Chinese Video Game Giant Tencent Forms New "Nintendo Cooperation Department"

Whelp, not like I'm surprised.

It's a shame they dropped AoV. I did kinda like the game.

OPENS ROBINHOOD

If Nintendo cracks the Chinese market before the holidays, that 18-20 million sold prediction is gonna get shattered. Now's the time to buy up Tencent and double down on Nintendo

@ItsOKToBeOK

,....it's what I've been somewhat doing haha

Wouldn’t it be funny if all this talk of a hardware revision was Nintendo just readying their Chinese edition.

@WiltonRoots That would be hilarious if they legit made a knock-off Chinese Switch.

Well this seems like a pretty big deal.

The only thing that scares me about this, is I just heard that China has been cracking down hard on video games with a lot of heavy censorship.

Put a patch out for any game on the Chinese market

@WiltonRoots Yep, my guess as well. Also the "Switch mini" could be a China exclusive console.

Might be a good time to buy Nintendo stocks

Sony and Microsoft aren’t in the Chinese market right? That’s mean that the switch will legit be the strongest console around lol

They can sell there millions switch consoles very easily if they will bring games that are appealing to the Chinese and have the right publicity

Just what we need, Tencent entering the market. Looking forward to freemium titles flooding the market with fomo events.

@Heavyarms55 Wouldn't the censorship only apply to the Chinese market? Or do you think it may have effect on all games that nintendo releases?

@dugan it won’t apply elsewhere, it won’t make sense for Nintendo to do so

@Heavyarms55 My guess is that they will only sell the games that meet the requirements already. China actually doesn’t censor so much as just not market and sell games that have too much sex or violence. It’s like for PS4 or XBox software.

@NotTelevision They recently banned showing corpses and forced Blizzard to change a bunch of card art in Hearthstone. They censor a LOT. No sexual content, no gore, nothing remotely "risque" apparently.

@dugan Well I mean they just forced Blizzard to alter a bunch of card art in Hearthstone... Worldwide. I don't know if Blizzard had to do the change universally, but they had to, to keep the game consistent for multiplayer.

Nintendo needs to be careful that Tencent doesn't eventually try a hostile takeover. That is Tencent's MO.

Are we sure we're translating the world "Cooperation" correctly?

Pretty sure that should read "Nintendo biding-time and closely recording every detail for later theft and duplication department." Probably doesn't fit on the form though.

Remember, kids, this is Tencent. Every minute you spend playing a Nintendo game, they add it to your rap sheet as proof you are a disqualified un-person of low quality to society!

@Heavyarms55 Reminds me so much of the 1930's & 1940's when Hollywood would change all their movies to meet Nazi censorship requirements.....German held/allied countries were big business for Hollywood...wouldn't want to get banned! WWIII is inevitable anyway....at some point someone has to stop pretending....appeasement never actually works.

Tencent, please fix the bugs/glitches in Arena of Valor for Switch.

We need to be able to choose and pick our builds before a match and have it actually be reflected for that match instead of only taking effect after the match is over. As it stands, I have to pick my loadout from the item building page first before going into a match. I need to be able to pick my build while I'm selecting my character for a match so I can accommodate the team composition correctly.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah I’d say my experience living in China has been a strange one when it comes to the things are either “approved” or “not approved” (the only way media is rated). I think the Blizzard situation is a result of compromise because that stuff is huge here causing the censors to zero in on it.

It is wildly inconsistent though. I remember going to see Baby Driver in the movie theater here totally uncensored and being confused by that. None of the violence or foul language was cut and there were 7 year olds in the audience whose parents didn’t know the film would be that way since it was “approved”. Same thing goes for the 5 year olds probably having a sleepless after watching A Quiet Place.

So it’s this weird gray area here when it comes to that. Even though stuff like the ESRB and MPAA are far from perfect, it at least allows people to make informed decisions on content. It’s only a matter of time because of China’s gradual liberalization that something like that is adopted here.

