Super Mario father Miyamoto sees an end to the hardware arms race
While Sony and Microsoft are courting buyers with increasingly powerful hardware, Nintendo is choosing a completely different path. The creator of Super Mario sees the real key to success in avoiding expensive high-end technology.
Focus on fun instead of technology
Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Super Mario and probably the most important person at Nintendo, sees a change in the consumer behavior of gamers. Although the Nintendo Switch was criticized for its comparatively weak hardware when it was released over eight years ago, it has become a success with over 150 million units sold. For the legendary developer, this proves that pure technical specifications are no longer the sole purchase criterion for end users.
Current market trends confirm the observation. While home consoles like the PlayStation or Xbox rely on maximum graphics performance, graphically simpler titles like Fortnite or Roblox often dominate the everyday lives of many users. The appeal lies in the accessibility. The ability to easily use software on existing devices is becoming increasingly important in purchasing decisions.
Efficiency in development
As Miyamoto explains in an interview with the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu (via Nintendo Everything), the company is oriented towards the ubiquity of smartphones. This constant availability is an ideal situation for the consumption of media. Nevertheless, a dedicated console offers decisive advantages for the production of video games. Since you can concentrate on a single hardware architecture, the effort for developers is significantly reduced.
For general platforms such as smartphones, countless versions and operating systems have to be supported, which greatly increases the workload. A uniform platform, on the other hand, allows the teams to react quickly and ensure a high level of freedom to play, says Miyamoto. This reduces costs and makes the entire development process much more efficient and easier to plan.
Advantages and disadvantages of the tactic
The approach has both strengths and weaknesses for the ecosystem. On the one hand, concentrating on proven, cheaper hardware ensures high profit margins and protects against exploding production costs in the area of high-performance graphics. On the other hand, the system is increasingly distinguishing itself from the computing-intensive titles that appear on the more powerful systems of the competition.
If future hardware generations like Microsoft’s planned PlayStation 6 or Project Helix continue to raise the technical bar, the gap in porting third-party games could become even greater. Nevertheless, the Japanese company seems to have found a stable niche with its focus on exclusive operating concepts.
