NEW INTERVIEW: Former Chairman of Sony Entertainment on Nintendo's Everlasting Intellectual Property

'Mario is probably impervious to extinction'

$NTDOY

https://t.co/MI0mMmSDsf

Nintendo has 100 years of experience in gaming.

'They are the masters in this field'
'As a platform holder, our job is to create a wider audience, continually.'
'I think Nintendo really understands the game design maxims for a handheld platform and then how to leverage their very powerful IP vault in that medium.'
It seems Fortnite and Roblox is additive to the industry and not exactly zero-sum vs AAA games?
Parallels between gaming and film IP

'because gaming is so tied to technology (which) has to keep moving forward in order to bring more immersive experiences, previous generation games are not compatible with the new technology'
'If you talk about the IP power of gaming, it’s true, but it has these breaks in the cycle, where entire franchises can disappear, because you can’t access them anymore''
The faster technology moves, the greater the challenge in sustaining the value of the IP

'Given their history, I think it would be very difficult for Nintendo to do a bad iteration of Mario'

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Ok, I’ve told this story a few times, but maybe never here. Here we go. 🧵👇


I was about 6. I was in the car with my mother. We were driving a few hours from home to go to Orlando. My parents were letting me audition for a tv show. It would end up being my first job. I was very excited. But, in the meantime we drove and listened to Rush’s show.

There was some sort of trivia question they posed to the audience. I don’t remember what the riddle was, but I remember I knew the answer right away. It was phrased in this way that was somehow just simpler to see from a kid’s perspective. The answer was CAROUSEL. I was elated.

My mother was THRILLED. She insisted that we call Into the show using her “for emergencies only” giant cell phone. It was this phone:


I called in. The phone rang for a while, but someone answered. It was an impatient-sounding dude. The screener. I said I had the trivia answer. He wasn’t charmed, I could hear him rolling his eyes. He asked me what it was. I told him. “Please hold.”

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