Nintendo’s secret to becoming a design powerhouse? Developers who have stayed with the company for decades

“It’s almost impossible for any working-age developer to grow up without at least some influence from Nintendo,” says Keza MacDonald, author of the forthcoming book. Super Nintendo: The company that changed the rules of the game and unleashed the power of gaming, Based on years of reporting on the company as a games journalist. “Still, to this day, he makes games differently than anyone else.”

In fact, Nintendo has largely avoided the graphical arms race that confounded its hardware and software competitors, focusing instead on what Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi affectionately called “withering technology”: using established technology and focusing on making something fun instead. This strategy has also allowed Nintendo to avoid the high costs and constant retraining that hinder its competitors.

Courtesy of Penguin Random House

The Japanese game developer embraced “the principle of finding a fun way to design things that aren’t necessarily at the cutting edge of technology,” explains MacDonald, who currently writes about games for The Guardian. “This has been part of Nintendo’s philosophy since they were making video games.”

The Japanese company takes what MacDonald considers a “slightly conservative” approach, ensuring it maintains healthy profit margins and builds significant cash reserves. “Nintendo always operates with the understanding that their next product may not be a huge success,” she says.

Nintendo has released the Switch 2 The latest video game consoleearlier this year. While some commentators felt Nintendo’s latest version was more powerful (and more expensive) than the last one, gamers seem to have flocked to the new hardware. The company now expects to sell 19 million Switch 2 units by March 2026, the end of its fiscal year. The company reported revenues of 1.1 trillion yen ($7 billion) between March and September, more than double what it achieved in the same period last year. It also achieved profits of 199 billion yen ($1.3 billion), an increase of 83%. Shares are up 46% for 2025 so far.

Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a company that made playing cards, and eventually moved into the gaming industry in the 1960s. She turned to video games in the 1970s, and achieved her first success with donkey kong, It was developed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who eventually designed beloved franchises such as Super Mario and Legend of Zelda.

The gaming industry is notoriously fickle: studios expand and contract according to changing demand. About 10% of developers reported being laid off from their jobs last year, and more than 40% said they felt the effects of layoffs, according to a survey by Game Developers Conference. “What that does is it robs companies of not only knowledge, but also the security that helps people do their best work,” MacDonald says.

Nintendo, on the other hand, avoided this boom-and-bust cycle. The company revealed earlier this year that its employees based in Japan had done so Average duration is 15 years.

“The people who first made Nintendo hits are still working at the company,” MacDonald says.. “For the past 50 years, these people have been passing on knowledge and training a new generation of Nintendo creators.”

She adds that the company also rejects hierarchy when it comes to design. “It’s not like the older guy decides what’s a good idea and what’s not a good idea. Everyone comes up with ideas.”

Not all Nintendo experiments are successful. Take the company’s Wii U console, which was released in 2012. Unlike its predecessor, the hugely successful Wii, the Wii U was a flop, selling barely 14 million units. However, Nintendo took some design lessons from that failure and channeled them into the Nintendo Switch – which, with 154 million units sold, is close to being the best-selling console of all time.

This is just one of the things MacDonald believes other companies — not just those in the gaming industry — can learn from Nintendo.

“A failed idea is often a stepping stone to your next success.”