Missed opportunities can be some of the most difficult things to live with, especially in the business world. Intel, for example, passed on the opportunity to supply the processor for the original iPhone and both BlackBerry and Nokia sat by idly as the smartphone revolution ultimately decimated their businesses.
Like Intel, Nintendo is proof that one can miss out on a big opportunity and not go under. Allow me to explain.
During a recent interview with Glixel, the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto said that he liked Minecraft - not so much because of the game itself but because he feels it's something Nintendo should have made.
Miyamoto claims that during the Nintendo 64 era, his team did a lot of experiments that were similar to Minecraft with some designs that were very similar. Rather than being butt-hurt about it, Miyamoto said it's really impressive to him to see how they (Mojang and now, Microsoft) have been able to take the idea and turn it into a product.
One can't help but wonder what a Minecraft-like game for the Nintendo 64 would have been like. Even though the console almost certainly would have been powerful enough to run it, I'm not so sure that it would have developed the type of following Minecraft has today due to the simple facts that gaming wasn't nearly as popular back then and the Internet was hardly a blip on most radars.