Will Nintendo have a "post-Walt" problem?

[Ashley]

When Walt Disney passed away at the end of 1966 it led to a decade of Disney "finding itself" again (with varying success) as it relied so much on Walt's vision up until that point.

Now Nintendo is not exactly the same as its less singularly-focused but I was thinking recently that at some point soonish they will find themselves without some long-term key staff like Miyamoto, Tezuka, Aonuma, Kondo and more (Miyamoto was born in the 50s, the rest the 60s so they're all near standard retirement age).

Obviously Nintendo has dealt with loss before such as Iwata and Yokoi (and of course staff just leaving) so I'm not saying "once they go they're doomed", but many of the people I listed have been with Nintendo nearly as long as the company has been making video games. We've seen in recent years attempts to give their younger staff such as Sakaguchi and Amano a chance and obviously this part of a long-term strategy I'm sure, but can they ever really replace Miyamoto and the likes in the same way, both as employees and brand spokespeople? 

I can see it going one of two ways personally; they either get more experimental in an attempt to define some new voices or more cautious trying to second guess "what they would have done" and for a while churn out safe projects. 

Trying not to be morbid here of course, let's just say they all go off to a happy retirement! 

[Glen-i]

I mean, aren't we kinda seeing your second way of safe content after Iwata already?

When was the last time we had a Nintendo Direct transition that consisted entirely of someone just contemplating a bunch of bananas?

Edited June 30, 2021 by Glen-i

[darksnowman]

As far as I understand they have been planning ahead for this by already giving the young guns more creative control. I think Breath of the Wild, for example, is such a departure because the fuddyduddies took a backseat? 

So maybe there will be a lull when the time comes but it should be reasonably smooth. Then they will bust out F-Zero and we'll all rejoice the passing of the torch and forget for day or two that Nintendo are doomed.

The end will be nigh when Bill Trinen goes though. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by darksnowman

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, darksnowman said:

So maybe there will be a lull when the time comes but it should be reasonably smooth. Then they will bust out F-Zero and we'll all rejoice the passing of the torch and forget for day or two that Nintendo are doomed.

If anything, sending out constant sale flop F-Zero would only fuel that narrative!

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I mean, aren't we kinda seeing your second way of safe content after Iwata already?

When was the last time we had a Nintendo Direct transition that consisted entirely of someone just contemplating a bunch of bananas?

I was talking about their videogame output not their videos 😋

[darksnowman]

39 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

If anything, sending out constant sale flop F-Zero would only fuel that narrative!

Will a Starfy Game & Watch help soften the blow?

3 minutes ago, Ashley said:

I was talking about their videogame output not their videos 😋

With all the Wii U porting going on at the moment, do you think they are wringing out every idea they can get from Miyamoto and co so they have a backlog to draw on in future? 

[Ashley]

23 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Will a Starfy Game & Watch help soften the blow?

With all the Wii U porting going on at the moment, do you think they are wringing out every idea they can get from Miyamoto and co so they have a backlog to draw on in future? 

Just have this image of him being told "you sit in this room and write down all your ideas!"

But yeah it is possible they are asking those sorts to plan more long-term, but then how 'good' is a creative project if you're just following someone else's vision? 

[Ronnie]

I'm sure there's a succession plan in place. Koizumi seems to have a lot more creative control these days and he's 15 years younger than Miyamoto.

There's also a lot of voices at Nintendo, they certainly don't seem reliant on one man like Disney were.

Splatoon was made by a younger development team and look how that turned out. Not just in terms of success but also quirkiness and originality..

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Ronnie

[Ashley]

Just now, Ronnie said:

I'm sure there's a succession plan in place. Koizumi seems to have a lot more creative control these days and he's 15 years younger than Miyamoto.

Also Splatoon was made by a younger development team and look how that turned out. Not just in terms of success but also quirkiness and originality..

 

Oh yeah they are definitely planning for it, but you know what they say about making God laugh.

Splatoon is a good example, but in my mind a rarity at the moment. Hopefully the tip of the iceberg. 

[Sheikah]

It might well have a positive effect. It could bring Nintendo into the 21st century!

[Julius]

6 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

It might well have a positive effect. It could bring Nintendo into the 21st century!

