Yamauchi No. 10 Family Office
April 14, 2021 11:57 AM Subscribe
In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi started printing playing cards in Kyoto and founded the company that would become Nintendo. This is the website for the Yamauchi No. 10 Family Office.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher
An adorable website for a corporation that exists solely to preserve and increase the largely inherited wealth and status of a single family of billionaires.
posted by jedicus at 12:42 PM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 12:42 PM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is what the Internet is supposed to be: an adorable website for a corporation that exists solely to preserve and increase the largely inherited wealth and status of a single family of billionaires.
posted by signal at 1:01 PM on April 14, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by signal at 1:01 PM on April 14, 2021 [32 favorites]
1/3 of the first comments on a link i enjoyed: here is a reason to not enjoy this link, instead you should contemplate unsolvable systemic reasons it is wrong and bad
mefi ftw, never stop never stopping
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:18 PM on April 14, 2021 [63 favorites]
mefi ftw, never stop never stopping
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:18 PM on April 14, 2021 [63 favorites]
Hey, if you want “apolitical” celebration of the status quo, there's always Reddit.
posted by acb at 1:28 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by acb at 1:28 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
It’s pretty cool, and I was shocked it actually displayed correctly on my ancient iMac (though, it did give the cooling fans a workout after a bit) Conversely, it crashes repeatedly on my also ancient iPad.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:36 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 1:36 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
I love it and hate it. Mostly love it, whimsy! Weird. It has escaped 1998 internet. And I work with the disabled so the accessibility? Usually it's best not to think about that for this sort of internet adventure. But this, this just dumps all the animation and turns into just a blog. Zero fun, but totally functional*. I mean, yea, basic level stuff but let me tell you - so often that doesn't happen.
I hate it only because I didn't get hired to make it, and even though I also don't have the skills to make it, I'm totally totally jelly, a great big jelly bean of green envy.
Caxton1476 - I'm going to well actually your well actually to the first well actually, I mean they aren't totally unsolvable problems. We could eat them. We eat em, and we keep the site.
*for varying levels of functionality, I'm not going to drill down on it
posted by zenon at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
I hate it only because I didn't get hired to make it, and even though I also don't have the skills to make it, I'm totally totally jelly, a great big jelly bean of green envy.
Caxton1476 - I'm going to well actually your well actually to the first well actually, I mean they aren't totally unsolvable problems. We could eat them. We eat em, and we keep the site.
*for varying levels of functionality, I'm not going to drill down on it
posted by zenon at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
Note: After you click Enter, in the menu at left is a little toggle icon where you can switch from the 3D retro-gamified look to something that is actually readable in a straightforward fashion. Carry on.
posted by beagle at 1:52 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by beagle at 1:52 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Hey, if you want “apolitical” celebration of the status quo, there's always Reddit.
We are celebrating art and design, not those who own it.
posted by No Robots at 2:12 PM on April 14, 2021 [9 favorites]
We are celebrating art and design, not those who own it.
posted by No Robots at 2:12 PM on April 14, 2021 [9 favorites]
→ …
Nintendo doesn't do accessibility. Despite the Wii Balance Board and other Nintendo add-ons being absolute fixtures in any hospital accessibility lab, none of it's coming from above. It's all the third-party hackers that make it happen
posted by scruss at 2:28 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
so the accessibility?
Nintendo doesn't do accessibility. Despite the Wii Balance Board and other Nintendo add-ons being absolute fixtures in any hospital accessibility lab, none of it's coming from above. It's all the third-party hackers that make it happen
posted by scruss at 2:28 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
This reminds me so strongly of all the dumb Flash websites I used to make for record companies in my old job in the early 2000s. It got to the point where we'd spend a month building something, it would go live, and then be replaced after two weeks with a site designed by a different agency. And then two weeks later, it would change again.
posted by pipeski at 2:47 PM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 2:47 PM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
We are celebrating art and design, not those who own it.
To me this site is morally equivalent to, for example, a site presenting the films of David O. Russell in a completely uncritical, hagiographic context, without reference to his history of emotionally abusive behavior toward actors. It is, arguably, possible to separate art from a problematic artist given appropriate context, but this site and FPP do not provide that context.
Heck, the site doesn't even say who designed it, though I'd bet money it wasn't anybody in the Yamauchi family. The whimsical feel trades on the family's association with the creative workers of Nintendo, but Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo from 1949 - 2002, was no artist, designer, or programmer. He was just another business person. He didn't even play video games. And in any event the Yamauchi family sold its stake in Nintendo almost immediately after he died in 2013.
It might help to understand that family offices control over $5.9 trillion and have been growing in size and number incredibly quickly in recent years (e.g. 38% just from 2017 to 2019). All of those stories about how the pandemic has been making the rich richer and about how tech IPOs create a bunch of millionaires? Much of that has gone into family offices, to help ensure that it will never reach the rest of us.