Nintendo should be very careful playing with the Chinese government. They are likely to steal their technology and intellectual property.

@Tantani Aaaand just like that Nintendo’s stock just hit a 52 week high.

They’re literally printing money. And with Japan (so pretty much Nintendo) hosting the Olympics next year, it’s only gonna skyrocket from here. We’re talking Wii era numbers

@Heavyarms55 In what world are the new card arts "nothing remotely risque"? Mostly, the new outfits and poses fit the rest of the game better, while still being plenty sexy enough.
Succubus was replaced with something that honestly made more sense for its effect. Removing blood from Eviscerate is dumb but... hardly noticeable. Deadly Shot... okay that one's just worse, I'll give you that. Bite also seems unnecessary, but the new art looks good, so I don't hate it.

@CoastersPaul It's not that I dislike the new card arts. It's that I dislike they were forced to change them. There was no need to do so. It is just glaringly unneeded censorship to fit someone's nonsensical "morals".

@NotTelevision I guess cause I more or less grew up with it but I feel like having a rating system like the ESRB or whatever other countries like Japan or the EU call their systems just seems like common sense to me.

@NEStalgia If WW3 could hold off for a few decades, that'd be great. I'd rather live my life than die in the nuclear hellstorm that that will be. And if it does happen, I'm not taking sides. I'm going to find some abandoned corner of the world and let the world burn itself to the ground. I want nothing to do with that. And if America or someone else tries to conscript me, they can just shoot me. I'm not fighting for any nation.

@Sgt_Falcon Every developing country takes ideas and technology from others. This has been going on since the dawn of mankind and the invention of fire. It’s very effective propaganda to say that China is only one doing it though.

@Heavyarms55 true, though the idea of dystopian serfdom while being told slavery=freedom seems even worse to me.

@NEStalgia I'm not willing to kill on the orders of any government. There is no government in 2019 that I respect enough to fight for. Period. They are all corrupt, lying, scum.

@Heavyarms55 no disagreement there. But kind of like console wars, though the governments are largely mirrors of their populations. The corruption of the governments is a reflection of the corruption of their people, much as the masses like to deny it "it's them, not us!" - but who enables them because it's "working well enough for me?"

All the more reason to look forward to ww3. It's not about serving governments. They won't still exist by the end anyway. It's about simple, practical, pruning the human tree. Which will happen with or without a war, one way or another.

Besides, other than Harry Truman, who's going to tell Einstein you're smarter than him?

@NEStalgia Governments really aren't though. I've never seen any data to suggest any country has had a consistent majority approval rating. But it is the same everywhere, the wealthy rule and tramp over the masses. Only the methodology changes.

Nationalism is a lie made up to trick the masses into hating someone else, not their own leadership. It was literally invented to trick the uneducated public into fighting and dying for a country, rather than the nobles relying on their own children.

@Heavyarms55 Some of the best governments have been monarchies/benevolent dictatorships. You get a 50/50 shot with a monarch that they're either a spoild brat using humanity as their play thing, or a compassionate ruler, not bound to the game of playing for power, wealth, and favor. Otherwise, yes, that's true.

Nationalism....well...nationalism and the idea of nations/cultures, regardless of "Nationalism" as a system, really come from the idea of a common ethnic, cultural, historical background. Humans naturally sort into tribes and on a larger scale "nations". The greatest lie of the 20th and 21st centuries is "multiculturalism" - There is no such thing. Humans naturally sort themselves into groups of "us and them" largely on order of language, common history, common tradition, and common appearance, generally in that order. Even outside politics, you can see it in gaming, console wars, everything. "Multiculturalism" is a nasty double think that only accomplishes the goal of people publicly pretending "we're all one big happy earth" while nobody actually believes it for a moment.

