their brands. To have, or even appear to have, subsidiaries runs contrary to their intentions: to create a unified experience, where everything you get is Apple.
To be fair, Apple has also never acquired a company with the brand power and influence of Nintendo. Perhaps that would allow them to justify keeping the company independent. But at that point, it would no longer be in line with their vision of a unified experience — and modern-day Apple has proven to be stubbornly against any ideas that run contrary to this.
I do not think Apple would let Nintendo continue doing their own thing independently, with the Wii and the DS, and simply also start producing games for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The only solution that fits Apple’s goals of complete integration would be to melt Nintendo down into Apple, bringing in the talent to create a new Apple gaming division, developing exclusively for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and maybe whatever future iteration of Apple TV (which would likely include talent from Nintendo). Regardless of who works on what though, any new products would be Apple products, not Nintendo ones.
More conjecture: game availability would be through the App Store, with legacy games available on the devices that could comfortably adapt them. The Wii and DS would be kept on the market to allow time for transition — likely until Apple released their new box and ported a sizable number of games to the App Store — at which point all existing Nintendo products would be discontinued. In the end, the only Nintendo branding you would eventually see would be on games in the App Store — and even then, possibly only Nintendo games published before the acquisition.
Consider the possibilities of such a scenario. For Apple, it would be a big advantage against their competitors. You would be able to download and play games, including a significant back catalog, easily on iOS devices. The resulting TV product would likely be amazing. And perhaps most importantly, it would ensure a place for Nintendo’s game talent to thrive for many, many years — something that, if Nintendo does not eventually move forward, may be at risk.
I haven’t posed the above scenario to argue that it couldn’t happen. Of course it could. Maybe someday it will. And if so, I bet it would produce great products. But they would be Apple products. And that leads me to ask: does a future without Nintendo really sound good to you?
On one level, regardless of what positive results may follow, to see the acquisition and partial deconstruction of a company responsible for countless innovations in game design would be a little disheartening. It’s a purely emotional consequence, but still. It would be the closing on a big chapter in technology history.
But there’s a more pragmatic reason to oppose this scenario: the potential for competition. Let’s say, hypothetically, Nintendo bounces back and delivers a monster of a product. A tablet that competes with the iPad, or perhaps more realistically, a stellar set-top box. Whatever it may be, if Apple and Nintendo became fierce competitors, it’s very possible that each company’s resulting products would be better than if they were the same entity.
You could say that for any company, but Nintendo is unlike most technology companies. Apple currently has no rivals for the kinds of products they make. That’s not the same as having competitors — of course they compete, but Nintendo is among only a few technology companies that share Apple’s passions. If I had to pick the company who could best compete with Apple on their playing field, in a race for product quality, innovation, and user experience, it would be Nintendo.
I like this Daring Fireball excerpt following the announcement of Steve Jobs’ resignation:
Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole.
It’s an imperfect comparison, but: can you name any other technology company that comes as close to this than Nintendo?
In 1997 there was not much to go off of other than your gut that Apple could bounce back and make market-leading products. Similarly, there’s no way of knowing for sure that Nintendo could do the same. Doubtful, maybe.
But impossible? No. And the world would be a better place with a healthy Nintendo in it.
