Is Nintendo really the right model for Japan’s economic growth to follow?

During recent economic talks in Japan, a Diet member asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his economic growth strategy. If you are familiar with the economic state of Japan right now you probably understand that the nation is in definite need of reform and the prime minister is has laid out his three arrow plan in the form of Abenomics. The first two arrows, weakening the yen and revving up fiscal stimulus, have already begun, but the third arrow, structural reform, is the one the public is questioning.

So what kind of structural reform are we looking at? As far as the prime minister is concerned we need look no further than the model of Nintendo.

Look at the company Nintendo. They made Hanafuda cards. My grandmother would often play with these cards, but the number of people who played with Hanafuda quickly decreased. Nintendo then made different playing cards, but I don’t believe that they were able to save the company simply by making these cards. They then developed a video game console and at the same time were able to protect the traditional hanafuda cards. I believe we should learn from this point.

Although it is true that Japan can certainly learn from the Nintendo of old, I wonder if the current Nintendo is all that good of a model to follow. Nintendo of old was ready to make drastic changes to keep up with the evolving times and went from playing cards to video games to save the company. The current Nintendo is no longer willing to make such changes and was even reluctant to explore online play.

Perhaps it’s not just Japan, but also Nintendo that should model itself after Nintendo.

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