That's not to say there's specific dislike of different groups, only that people naturally recognize "my group" and "their group" no matter what lies they're expected to maintain in public. That's an unhealthy society in general. In that aspect, Nationalism is much more honest and leads to much more honest results. Different groups of people can approach different groups of people as different groups of people. and find common ground without everyone resenting the shared like that all ground is common. And individuals from different groups can of course be accepted within other groups by ultimately adopting language (including dialect, however), tradition -regardless of appearance or history. But that takes a lot of work, and isn't a blanket automatic "there's no more nations, no more cultures, it's all one now!" happy pill (Either it's actually an empire, or it's a lie....)

That's one thing I love about the Olympics (if you can filter out the corrupt corporate core of it....) It's the last thing that doesn't buy into that whole myth. It treats nations/cultures as unique, but with some common threads rather than pretending everyone is just one big "Citizenry of Earth." It's a celebration of differences rather than a forced homogeneity. I find that much more fun, and honest.

Nationalism is an inherent structure of human existence. 9th century Celts, Franks, and Germanics were never going to become one shared culture. No matter what. Different language, different dialect, different history, different traditions, differenct ways of life, different values, different goals, each based on their local community, despite, in that case, relatively common appearance. The absence of nationalism there would be conquest and subjugation. Or worse, one group insidiously undermining another culture to slowly deteriorate their uniqueness. That would be more 21st century style. "For the greater good" as always.

The US is unique in that it's the only country that wasn't founded through a common culture in any way, just a common goal, mostly involving religion. Though in reality it fell out of being an extension of the British Empire....despite the mix of cultures present here at the time, it was British leadership, British culture, British values.

Though Nationalism can create conflict, that's the folly of the mid 20th-century "thinkers" to believe if you can end nations you can end conflict. They were myopically focused on the conflict of the moment and didn't look beyond that on a pholosophical level. If you remove nations, humans will organize into other groups that suit their local identity and conflict will resume.

They also didn't stop to think that conflict was a natural and inevitable part of the functioning of the species, and the rampant overpopulation that occurs through "world peace" may in fact be worse than the wars themselves, leading to worse plague and famine, before inevitably even worse war. It's as though they were unaware of the history of the 1st and 2nd centuries and the role of population pressure in that 2000 years of misery.

@NEStalgia While I will give you that you make some interesting arguments, I will never buy into a single positive aspect of Nationalism. I will never see it as anything but a societal construct used to stir the "us vs them" mentality. Language and culture blends when it is allowed to. When there is mutual gain for those involved. And there almost always is. Trade, education, luxuries etc...

But those in power do not want that. If the public grows to understand the truth, that they have far more in common with the public of their so-called enemies than they ever will with their leadership, be it democratically elected, dictators, or monarchs, then those leaders will not remain in power or at least retain that position without oppression. And oppression is expensive, difficult and a one way street. Once begun it only ends with a change in leadership.

The elite have little to nothing in common with and almost universally do not care for the masses. They essentially live in a different reality. They are unable to even comprehend what it is like to be an ordinary person. They want for nothing, the have everything in terms of material position, power and freedom. They don't understand being told "no" and they believe ordinary people should only answer to them, never question. They will happily send millions to their deaths to maintain the status quo. They will happily kill millions of their enemies and bathe in their blood if it keeps them in power.

Look at the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you can even find data on the numbers of civilian casualties. Those numbers vary wildly. Why? Because America didn't even care to count. And when they did, it's always grossly understated compared to estimated from the UN or NGOs or other 3rd parties.

@Heavyarms55 The crux of your statements, I mostly agree with, but I think it's too narrow, and ignores the natural states that leads to the condition. International relationships aren't the same thing as "multiculturalism" and "multinational" etc. All of those things are constructs that benefit the elite that you oppose. Trade, luxuries, education, can, do, and have, existed safely within the concept of nationalism. You don't have to attempt to homogenize and merge all the nationalities into some blurred "citizenry of earth" to have beneficial interaction, which has existed since time before recorded history. No, this new idea of consolidation of Earth into effectively one overarching "nationality" is far more like empire building, and was the brainchild of the aftermath of WWII where "leaders" were too concerned with preventing the exact situation that occurred without thinking through the long term cause and effect beyond that one scenario - conveniently, such a program also benefited them, their benefactors, and their economic model, allowing for unlimited market reach and business consolidation - a net loss to society and economics but built exactly the stratification we see now.

