Nintendo GOing Forward.
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He's been with Nintendo for 17 years and he's been credited in quite a number of Nintendo games so he definitely knows a thing or two about making games.
Regardless, the CEO doesn't have to know a lot about technology or how to make games, he needs to know the market, the trends and set the best possible course for the company.
Iwata may have been a spectacular technician, gamer, software developer, etc. but he obviously wasn't able to set Nintendo into its best path after the Wii was launched.
Regardless, the CEO doesn't have to know a lot about technology or how to make games, he needs to know the market, the trends and set the best possible course for the company.
Iwata may have been a spectacular technician, gamer, software developer, etc. but he obviously wasn't able to set Nintendo into its best path after the Wii was launched.
IMO a good leader is generally better off not knowing the jobs of the people he leads, but knows how to listen to them and make smart choices. Putting an engineer or gamer in charge might clash with the visions of the engineers and developers they are leading. Putting a smart suit in charge should mean funnelling investment into those who can make the most of it. Rarely can you have a leader with a vision who can direct the company while not screwing it up, and it's unrealistic to hope for one.
The problem with suits typically is they have a dull PR front.
The problem with suits typically is they have a dull PR front.
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How do you know what the smart choice is when you have two people giving you different and opposing advice? What generally happens in situations like this is that personalities prevail rather than rationale and evidence.
Government is now heavily driven by evidence-based decision making but this requires the decision maker to understand the evidence. I inherited my post from my non-technical predecessor and it was a mess because he couldn't understand that he was making bad decisions.
Yeah, if you don't understand game development, or what makes a good game good, how can you make good decisions and steer the company in a favorable direction? Just being good with money isn't enough in a company that makes its business from high creativity subject matter.
The quality of their arguments and evidence supporting them.
A leader swayed by personalities rather than clear evidence would be a bad leader.
In game development, the data would be observations of the industry, developer history, sensible projections, market research, emotional energy and conviction from the creators. You don't need to know how to make a game or tell a story or what a good use of waggle control is to lead a publishing house. To the contrary, a leader who say was a big fan of waggle when he was a developer could very well steer the company according to his passion even if the market isn't there for it. There may be a Nintendo engineer eager to engage in VR, who would steer the company that way if put in charge, yet what if VR is a dead end? Someone without any passion for VR can look at it more objectively, observe the current trends, investigate the potential flaws, far more objectively.
Putting it another way, how many of us know of middle/senior managers who rose from the ranks of engineer and found their engineering skills weren't any use whatsoever in managing projects and people? Being able to code in C++ and write game engines doesn't equip you manage budgets and select the most viable products. See Ken Kutaragi...
Ideally a person would be both intelligent and experienced in the field, but it's more important they have leadship skills than grass-roots development or game design skills.
Let the people who are good at designing games make the design choices, and base the funding choices on their track record and vision.
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How do you assess the quality of their arguments and evidence when you do not understand them?
Non technical people rarely do well when put in charge of tech companies. I struggle to think of any successful tech company run by a non-technical person and the nearest I can come up with is Tim Cool but he served at IBM and Apple so had the opportunity to learn the business before having to run a business.
It depends what you mean by 'know the business'. Experience in the games (or other creative) industry managing projects isn't the same thing as experience as a game designer or developer. Clearly a guy who doesn't understand what his people are telling him would probably be useless, but I hope it's pretty implicit that my idea of a capable leader needs to have enough knowledge of the business he's in to understand the advice he's being given. Tatsumi Kimishimi may not know how to design a fun game or what hardware design will be fun or how to write a simple pixel shader or be able to draw some concept character art, but he shouldn't be dismissed as 'a banker' when he's been in the business for some time. He's also been given two expert deputies...
Yes, that would seem self-evident, and works when it comes to things like just making games. But Nintendo is not just a software maker/publisher, they're also a hardware manufacturer. Deciding what hardware with what capabilities to make and when to release it is crucial for future success, but obviously, you can't just look at past successes (or as the case may be, non-successes). You must also know what this is all about. And what about setting policy dealing with 3rd parties? How to tackle multiplayer and social networking, "friends-features", and things of that nature?
Sure, a CEO could do like with games development; listen to all his advisers and other employees and then try to render a decision, but what function does he really serve then? He adds no value of his own, the rest of the company could just sit down at a table and work everything out without him. As an ignorant fifth wheel, he's entirely redundant and ought to be eliminated!
Making a decision when the two opposing sides of the discussion table can't come to consensus. Hearing the arguments for a more powerful console and a later release, and the arguments for a less powerful more mobile platform, and the arguments for VR, and the arguments to try waggle again, and making the choice having given all those options a fair and unbiased consideration while the proponents of those ideas argue among themselves, each believing their idea that they're personally invested in is the best.
