| armodillo17 said: So you think the handheld NX will be backwards compatible, but only when connected to the NX home console (to provide the second screen)? That seems... unlikely. I, for one, really hope they don't ditch the gamepad idea, because I love it, but who knows. I don't really like to speculate. |
The gamepad is staying. It goes against all they've built up to ditch it now. It literally wouldn't make any sence. The NX handheld is BC with the DS and 3DS, which means it has a second screen, and it shares a library with the NX console, which has no second screen? They're going to tie Wii U BC to an expensive external periferal? Absurd.
The NX will have two screens. The NXDS will have two screens. Both will be BC with almost everything via the eshop and VC. Simple and done with. It would make absolutely no sense for Nintendo to restrict BC for the DS, 3DS, and Wii U to an optional and expensive periferal.
People are saying there won't be a gamepad because they don't want to believe it's staying, not because there's good reason to believe it's going.
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Same with people trying to deny Nintendo's digital future. It's borderline pitiful reading people scratch their heads over how Nintendo can possibly create a platform with a shared library, because their heads are so trapped in physical media. A unified platform does not work with physical media. I've seen the stupidest ideas thrown around. Consoles moving back to carts. The NXDS using minidisks. The NX having a seperate cart slot for NXDS games? No. They're trying way to hard.
Only digitally downloaded games will be cross buy/save/play. The NXDS will be digital only from the get go. The NX console will have a CD slot, if it doesn't go for being 100% digital as well, but strongly push digital sales through its membership program, polices, and relationship to the NXDS. Any NX game you buy on the eshop will be saved to your NNID in the cloud via Nintendo's new membership program, and will be available to download on and NX device with that account activated, save file and all. All saves are updated via the cloud and synchronized so that you can start at home and just pick up on your handheld seamlessly. The NXDS will have some kind of data plan (free) that allows it to be "always online," the same way all modern smart phones currently are.
None of this can be done with this much seamlessness with physical media. Every "solution" is clunky and wouldn't work. That's why Amiibo and NFC is so significant. It allows for a physical item for retailers without impacting an extremely innovative (at least for gaming) unified ecosystem. One that is, and can only ever be, unique to Nintendo. The insane success of Amiibo would be titanic in cunjunction with the purchase of physical games, and allow Nintendo to do something truely ballsy, something Microsoft almost got away with; becoming modern. Someone can just go to the store, buy the collectable Amiibo "coin" that has the download code for Game A in it via NFC, and download the rights to the game on any platform their account is logged into. No hassle. Done deal. Simple, easy, and innovative.
I'm not so confident that Nintendo is ballsy enough to make both all digital (even though they should), but it's a no brainer to think they'll at least make the handheld all digital. Doing the opposite, especially in light of the boom of mobile gaming in their home region of Japan, would borderline on self destructive. That, combined with the nessecary caveats of being a connected library, makes it all but guaranteed.
But no carts and discs makes some internet people sad, so of course it can't happen, right? Mmm. Guess we'll have to wait and see. A very different Nintendo, indeed.
