[felipc]

Has Nintendo ever talked about how they do software development? Can we all drop the thousands of books that have been written about software engineering in general and just figure out what they do?

Game aside, the reviews have been pointing out how the game performs well (after day 1 patch) and is not pestered with bugs, which is an impressive feat for such an open world game where most things are able to interact with everything else.

[Server6]

It 100% has to do with retention of key talent and knowledge transfer. It seems the model for most western studios is to make one or two big successful games, then layoff all the staff and/or be acquired by EA/Activision/Microsoft. Then their next games flounder as they're milked dry. Western companies are only worried about the next quarter and treat talent as a bottom line expense.

[Matthias247]

I guess it's not only about what the studios do. Japanese also have a different kind of loyalty from employees which rarely ever change change. It's probably 20 years of average tenure, compared to 2 years in the US. And that's not because these companies pay so much more: They probably pay less for their most experienced stuff than what an employee with 2 years of experience gets in the US. It's just a different culture.

[PurpleRamen]

There is no big secret to this. They just don't go all out. They don't take big risks. They just see what works elsewhere and polish it until it shines brighter than everything else. And they only add (or take away?) until they have the necessary minimum of gameplay. For example, Zelda BotW is by far not the best survival or crafting-game which was around at release, but it was the most pleasant experience for casual gamers and Zelda-fans, because it left out all the unimportant grind which is not relevant for a Zelda-Game.

Notable in that regard: Apple did the same under Steve Jobs. Focus on the important part, and don't play around.

[flatiron]

Personally I think BOTW wasn’t “seeing what works everywhere else and polishing it” it really felt like a new game nobody had ever done before.

[urthor]

Most good things in life are like this.

Execution. Not originality.

[tjpnz]

I would put a lot of it down to Japanese craftsmanship coupled with relatively experienced engineers (average age in their Kyoto office is 40 IIRC). Their selection process is notoriously rigorous too and goes far beyond the usual LeetCode questions you'd get at a FAANG company.

[SkeuomorphicBee]

> coupled with relatively experienced engineers

I disagree. Nintendo has good engineers but so does many of the other studios. For me what sets Nintendo apart is not their code or technology, but their game design and game direction. The way they seem to craft their game-play and game mechanics to have everything it needs but nothing more, and then couple it with the perfect match for game aesthetics with unmatched consistency.

[haunter]

> I would put a lot of it down to Japanese craftsmanship

This is such an orientalist and borderline racist view it’s crazy. If it were true then it would also imply the other japanese game devs also affected by it. There countless bad games from Japan, don’t even have to walk far from Nintendo just look at the Pokémon games and how GameFreak release them with 0 optimization. And then the countless misses from Square Enix, Bandai Namco etc.

[vincvinc]

In 2017, Breath of The Wild developers shared a lot of details of the process at the game dev conference CEDEC.

Nintendo made blogs take down the pictures of the slides afterwards, but here is a good summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzcVs8tNfE

[JenBarb]

Sakurai (creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series) has been running a youtube channel about his game design/development philosophies.

https://www.youtube.com/@sora_sakurai_en

[luisgvv]

I second everyone to watch this channel, his insights on game design are deep and goes through detail explaining what is a good gaming experience

[nscalf]

It might be worth listening to the Acquired podcast episode on Nintendo. They are very far from perfect, and have had a good number of serious failures, along with some very strange decisions that clearly hurt them. Nintendo has a die hard stance on modding that is definitely net negative. Just a few weeks ago they went after some giant Twitch streamers for playing modded content. They also consistently ship technology that is generations behind.

One big thing they pointed out is the type of gaming they target. While the Playstation and Xbox general aim for very serious, high "skill" players, Nintendo often launches just above the seriousness and skill level of mobile gamers. It's easy for me to sit down with my extended family and play Mario Party or Mario Kart, but they'd hate me if I had them play Elden Ring. They also are strongly against much of the free to play content.

I left that episode questioning how much of Nintendo's recent success is due to them outcompeting versus the competition making a series of unforced errors.

[iamwil]

Yes, it's rare, but they have.

Game maker's toolkit has one on how they solved their open world problem for BotW:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzcVs8tNfE

And at GDC, they talked about their Chemistry engine for BotW:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMsF31NdNc&t=2354s

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk5swSyJ5zQ

Game historian has some tidbits of how they made certain design decisions for their successful games

Mario Kart:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHZKYETDyU

Super Mario World:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2bTQK6vbKI

Super Mario Bro 3:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxT6IwUtLSU

GMT, Snowman, and Extra credit does analysis of how Nintendo designs their Mario levels.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmIkEvEBtA

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KVEjhT4wQ

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwj3On5o58U

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fI9pfDf60g

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE

Generally, it follows the ramp up and down of the Hero's journey in storytelling.

1. Introduce a new mechanic in a safe area where it's impossible to die.

2. Increase the challenge with the mechanic by adding variations

3. Ramp up challenge even more by combining with previously learned mechanic

4. Have periods of rest inbetween the challenges.

[peanuty1]

I think they have a couple advantages: 1) Zelda on Switch has very basic graphics compared to modern AAA titles on other consoles and only a 30 fps framerate. 2) The last Zelda game came out in 2017 so they've had tons of time.

[tompagenet2]

I know people say this, and of course the art style is stylised. But playing it last night and watching the day-night cycle, the grass moving around on the first sky island, the physics simulation as I dropped my clumsily-made creations and I thought it was pretty impressive. I do think it's a wonder this runs on a low power tablet computer from 2017 but if I open up Teams on a brand new machine it can be a laggy mess. I do think we have lost track of how much computing power we have and how poorly it is used.

[BiteCode_dev]

It would be like figuring out what Steve Job, Usain Bolt, or Killian Jornet do. It would be interesting and helpful, but you will not be able to replicate it by following a recipe.

Being exceptional is, by definition, exceptional.

[HellDunkel]

I have tried to figure this out myself and found two facts that stood out: 1. On BOTW game designers did not allow polishing within two thirds of the game dev process 2. The executives do a lot of play testing.

To implement both at the same time is quite something if you ask me.

[pjmlp]

Easy, with proper algorithms and data structures thinking about a single kind of hardware, instead of developing on a octacore with 32 GB and SSD with a RTX GPU and then expecting everyone else has the same setup.

Basically by doing development like we used to do in the 8 and 16 bit home computer days.

[gowld]

Zelda is great because it doesn't rely "software development". It uses game design and art.