Nationalism is not a cause of those problems. It was used as a specific rallying point in WWI specifically. It's unfair to even say it was a direct cause of WWII. While nationalism was a direct cause of the events of WWI, by WWII it took a back seat. Despite the overt nationalist imagery and verbiage used, that came later once the war machines were running. In Germany specifically, ethnic purity, not nationalism was the rallying watchword (a truly bizarre cause in Germany of all places, a culture made up of various Saxon tribes....and the ascribed ethnicity of "Aryan" isn't even a Germanic ethnicity at all.....) In reality, in addition to the backlash from the heavy handing WWI sanctions for surrender, it was the rise of industrialism, and the encroaching fear of Communism to the East that lead to that situation, not nationalism. Things were already going south by the time a sense of Nationalsim played much of a role there. A war was open on 3 fronts by then.

The exception being Japan - which given your anti-nationalist bent makes me surprised you're so fond of Japan, the were then, and still remain one of the most strongly nationalistic countries on Earth short of military states.

But the big issue is, nationalism, and nation-states in general, are a useful way of organizing in a productive way large groups of people within one "tribe". Humans always have and always will organize into tribes. That's nature itself. Nations traditionally combine appearance, language, dialect, necessities/needs, wants, lifestyles & traditions, often religions, and overall similar views and intentions into organized, structured bodies, that are able to interact with each other in organized ways.

In a total lack of nations, other tribes will be formed. If it isn't built on tradition, religion, language, and so on, then it will be built upon ideology, economics, special interest.

Similarly when a nation or empire becomes too large and shoehorns by force or lack of alternative disparate groups that do not share a common tradition/background/language/lifestyle/needs/wants things break down, which is the reason no empire has ever endured. By it's very nature it can't. Humans naturally break into tribes of similarity. If the overarching "tribe" by force consists of disparate groups, those groups will conflict until the group breaks back down into like-groups. It's why ever empire fails, why Babylon fails, and why the modern awkward blend of intended statelessness mixed with an odd corporate imperial superstate is breaking down before our eyes. The "tribe" or "nation" needs to remain small enough so that it contains only the cross section of similar members. As soon as it grows so large the member pool consists of disparate groups, it will always degrade and segment.

This is also what happened in the Balkans. The overarching commonality that held the larger states together culturally with a common bond was severed during WWII, albeit it was helped to sever in WWII by the fact it was already wearing at the seams The following 50 years or so devolved into the dissimilar groups ultimately (violently) breaking down into the smallest group that represented like-people.

Nations/nationalism is a representation of nature itself. Most of the conflict that exists isn't because of nations, it's because lack of a nation/group small enough that it represents a common people. Nations too large cooercing people that are dissimilar to pretend to be united. Or the modern corporate nation state where instead of uniting by nation and culture, people unite by class of wealth and discretionary income. That's a dangerous tribe. The wealth tribe is very small and enjoys taunting the significantly larger, very angry tribes with displays of excess.

They control that anger by further forcing segmentations of those tribes. Race, gender, religion, ideology - they drive that wedge everywhere they possibly can to keep that larger group fighting among themselves and never turning toward the small, relatively weak wealthy tribe. And it works. Reliably.

As for your assessment of the elite, I agree to a point. Though, I would step that back. It's not the actual elite. It's their enablers among the "upper middle class" that will do anything to get ahead. To live more like the elite. To pretend. The true elite are meddlesome. They have a god-complex, collectively. Most mean well, they're trying to shape the world by believing themselves to be superior in intellect and uniquely able to save the world via one scheme or another. They create considerable harm, but usually not maliciously. It's their coattail grabbing lackeys among the "professional class" of climbers that do the malicious harm. Without them, the elite are entirely powerless despite their wealth. Bezos in his castle is harmless alone. It's Mr. McMansion with 2 Porche SUVs and a few exotic vacations a year that would do anything he can to please the will of Bezos if it gets him a larger mutual fund for retirement that actually do the harm without any ethical restraint.

