Sony, Nintendo and Paradigm Shifts

Both of the major console game makers from Japan have fallen on hard times, with Nintendo and Sony both losing gobs of money for various reasons. Sony is a complex network of companies, some of which are doing fine — the company’s finance, life insurance and high-end make-up brands, for example — while others are bleeding capital, like their PCs and televisions. Nintendo’s problems are more straightforward, with the unpopularity of the Wii U platform and lack of support from Western game companies causing the company to swing into the red even as a new generation of fans is raised on smartphones and tablets with no Mario or Zelda games to play. The history of business is marked by periodic paradigm shifts which come every few years, like the switch from DOS to mouse-based computer OSes, or the change from mechanical hard drives to SSDs that we’re going through right now, and companies that aren’t able to adapt to these changes usually fall on hard times. Sadly, Japanese companies like Sony and Nintendo and (in the past) Nissan and JAL are among the most conservative and resistant to change, always trying to stick with old business models even as the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung steal their lunch money. One thing Sony has done right is embracing the rise of “otaku gaming” on their region-free game platforms (PS Vita, PS3, and now PS4), and as a result, J-List can offer dozens of outstanding anime games to fans all over the world. Some of them even have pantsu.

Some difficult times for Sony and Nintendo.