We all know Nintendo is really struggling to find an audience with the Wii U.The majority of gamers seem to be looking to Sony or Microsoft for consoles that offer superior specs and third party support.
Nintendo can't rely on other developers to provide games for the system. Third party support is WAY worse than it was on any of their previous consoles. They have pretty much stopped making games for it, and at this point I believe we'll see the usual LEGO-games, the Skylanders and Infinity franchises, Sonic, movie tie-ins, casual games like Just Dance - and not much else. Apart from a great selection of indie games and probably some outsourced games like Star Fox: Assault and F-Zero GX on GameCube.
What if Nintendo offered a console that enabled users to play all of their past games, as well as their new games? I don't know if anything like that is even possible with the Wii U, but what if the Virtual Console could be a streaming service instead - something that Sony is apparently about to be doing with PlayStation Now.
Instead of the truly lackluster and expensive library of downloadable games that is the Wii U's Virtual console today, you would be getting the opportunity to play any game you want for a fixed monthly price. So on the eShop you'd have:
- One section for streaming every game Nintendo ever published from the NES through the Wii (and from the GB through the DS). Some third party games as well if they could work out some kind of agreement
- Another section for for downloading new Wii U games (1st party, third party and indies)
While I do think it's too late to be doing anything like this with the Wii U, I think this is what Nintendo needs to be doing with their next consoles (both the successor to the Wii U and the successor to the 3DS). The selection of older games should be the same on both consoles. Stop relying on others to provide software (they probably won't), and provide consoles that can give you everything Nintendo has to offer of games.
Just thinking about it makes me drool. Would you buy a product that offered this? Is it even possible?