But it comes back to: People get the government they want. The governments are mirrors of their people. I never buy the "I like the people, I just don't like their government." That only holds true in places where the government took power by force - DPRK, PRC, former USSR, etc. Otherwise, the governments you see today are the people. The most splendid example I can think of is back in the 90s during the Clinton saga (no comments on specific politicians, this is a commentary on the public); if I had a dollar for all the people I heard say "well if I had that kind of money and power, I'd do that too!" and "I can't blame him, I'd do it too if I could!" etc. etc. Whatever he is or isn't, he was an accurate reflection of the actual quiet will of the public. Slimy or not, he's what the masses WANTED to be, themselves. The same is true of many other aspects of "corrupt" government. If you ask the public, in the same position, would they do the same - the answer would be a resounding yes. that corruption isn't the government versus the people. It IS the nature of the people accurately reflected in their leaders.

And THAT is the real crisis. It's not the governments that are corrupt. It's the population itself. The goverment simply crystallizes the nature of their public. And that's why we're fairly screwed.

The nation-state does a better job of mediating different peoples than any other system. The US was designed to work similarly, by having different, mostly sovereign states representing their local populations and those populations interests with the overarching union simply representing the states collectively as a higher organization level. It was a good design that recognized the natural and political realities of man. Unfortunately, it also depended on an actively engaged public, and intentionally kept the idea of the country a simple agrarian country by design, not to be swayed by European ideas of luxury and the type of thinking of European education. The founders recognized such things break the concept of a free society. So what did the public do? Within years of the founding they started importing European ideas...... Washington's diaries are an interesting read. He effectively saw the writing on the wall while he was still alive. It was one of the specific things he'd cautioned he knew would break the system they devised. And they broke it before he was even in his grave.

The public IS the problem.

As for Afghanistan and Iraq...those.....are complicated for all the wrong reasons. They're technically not wars at all, neither was Vietnam. The actual wars were WWI, WWII, US Civil War (which ultimately proved that an empire declaring total war on it's member states is the a-ok American Way - the beginning of the real end), Spanish-American War, and Revolutionary War. There's some middle ground. Technically Korea wasn't a declared war, but it existed as a necessary extension of WWII and the US's role in the Pacific at that point. That's a special case. Most of the rest are "police actions" or, in reality, "corporate wars" - the actions of an empire securing it's resources worldwide, and displays of power-balancing. Those are an odd condition I'm not really factoring in in the historical discussion of wars. I'm really discussing the direct declared conflicts between nation states (or internally as civil wars between factions) not so much weird undeclared "targeted" military action against non-specific targets not originating in direct conflict. They're military but they're not wars in the traditional sense and geopolitical sense. Those are complicated monetary and "influence" driven messes under the weight of empires.

HOWEVER, the conflicts (excluding Western involvement) in the Middle East are perfect examples of disparate people forming like tribes and the wars and the natural conflict between them. Except it's been going on there for 10,000 years. To a degree I suspect most of the peoples there would lose their identity if they were not in war anymore with their neighbors.

@NEStalgia Japanese nationalism as embraced by the Japanese people is a very different thing than western nationalism. It's much more of a "cultural nationalism". The Japanese people have their own identity and traditions that they care about. It's not about the government and they have long since move passed any desire to enforce their culture onto others. For the west nationalism is a tool to mobilize people at the whim of the leadership. It's a construct made to influence people. Multi-culturalism isn't the ideal of blending all cultures together into one "culture of Earth" it's the idea that different groups can co-exist together and needn't oppose one another. As an oversimplification, I can like Nintendo and you can like Sony and some other guy can like Microsoft but we don't have to oppose one another. But the elite don't want that. Because the elite need us to oppose one another to further their own agendas. In truth Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft don't want you to like all three platforms. Money you spend on one is money you don't spend on the other. That doesn't benefit the elite who want you to be loyal only to them and to oppose their rivals.

