| justinian said: Three consoles with more or less the same power has been done and guess what. Nintendo lost. GameCube, Xbox and PS2. If wii u was as powerful as the xb1 many third part developers will still see it as a kiddy console whose owners don't like (I use this phrase with discretion) grown up games. Nintendos "problem" is not one of power, it's one of image. For me I want nintendo to employ more in house developers to deliver more games of varied genres and move beyond cartoons with the next console. |
Technically, the GC had more power then the PS2 (and even the N64 was better then the PS1) but even with that, Nintendo screwed themselves by having the game media be smaller so that meant companies had to either cut out FMV, music or audio from games that they could do on other systems despite the GC being capable of matching all but the best the Xbox had to offer. The GC didn't fail because it was trying to go head to head with the money of the Sony or Microsoft brand, it failed because Nintendo made a bad critical hardware choice (never mind the GC controller or the initial push of the primary color being purple) in not switching to DVD based media to either save money or protect themselves better against pirates and in the end it screwed enough developers that they didn't bother with the system and damaged the Nintendo brand due to the shifting market shares.
Had the Wii U been closer on par with the Xbox One or PS4, it would probably be right in the race if not dominating. The next Nintendo home console should be able to compete directly with its competitors not to mention should be well rounded enough to incorporate all the good console ideas of previous Nintendo consoles, like motion controls, portable connectivity, heck maybe even a legit use of the Wii U/DS/3DS touch controls. It sounds daunting and impossible but 2 out of the 3 plus the hardware specs to match competitors is mandatory.
If not that, then their next device might as well be based around digital downloads and streaming games, with Nintendo focusing on grabbing the Indie market because this current idea of them having to do different things with their controllers or not use their resoureces to produce high end hardware to be different is going to kill not only their home console base but the whole company.