Super Mario Bros. 4K Pixel Remaster incoming 

[Ashley]

5 minutes ago, Julius said:

Super Mario Bros. 4K Pixel Remaster incoming 

With Voice Chat and Funky Kong Mode

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, Julius said:

Super Mario Bros. 4K Pixel Remaster incoming 

"Director's Cut"

Broken and buggy at release with procedural generation and a battle pass

Edited June 30, 2021 by Ronnie

[Dcubed]

Nintendo are already in a “Post-Walt” period and have been for the past 15 odd years.

Nintendo recognised early on that they would need to pass the torch onto younger staff well before the likes of Miyamoto retired.  We saw the beginnings of this as early as 1999, when Miyamoto handed over the reigns of the Zelda series to Eiji Aonuma.  Now Aonuma himself has handed over the reigns of Zelda to Fujibayashi.

Meanwhile, Takashi Tezuka gave up his direct directorial role at EAD/EPD to instead work on mentoring external Japanese and western partner studios.  Their own prodige have themselves now taken on more overseer roles, including Hideki Konno (who is currently leading the mobile division) and Katsuya Eguchi (who now leads on hardware).

It’s not just the big time designers/producers either; look at the likes of Koji Kondo and Kenji Yamamoto.  Nintendo’s two oldest music composers, who gave up control to mentor younger composers into taking over.

Nintendo’s Old Guard aren’t really directly involved in game development anymore.  They now work in overseer roles where they help promote the company and train up younger staff.

Unlike most of the other major publishers and developers, training up younger apprentices to take over from their masters is something Nintendo have always been especially good at doing.  While the likes of S-E have bled almost all of their old talent and have failed to maintain their way of game making that made them who they were (fun fact, many of them were absorbed by Nintendo themselves!); we’re several generations removed from the classic Old Guard at Nintendo now and they haven’t skipped a beat!

And even then, Nintendo has never subscribed to the Auteur model of creation anyway (outside of Masahiro Sakurai… who has technically never been a Nintendo employee).  They’re a well oiled machine that has done a fantastic job of training up younger generations of staff to take on the “Nintendo Way” of game design.  And I don’t see that changing any time soon  

[darksnowman]

6 hours ago, Ashley said:

But yeah it is possible they are asking those sorts to plan more long-term, but then how 'good' is a creative project if you're just following someone else's vision? 

They probably stalk him and have dossiers stored away with the Zelda timeline on all his hobbies and interests, for the time when he's not around and they ask themselves "what would Shigeru do?"  

They did okay letting Miyamoto have at it with Popeye/ Donkey Kong, Mario and Zelda, sort of like everyone going along with Walt's vision...? I think they pressed ahead with work left by Iwata so it wouldn't be unheard of in that way.

I think I read something about Nintendo having a high rate of employee retention so they are probably all well indoctrinated and pulling in the same direction. 

6 hours ago, Ashley said:

Oh yeah they are definitely planning for it, but you know what they say about making God laugh.

He opens a window?

5 hours ago, Sheikah said:

It might well have a positive effect. It could bring Nintendo into the 21st century!

If there's money to be printed, they'll come.

5 hours ago, Ashley said:

With Voice Chat and Funky Kong Mode

And Devil May Cry.

I think @Dcubed c+p'd his response from an N-E Wikipedia quote.  

[Ashley]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

Nintendo recognised early on that they would need to pass the torch onto younger staff well before the likes of Miyamoto retired.  We saw the beginnings of this as early as 1999, when Miyamoto handed over the reigns of the Zelda series to Eiji Aonuma.  Now Aonuma himself has handed over the reigns of Zelda to Fujibayashi.

I'd argue that was more from a practical perspective that one person didn't have the capacity to oversee so many franchises, particularly with development getting more time-consuming. The end result is the same, but Miyamoto would have been in his 40s then so I doubt it was as much about his retirement. 

As for the other points, I guess I was more thinking about how they're still reliant upon the older guard for their ideas, feedback, signoff etc and whether there's strong enough voices in house to do that going forward but it could very well be we just don't know who they are as they're not as public facing. 

The more I think about it the more I feel Nintendo is more like Pixar who started with a relatively small strong voice (Lasseter creatively and support from Jobs and Catmul) but over time have build up a bigger group of "old guard" people. They struggled a bit when Lasseter went onto looking after Disney too but have done okay in spite of that (and with him now being booted out).

