I had a random thought about why Nintendo and Apple are both successful for a similar reason. Namely, that reason is a focus on user interface. Both companies have a strong focus on UI, although they don’t necessarily share the same UI philosophies.
There’s also a reason why both Nintendo and Apple started becoming very successful from 2005 onwards. I think that reason is because technology reached an inflection point where the average consumer could no longer differentiate between the raw power of hardware products between products made one year versus the next. If users can no longer intuitively tell the difference between technology products through general use, then specs become relatively less important. Instead, user experience derived through a user interface begins to carry more weight. If you are a company that spends resources towards thinking about UI, the benefits grow exponentially as the relative advantages of raw processing power become less noticeable.
Sony has historically favored raw technological superiority as their calling. This served them well in the 80s and 90s when strong raw tech specs had easily discernible advantages to consumers. The same goes for Microsoft based PCs which were stronger and cheaper than Apple computers for the same price points. However as technology reaches a point where processing power differences between different companies reduce, so to does the relative importance. If everyone’s computers feel as fast through praticial usage - if all games handle similar graphics, then UI takes greater importance.
An Apple computer with the same specs as a PC might be more expensive, but people are more willing to pay for those extra dollars in exchange for a more pleasant user experience. I think this is going to be a general theme going forward in general though in the entire technology universe.
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