Family offices are a fundamentally bad thing. No family should have so much wealth that they need a corporation that detaches them even from the minimal labor of managing their wealth. A corporation that ensures that the family will never run out of money, no matter how indolent their children become over the generations. It is a recreation of the hereditary nobility, and just like the hereditary nobility of the past, while we might get some nice art out of it, it comes at a great cost. And it won't be the nobles that bear it.
posted by jedicus at 3:29 PM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]
To me this site is morally equivalent to, for example, a site presenting the films of David O. Russell in a completely uncritical, hagiographic context, without reference to his history of emotionally abusive behavior toward actors. It is, arguably, possible to separate art from a problematic artist given appropriate context, but this site and FPP do not provide that context.
Heck, the site doesn't even say who designed it, though I'd bet money it wasn't anybody in the Yamauchi family. The whimsical feel trades on the family's association with the creative workers of Nintendo, but Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo from 1949 - 2002, was no artist, designer, or programmer. He was just another business person. He didn't even play video games. And in any event the Yamauchi family sold its stake in Nintendo almost immediately after he died in 2013.
It might help to understand that family offices control over $5.9 trillion and have been growing in size and number incredibly quickly in recent years (e.g. 38% just from 2017 to 2019). All of those stories about how the pandemic has been making the rich richer and about how tech IPOs create a bunch of millionaires? Much of that has gone into family offices, to help ensure that it will never reach the rest of us.
Family offices are a fundamentally bad thing. No family should have so much wealth that they need a corporation that detaches them even from the minimal labor of managing their wealth. A corporation that ensures that the family will never run out of money, no matter how indolent their children become over the generations. It is a recreation of the hereditary nobility, and just like the hereditary nobility of the past, while we might get some nice art out of it, it comes at a great cost. And it won't be the nobles that bear it.
posted by jedicus at 3:29 PM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]
I'd suggest you might want to put your energy into making a FPP about family offices, rather than implying that people are bad if they like an amusing website.
posted by tavella at 3:38 PM on April 14, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by tavella at 3:38 PM on April 14, 2021 [9 favorites]
Wait, so looking at a neat website associated with Nintendo, recreation of hereditary nobility & missing context.
Looking at retro website about Berkshire Hathaway, equally little context, somehow ok & positive & best of the web?
posted by CrystalDave at 3:40 PM on April 14, 2021 [12 favorites]
Looking at retro website about Berkshire Hathaway, equally little context, somehow ok & positive & best of the web?
posted by CrystalDave at 3:40 PM on April 14, 2021 [12 favorites]
Heck, the site doesn't even say who designed it, though I'd bet money it wasn't anybody in the Yamauchi family
Oh? Are you absolutely sure it wasn't a billionaire who personally designed and built this colorful, whimsical website?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:45 PM on April 14, 2021
Oh? Are you absolutely sure it wasn't a billionaire who personally designed and built this colorful, whimsical website?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:45 PM on April 14, 2021
Metafilter: let us show you how to be sad about something that made you happy.
posted by primethyme at 3:47 PM on April 14, 2021 [38 favorites]
posted by primethyme at 3:47 PM on April 14, 2021 [38 favorites]
to be fair, as much as I enjoyed how Very this website was yesterday, I must also acknowledge that I came away with the vague suspicion that I had no new knowledge beyond “that website exists” after attempting to read it through the isometric voxel party going on
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: an adorable website for a corporation that exists solely to preserve and increase the largely inherited wealth and status of a single family of billionaires.
No, wait, I think I'm doing this wrong...
posted by chromecow at 3:56 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
No, wait, I think I'm doing this wrong...
posted by chromecow at 3:56 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Looking at retro website about Berkshire Hathaway, equally little context, somehow ok & positive & best of the web?
Touché.
posted by jedicus at 4:16 PM on April 14, 2021
Touché.
posted by jedicus at 4:16 PM on April 14, 2021
Oh? Are you absolutely sure it wasn't a billionaire who personally designed and built this colorful, whimsical website?
Yea, circumstantial evidence indicates it was designed by mount inc. But you're right, we're all only guessing they're not a billionaire agency.
posted by pwnguin at 4:32 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yea, circumstantial evidence indicates it was designed by mount inc. But you're right, we're all only guessing they're not a billionaire agency.
posted by pwnguin at 4:32 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have never heard of family offices before so I appreciate the extra context.
posted by bleep at 4:44 PM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by bleep at 4:44 PM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's satisfying how when you scroll to the end of the site it seamlessly loops back to the beginning. I'm not sure I've ever seen a website do that?
posted by jabah at 5:25 PM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jabah at 5:25 PM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
I love the design. Made me happy.
I also spent the entire time that I was reading the text thinking, “Ok, so you’re going to push for Universal Basic Income, right? Because that’s probably the easiest and most productive way to achieve what you’re claiming to aim f... oh, just other corporations, huh? Bummer.”
posted by verbminx at 5:44 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
I also spent the entire time that I was reading the text thinking, “Ok, so you’re going to push for Universal Basic Income, right? Because that’s probably the easiest and most productive way to achieve what you’re claiming to aim f... oh, just other corporations, huh? Bummer.”
posted by verbminx at 5:44 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
To me this site is morally equivalent to, for example, a site presenting the films of David O. Russell in a completely uncritical, hagiographic context, without reference to his history of emotionally abusive behavior toward actors.
