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bigtakilla on 17 January 2016
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Soundwave said:
bigtakilla said:
Soundwave said:

 

Kind of like how they should have supported the GBA for a full 5 years because there was a shit load more money to be made from the GBA than the Wii U could ever dream of. 

Yet they replaced it (effectively) with the DS. 

Was that the wrong decision? 

For me personally as a gamer honestly I don't give a fuck. I have to buy an NX at some point, doesn't matter if it launches tomorrow or in 2020, I like playing Nintendo games, so for me it doesn't matter if I upgrade this year or three years from now. There's no difference. There's $300-ish in my bank account with NX's name from the moment it was a twinkle in Mr. Iwata's eye. 

There is no "oooh, maybe I'll buy it, maybe I won't" dillemma for me, so that frees me up to look at it from a cold, purely market driven side.

If you asked most Nintendo fans in 2003 should they replace the GBA soon, I gauruntee you most would have voted "no". 

But that rationale is not based on any market logic, it's just personal preference. 

But the DS was a gamechanger that was fully realized and had a lot of great games at launch in a time where it didn't take years and millions of dollars to make games. Now more than ever the reveal to release has to be perfect. 

If they've been cutting Wii U projects short to transfer them to the NX, they launch window is something I'm not that worried about. 

Zelda could be in the launch window and EAD Tokyo's next 3D Mario is due around that time too. Animal Crossing would be due in the post launch period. 

Also remember Nintendo would only have to support one platform in a unified structure. That means game development wouldn't be split between two systems, which is a core problem for Nintendo. 

If it's a powerful portable it likely will see a shit-ton of third party support early too (especially Japanese devs) so Nintendo doesn't have to work so damn hard either. You're not supposed to have to sell a game platform all on your own, it's not supposed to be like that. For third parties it's better to be out sooner so you can start building that all important user base, the sooner you get past that 10 million barrier the better. 

And actually the DS launch was kind of ... shit. It picked up in 2005 and found its legs with Brain Training in Japan but really took until 2006 in North America and Europe with the release of the DS Lite to really put up big sales. Before that the PSP would outsell it fairly regularily in the West. But had they waited it would have been disastrous because it would have given the PSP too much traction in the market, so Nintendo was 100% right to launch the DS in 2004. 

The other thing that really killed the Wii U and 3DS launches is Nintendo banked hard on casuals being there. NSMBU *should* have been a killer app, the previous one sold a bloody 30 million copies or something. Nintendo Land should have been a huge hit with the Wii Sports/Mario Party crowd. Nintendogs + cats *should* have been a killer app for the 3DS launch, the previous one sold 30 million copies too or whatever. Nintendo got stood up by that casual audience, they won't make that same mistake with the NX launch window, I'd expect Zelda with Mario not too far after that and Splatoon 2 early in the cycle for good measure. 

 

Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt demo, Animal Crossing, Mario 64 port, and Mario Kart were all "launch titles" (within first year). Not really all that terrible.