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Soundwave on 12 September 2014
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Vena said:
Soundwave said:

I kinda think of the Fusion a seperate thing, I think that's more of the 3DS + Wii U successor all in one. 

How about a lower end "budget tablet" in addition to the above:

$129.99 MSRP

5.8-inch 1280x720 LCD (no 3D) single screen multitouch. 

3DS chipset + an extra Snapdragon 800 mobile chip lets say (should be dirt cheap by now) with 512MB of RAM. 

Perhaps "removable" controller wings so you can position the screen horizontally or vertically (DS/3DS legacy mode). 

NES, Super NES, N64, Game Boy/GBA, DS, 3DS back catalog games ($0.99-$19.99). 

NFC chip built in for Amiibo support. 

Runs customized Android OS (like Kindle Fire), has access to Android apps, but only Nintendo approved ones through Nintendo store. Nintendo charges a small "Nintendo tax" on game apps (so they get a cut of the action). So Angry Birds would be $1.50 instead of $0.99 with Nintendo getting a 50 cent cut per download. 

I think this would clean up in the budget tablet marketspace, but I don't think Nintendo is too vehemently against the devaluing of software prices from the $39.99-$59.99 norm to go this route. 


I consider Fusion/the combined and/or unified architecture for the next generation of Nintendo to be the same thing.

The tablet may work (aside from the fact that I don't think Snapdragon is a good choice now or later), but I don't know how it would enter the market in any meaningful way to even sell well enough to justify the R&D. They'd need to alter the android environment quite a bit, too, since its not built well for managing RAM/CPU usage for gaming. IF Nintendo can really build this and market it at that price point, and get a decent market share, they would definitely sweep the lower, entry market place. Tablets can already do just about everything (though I wonder if the 720p LCD won't be used against it in competitor marketing) and the ability to tap into Nintendo's entire historical line-up through the VC at affordable and controlled prices could very well work.

They'd also be maintaining their hardware control as they always like. (I just don't know how they'd ever break into the tablet market, its so saturated and canibalistic right now.)

Yeah I just threw the Snapdragon in there because it seems to be the standard smartphone/tablet GPU of this era. But you'd have the 3DS GPU there too.

The pro of it though is that Nintendo could probably get such a component at a very low cost, combined with the 3DS chip which is probably quite cheap it would help keep costs low. I think that's going to be one of the big take aways for Nintendo this gen ... using heavily customized components and chipsets is really not a great idea because they don't scale in price well (they don't have much flexibility in the Wii U price it seems either). 

Plus having these kids snap up a budget tablet could also be a large boon to amiibo toy sales. 

I think such a product would be a far better idea than "New 3DS" alone. But I think Nintendo is still to scared by the mobile app industry to do this. It would be interesting for sure though. 

The key to any tablet entry is to NOT go head to head with Apple. A tablet in the price range of $139-$169 would be way cheaper than Apple's lowest priced iPad mini. I think they can compete against the lower price tablets, as a game vendor they also have one huge advantage too -- they can sell their hardware without a big profit margin because they can make money on software + amiibo toys.