Don't even mention the Borgias.
posted by No Robots at 5:47 PM on April 14, 2021
Don't even mention the Borgias.
posted by No Robots at 5:47 PM on April 14, 2021
Anyone know how to get the song?
posted by shrimpetouffee at 7:34 PM on April 14, 2021
posted by shrimpetouffee at 7:34 PM on April 14, 2021
While this looks fun and whimsical, family offices only do this when they're distressed
posted by Merus at 7:37 PM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Merus at 7:37 PM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]
Shrimpetouffee, The song is here.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:07 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:07 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
When the billionaires are worried...
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:53 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:53 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
The whimsical feel trades on the family's association with the creative workers of Nintendo, but Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo from 1949 - 2002, was no artist, designer, or programmer. He was just another business person. He didn't even play video games..
Well yea, it seems like the video games thing was an accidental success while he was busy making gambling cards and renting "love hotels" to the Yakuza.
posted by pwnguin at 9:55 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well yea, it seems like the video games thing was an accidental success while he was busy making gambling cards and renting "love hotels" to the Yakuza.
posted by pwnguin at 9:55 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I guess on a serious, no fun allowed note, Yamauchi was kind of infamous in the gaming industry for being a conservative, hard-nosed businessman. He froze out Squaresoft from Nintendo platforms for years for having the audacity to switch platforms to the PlayStation, which only changed when Yamauchi retired and Satoru Iwata was appointed his successor.
The playful tone they're trying to project here is a tone that Nintendo only adopted under Iwata's leadership. While a lot of Nintendo's best-loved properties were established under Yamauchi's leadership, by the time of Yamauchi's death, Nintendo was a has-been, releasing a handful of classic games to a shrinking audience. What we think of now as being Nintendo's hallmarks - effortlessly playful games in all sorts of genres, quirky and innovative hardware, Nintendo Direct videos - were part of the cultural overhaul Iwata brought to the company. (It's hard to imagine that the female designers that have been part of some of Nintendo's recent successes would have had the same opportunities under Yamauchi's leadership.) I wouldn't be surprised if, when the history of Nintendo is written, Yamauchi is only acknowledged as getting the company into video games, but Iwata is credited as the one who set them up to endure.
posted by Merus at 1:11 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
The playful tone they're trying to project here is a tone that Nintendo only adopted under Iwata's leadership. While a lot of Nintendo's best-loved properties were established under Yamauchi's leadership, by the time of Yamauchi's death, Nintendo was a has-been, releasing a handful of classic games to a shrinking audience. What we think of now as being Nintendo's hallmarks - effortlessly playful games in all sorts of genres, quirky and innovative hardware, Nintendo Direct videos - were part of the cultural overhaul Iwata brought to the company. (It's hard to imagine that the female designers that have been part of some of Nintendo's recent successes would have had the same opportunities under Yamauchi's leadership.) I wouldn't be surprised if, when the history of Nintendo is written, Yamauchi is only acknowledged as getting the company into video games, but Iwata is credited as the one who set them up to endure.
posted by Merus at 1:11 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
can we get a "this website is super gonna wake your boyfriend up if you have your sleep headphones set to ASMR-listening volume" warning, I know it's highly specific but
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:06 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:06 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I really like the idea that this sort of project is the noise distressed rich folks make. Like the calls of a small baby bird.
I want to add that when I read that my brain did a whole ye old time Lorne Greene's New Wilderness/Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom voice over.
Uh, ASMR warning on second link.
posted by zenon at 10:19 AM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I want to add that when I read that my brain did a whole ye old time Lorne Greene's New Wilderness/Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom voice over.
Uh, ASMR warning on second link.
posted by zenon at 10:19 AM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Thanks everyone who brought context to what "family office" means, I didn't know this was an expression (let alone an issue) in its own right, and just thought it was the name of that particular site and institution. Now I have a handful of new gripes with our time and society!
I still think the site is adorable and enjoyed scrolling throught it, in spite of the added context it brought me a sense of nostalgia. But hey you know what they say about nostalgia - it's not what it used to be.
If anyone does come around to posting an FPP about family offices and the noises they make when distressed they can count on my thankful readership, and if any family office out there wants to grant a sponsorship to my creation (voice over narrator: "but he was no creator") I promise not to personally eat them when the revolution comes.
posted by rufb at 12:56 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I still think the site is adorable and enjoyed scrolling throught it, in spite of the added context it brought me a sense of nostalgia. But hey you know what they say about nostalgia - it's not what it used to be.
If anyone does come around to posting an FPP about family offices and the noises they make when distressed they can count on my thankful readership, and if any family office out there wants to grant a sponsorship to my creation (voice over narrator: "but he was no creator") I promise not to personally eat them when the revolution comes.
posted by rufb at 12:56 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by No Robots at 12:38 PM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]