[darksnowman]

11 hours ago, Ashley said:

The end result is the same

Haha, absolutely. Looking at Aonuma and Zelda, the end result has been the same...! Ocarina of Time in a boat, Ocarina of Time with wolf transformation instead of young/old Link, Ocarina of Time with motion+...

11 hours ago, Ashley said:

The more I think about it the more I feel Nintendo is more like Pixar who started with a relatively small strong voice (Lasseter creatively and support from Jobs and Catmul) but over time have build up a bigger group of "old guard" people. They struggled a bit when Lasseter went onto looking after Disney too but have done okay in spite of that (and with him now being booted out).

I see you are trying hard to make this comparison work.  From what I know though and correct me if I'm wrong, Pixar's films are borne from one person getting their childhood trauma greenlit for animation. Like @Dcubed said, Nintendo don't really go the auteur route (or if they do they keep it quiet to make sure the glory is shared) so other than their output being fun and enjoyable for young and old, it's hard to draw any deeper parallels with Pixar.
 

Though having said that, there was the Earthbound guy, and don't they wheel out the same person for Animal Crossing, and isn't all Pokémon hatred directed at one guy? So I guess they do have games where you can think of one person being in charge. Probably even more than these three that just came to me.

Edited July 1, 2021 by darksnowman

[Ashley]

I meant the end result of someone else looking after the franchise being the same whether that's through retirement or "you've got too much on" 😋

And with the Pixar thing I wasn't talking about auteurs at all, just simply they have a wider range of creatives in control of projects (Docter, Unkrich, Stanton) rather than everything filtering through one person like it largely did at Disney with Walt, thus they are in a better position. And I was saying Pixar started with one person and branched out, not Nintendo. Yeah with Pixar films you can feel the director's voice better than you can with most Nintendo games.

Y'all need to read Creativity Inc. It's actually a good companion to Ask Iwata.

[darksnowman]

33 minutes ago, Ashley said:

And with the Pixar thing I wasn't talking about auteurs at all, just simply they have a wider range of creatives in control of projects (Docter, Unkrich, Stanton) rather than everything filtering through one person like it largely did at Disney with Walt, thus they are in a better position. And I was saying Pixar started with one person and branched out, not Nintendo.

I thought we said Nintendo have done that too? Gone are the simple days of games coming from "one person" to where they are now, due to modern expectations of what a game is and the personnel needed to make them on the latest technology. That's similar to going from Steamboat Willy to where Disney are nowadays too with CGI production.

37 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Y'all need to read Creativity Inc. It's actually a good companion to Ask Iwata.

 Is that the book from 5+ years ago? Aye, it's decent and popular among budding animators. There are also some making-of documentaries out there on Pixar's more recent things (and older, of course) where you can get an idea of their process of the seed coming from someone, being brainstormed, and coming to fruition as a film that keeps that individual vision while being embellished upon by the underlings who worked on it along the way.

[Ashley]

1 hour ago, darksnowman said:

I thought we said Nintendo have done that too? Gone are the simple days of games coming from "one person" to where they are now, due to modern expectations of what a game is and the personnel needed to make them on the latest technology. That's similar to going from Steamboat Willy to where Disney are nowadays too with CGI production.

 Is that the book from 5+ years ago? Aye, it's decent and popular among budding animators. There are also some making-of documentaries out there on Pixar's more recent things (and older, of course) where you can get an idea of their process of the seed coming from someone, being brainstormed, and coming to fruition as a film that keeps that individual vision while being embellished upon by the underlings who worked on it along the way.

Yeah we're agreeing...I was just pointing out the comparison I was making wasn't "Nintendo is auteur-focused like Pixar" but rather "Pixar and Nintendo both have a range of creative voices that teams are built around".

Yeah it is. I'd recommend it for more than just animators as its a great book about running a business in the creative sector. From what I recall there's very little about animation itself.

[WackerJr]

It does sound as though they are thankfully training up and giving opportunities and experience to staff (see BotW, Mario Maker, etc).

It feels as though Nintendo do seem to have fewer internal development teams, although I’m sure someone knows for sure?

There seem to be more remakes or updating previous games than larger new titles. I wonder if this is part of the development plan for staff?