This headline in particular, holding up Nintendo as an idyllic model to be followed, is going to also rile up people with an axe to grind. A brief mention of their litigiousness at the end of the article isn’t really going to make up for it.
It’s hard to dispute that Nintendo is the only big player with a healthy business model. Their games are mostly fun, original and free of in-app purchases. They keep churning those games out at the time when everyone else is in a slump. Their litigious behavior is shameful but in other areas they are that idyllic model.
They also lock their games down to dated hardware, with laughable solutions for things like voice chat, that we can emulate better than they provide legally, and they’re now just about the only company who won’t steer into the skid and release their current library and back catalog on PC. They intend to only make their back catalog available by renting it to you in perpetuity, eroding the concept of ownership just like the live service games that the article praises them for not following. Their business model is healthy because they have IPs that sell gangbusters on brand recognition, like Pokemon, even when the quality objectively slips, and that’s neither admirable nor replicable.
No, they’re not an idyllic model to follow.
Nintendo business model, like any other, is a product of trade-offs. They sell hardware without subsidies. That hardware is outdated so it’s vulnerable to emulation and piracy which is why they are so intent on fighting it. Since they don’t need to make up for selling hardware at loss and don’t get into expensive development they have to compete on quality and fun. They seem to be doing very well on that front - you’re so sour about about how Nintendo is making it hard to get their old games but that’s because those games are still worth playing.
As to Pokémon, it’s not a very good example. Pokémon Company is 32% owned by Nintendo which could be argued is the reason that their games are so bad. Nintendo very rarely does sequels that don’t offer anything of considerable novelty. They’d probably be openly pissed at Pokémon Company for damaging Nintendo brand if it didn’t rake in so much money.
While it annoys us, they have always primarily served Japanese market and those guys seem to be enjoying limited drops and stuff like that. We need better laws on game preservation because public companies exist to maximize value and can’t be expected to do charity.