@Heavyarms55 Other than that it's more homogenous, and more strong, that's no different than Western nationalism. In Europe it has always been based around the same ideas of identity and traditions. Language, culture, history, architecture, cuisine, landmarks, and ethnicity depending on the area. Exactly the same as Japan, only weaker (post Renaissance/Age of Enlightenment.)

Your idea of nationalism seems a bit anachronistic, as though you're living in 1890. That militaristic nationalism has barely been sighted in the West since the end of WWI, only to have a brief, and very localized resurgence from the late 1920s' to the early 1940's, though it was more of a tool that was easier to manage than the myriad of actual issues going on at the time, and to camouflage the authoritarian collectivist government systems taking root, unlike WWI where it was indeed the main issue itself.

The idea that Japan has "good" nationalism while wanting to remain almost entirely ethnically homogenous and stay true to their history and tradition, but, say, France, or Germany has "bad" nationalism for wanting to do the same on a lesser scale is a non-sequitur. It's analogous to saying the various Western cultures and traditions don't deserve to continue to exist as they have, but Japan's does.

No, "multiculturalism" as an ideal, isn't about different cultures co-existing and not opposing. That would be exactly what it is, different cultures working together. Something that has always happened. As an ideal it's more of an attempt to create a "Babylon that works this time!" Divergent cultures all sharing a common space as a single "tribe". Which of course can't actually work because it isn't actually a common "tribe." It'll always tear at the seems, not because the disparate groups can't cooperate, but because they can't pretend to not be disparate under threat of repercussions. Thus, naturally, about (slowly) homogenizing everything into a single distilled common culture. An attempt to forcibly/manipulatively create that single "tribe" by erasing any meaningful differences between the population. On paper it may sound peaceful. In practice it's a powder keg. Those that see their traditions being eroded will resist. And then you end up with what we have. And it doesn't hurt that the homogenous world culture was ostensibly the Americanization of the world, but in reality was the corporate consumerization of the world.

Though by "the West" I suspect you mean largely the US, and not about preserving the unique and diverse cultures of Europe... In that, I think you have the wrong idea - what you see isn't "nationalism", or at least not directly. What you see is ANGER being presented as nationalism, by groups that see just that, their tradition and culture being forcibly eroded without consent. Imagine Japan's reaction if slowly but obviously, say, China, started taking over their culture, banning or "modernizing" their traditions within their own country, telling them what new traditions from outside they're going to adopt, rewriting their way of life to suit an imposed replacement - and not just smiling and going along with all of it will get them in personal trouble..... After a decade or two of that, it might not be such a happy place. That's what you're seeing in the US. It isn't the government-induced nationalism that you're referring to it as. It's general anger among the population after many years of cultural erosion by manipulative forces (which technically began with Soviet involvement specifically to undermine the US.) The manifestation of that anger is an attempt to invoke that diminishing culture as a nationalist sentiment. Which, like with Japan, is exactly what nationalism is.

I like your analogy but it's incomplete. Simple international/culture coexistence/cooperation would be Nintendo, Sony, XBox and PC fans all congregating on this Nintendo-centric website, and can all discuss Nintendo, or XBox, or PC, or Playstation in a peaceful/entertaining/productive way. Like what mostly happens except for the bad apples that are unavoidable.

