Microsoft has made one seemingly strange decision after another in recent years, and fans have not been kind in their criticism. The same can be said of Sony, which chose to drastically cut back on its single-player offerings in order to focus on live service games with, to put it mildly, questionable results, something that has also led to great frustration among fans.
For Nintendo, however, the situation is different. Sure, they also get flak from time-to-time and sometimes seem to mess things up and make weird choices, but fans seem generally happy. One person who understands why is former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden. During an interview with HipHopGamer (thanks, GamesRadar), he answered this way when asked what he would have done as boss of Nintendo:
"If it's not broke, don't fix it. I think Nintendo's been very intentional in what lane they play in. And I'm not being dismissive about that at all. I mean, I think they're very focused on who their fans are and what their fans want."
He went on to give a specific example of how smart Nintendo is, saying that no one has better contact with their players than Nintendo:
"No one is more in touch with their fan base than Nintendo. Even PlayStation was never this in touch with the fan base as Nintendo is. They know who their fans are. Look at it this way. During the pandemic, when we saw revenues in video gaming rising significantly because we're all locked inside and can't go out, a lot of companies hired a bunch of people because they thought this curve is: 'All numbers go up. Let's chase that number. Let's go, go, go. Throw some more gas on the fire.'"
This in turn led to huge layoffs and minor setbacks for everyone, except Nintendo. Layden concludes by praising them for their strategy and long-term thinking:
"Well, actually, Nintendo knew that would happen. So, they're like the one team that stayed just in position. They stayed on course. They had their plan. They're moving their plan. So they didn't have to suffer the peaks and valleys so much as if you're chasing the opportunity. They just know what their opportunity is. They see it. They understand it better than anyone else. And they go for it and they do it really well."
In short, Layden thinks Nintendo is already doing an excellent job, and he concludes by saying that if he got the job as Nintendo CEO, he would just "stand back". An honest response that does make a whole lot of sense, or do you have ideas on how to boost Nintendo's results even further?