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Turns out Kimishima is a placeholder for one year, according to an interview from Nikkei:
http://nichegamer.com/2015/09/ninte...-year-not-against-outsiders-leading-nintendo/
Also, Nintendo seems to be looking for someone younger, he isn't against the company being run by a foreigner and he wasn't very fond of the Wii U from the start ("too similar to the Wii").
http://nichegamer.com/2015/09/ninte...-year-not-against-outsiders-leading-nintendo/
Also, Nintendo seems to be looking for someone younger, he isn't against the company being run by a foreigner and he wasn't very fond of the Wii U from the start ("too similar to the Wii").
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You may as well buy a coin. Grail nails it. The guy at the top has to have some valued input in the core business and to do that they have to understand it fundamentally.
tongue_of_colicab
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No Shifty is very much correct.
A CEO needs to be a leader, not necessarily an engineer. Nintendo has hundreds if not thousands of engineers, artists and programmers working for them. The guy at the top doesn’t need to have those skills. He does need to know how to run a business, evaluate information and make decisions based on them etc. Pretty much everything Shifty said.
For example (because we all love car analogies) take Luca Di Montezemelo, the ex boss of Ferrari and the Ferrari F1 team. He pulled the Ferrari road car division out of the red and turned the F1 team around into winning its first constructor and WDC championships is something like 20 years which eventually evolved into the very successful Schumacher are.
Di Montezemelo has no engineer skills whatsoever as he studied law and international business (he did some racing as well) yet he transformed the F1 team into a championship winning outfit for the first time in decades.
Why? Because he put the right people in the right place and made the right decisions.
Having somebody with a background in game development run the company can be just as big or even a bigger pitfall than having somebody without any real technical skills (but still a background in the industry) make the decisions. Like Shifty said, a engineer turning CEO could very well suffer from clouded judgment because he might think he is right because afteral he used to be a programmer/engineer.
A CEO needs to be a leader, not necessarily an engineer. Nintendo has hundreds if not thousands of engineers, artists and programmers working for them. The guy at the top doesn’t need to have those skills. He does need to know how to run a business, evaluate information and make decisions based on them etc. Pretty much everything Shifty said.
For example (because we all love car analogies) take Luca Di Montezemelo, the ex boss of Ferrari and the Ferrari F1 team. He pulled the Ferrari road car division out of the red and turned the F1 team around into winning its first constructor and WDC championships is something like 20 years which eventually evolved into the very successful Schumacher are.
Di Montezemelo has no engineer skills whatsoever as he studied law and international business (he did some racing as well) yet he transformed the F1 team into a championship winning outfit for the first time in decades.
Why? Because he put the right people in the right place and made the right decisions.
Having somebody with a background in game development run the company can be just as big or even a bigger pitfall than having somebody without any real technical skills (but still a background in the industry) make the decisions. Like Shifty said, a engineer turning CEO could very well suffer from clouded judgment because he might think he is right because afteral he used to be a programmer/engineer.
A good director is someone who can do the work of any of his subordinates to me.
He doesn't need in depth knowledge though, but with first hand experience he'll be able to tell the right from the wrong and appoint the most appropriate people in key positions.
It's not obvious Nintendo new CEO fits that description.
He doesn't need in depth knowledge though, but with first hand experience he'll be able to tell the right from the wrong and appoint the most appropriate people in key positions.
It's not obvious Nintendo new CEO fits that description.
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I agree with that for a team leader or a head of department.
You can't expect Nintendo's CEO to be able to do the jobs of each one of the 5000 employees.
Yet, if you don't really know the gaming industry or where it is going, you're just a hen randomly pecking at one option or the other. You don't know for sure which alternative would be best for your company, so you're really no damn good even for this purpose after all...
He doesn't need to know the precise menutiae of each and every department of the company. His (her) job isn't to run the entire company through micro-management. HOWEVER! You do need enough insight into the business to make correct strategic decisions. This is where Yamauchi failed; he only knew that which had served him well in the past, but when times changed (and thus, the gaming industry business with it), he was out of touch, and too big-headed to realize it. He alienated third-parties, sending them largely packing straight into the welcoming arms of Sony, stuck with tiny expensive cartridges and made other fatal mistakes.
This is what happens when you don't really know what you're doing.
Untrue, unless the guy's an idiot incapable of learning new things and following sane arguments. You can make informed decisions without being an expert, and certainly don't need grass-roots experience in a field to have a valid opinion. Ask anyone what their views on politics or healthcare or education or foreign policy or religion are, and then ask what experience they have as doctors, county councillors, teachers, diplomats and priests...
Why would a guy with 20 years experience making games on hardware someone else has designed be better at handling 3rd party relations and choosing a hardware platform future and forming partnerships and securing funding and managing the workforce and looking at franchising opportunities and schmoozing with the shareholders etc., then a guy with 20 years experience doing just that at other companies in other markets?
Note I'm not saying someone without experience is better than someone with. I'm saying experience in the industry doesn't innately make a candidate better suited for a role. The qualities needed for effective leadership without trusting too much to chance require the decision maker to not be overly invested in a course of action because it's their personal interest. The ideal candidate will have leadership abilities and industry experience/insight, but typically engineers and designers have different view and approaches to businessfolk and aren't intrinsically suited to the jobs. It's something they'd have to learn, while the suit would have to learn the ins and outs of the industry.