A more direct example of the "multiculturalism" on display would be if XBox, Nintendo, and PC fans all set up pockets on PushSquare....each group would talk about and promote ONLY Nintendo, or XBox, or PC while there, they wouldn't talk about Sony, and they'd often deride Sony, and shame the local PushSquare regulars for being Sony fans. Over time, the PushSquare regulars would be strongly encouraged to be open their interest to Nintendo and other platforms, and not to speak so much about Sony and Playstation. Derision of Playstation would be acceptable by Nintendo and XBox fans, but derision of XBox and Nintendo would be unacceptable for PushSquare regulars. Similarly, while Nintendo and XBox fans can enthusiastically promote Switch and Scarlett, PS regulars would be strongly discouraged from showing excess excitement for PS5, but strongly encouraged to feign excitement over Switch and Scarlett. Not doing so may or may not lead to temporary or permanent banning. After a number of years of that, the site would no longer be about PlayStation, PlayStation would rarely be discussed. Instead it would become primarily a site of discussion about Nintendo, XBox, and PC, while PlayStation discussion would be frowned upon. Once the PushSquare regulars leave for good, the site would be a harmonious mixture of the fans of the other consoles and those who successfully converted to embracing all the platforms equally. Eventually PlayStation discussion would enter back in, but only in equal mix to all the others. Individual platform fans would no longer exist on the site.

In theory it would eliminate flame wars, trolling, and bring an end to the console war on the site. In theory. In practice it simply encourages continuous lying and pretending, and a friendly mask thinly veiling growing disdain and resentment toward every other platform fan who is continuously destroying the community, cohesion, and interests of the PushSquare audience. Random outbursts railing against "xbots and nintendrones ruining the site" will receive bans and appear to be unhinged individuals ruining the peaceful community. But the sentiment will be quietly shared by many. Eventually a 4chan-led DDoS against the site probably happens....but it will just be a "random attack by some horrible individuals". Over more time a new Sony dedicated site will appear, former PS regulars will flock to it. It will be about Sony. And ONLY about Sony. ALL other discussion will be banned. If you don't bleed Sony blue, you're not welcome here. The resentment that the years of enduring being squeezed out from your own similar-view community and forced to pretend to conform to others will manifest as a desire for absolute exclusiveness for a single group. The first example of peacefully having all console fans and join in (like happens here now) would never have yielded such an extreme. It was the attempt to insert a population, replace and supplant and/or convert/modify the existing population in an attempt to over time homogenize the population that instead of ending the trace polarization as intended, fortified and all new extreme polarization, built not on bias, but on actual sleights.

That's a much cleaner example of the folly of the post-WWII attempt at homogenization through multiculturalism. Of course at first it was only intended to neutralize the polarization between European neighboring countries after two world wars. But it was extended as a corporate imperative for maximum growth, consolidation, and value, plus, exactly as you say, as a means to drive continuous wedges within populations by elites to keep the population permanently off balance and distracted. In that, you are 100% correct. And it's also of note that the programs to do that were KGB projects - hostile subversion by a foreign actor as an act of sabotage against an enemy - however the USSR didn't survive to see the plan to fruition. (Remember Khruschev's "We will bury you" tirade? This is the program he was talking about. He and others discussed it very surprisingly openly at the time exactly how they were subverting the US....they were so confident in it, they didn't even bother hiding or denying it, they directly stated the plan, and it's very well documented.) Instead, in their absence, the local collectivist/centralist ideologues here used the seeds they'd planted to pick up the torch and continue it to a somewhat different goal, albeit, in a less organized way. Still the goal was central elite control of all things, just like the other plan. Just not from Moscow anymore.

In the Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft elite analogy, again the analogy that each doesn't really want you to spend money on all three is surprisingly accurate - because in reality they do. Sure they'd rather you spend on theirs, but in practice what they really want is the enforcement of the status quo. As long as the 3 are the 3, there isnt a forth. Spending on any of the three reinforce all thee of them in their continued current position. The goal now, is the three unite against Google and any outside opposition. Even if you only buy Nintendo, Sony and MS win, because you're reinforcing their current status quo. That's the real goal.

Similar to the real "multinational" world, but it's not merely about reinforcing a status quo. It's that quietly, they are all the same organization. The leaders of the countries, the leaders of the companies, the leaders of the funds and the media, and the non-profits....they all go to the same parties, the same meetings, the same schools, the same societies. They are all, together, a single entity working to the same unified ends - central control of all things from their shared common "club."

Of course it's purely academic. The damage is already done, and is much, much too extensive to repair. The time to fix it was, at the latest, in the 90's. The only fix now, is a reset.