Which Company Do You See Leaving the Console Business First?

[MikeRox]

Soundwave said:

Mr_No said:
I believe Nintendo will be the first one leaving because their console is doing pretty abysmal right now. Now, I'm not saying will pack up and go, but I do have the feeling that they will go mobile only, since it seems to be their only strength throughout the years.

This is going to get kind of hazy in the next generation though ... if you take a handheld chip, put it into a box (albiet a small one), plug that into a TV, and have a controller for it ... is that a console, even if it's just a handheld chip in a box? 

In that case Nintendo will likely have another "console", it just won't be a traditional console per se. 

I see that being the route Nintendo go down. Mobile chipsets are getting so comparable to the dedicated home consoles now it's actually quite scary. If they can get a single chipset (much like Sony have done with Vita/PlayStation TV) and market it in 2 flavours but nail it, they'll be laughing.

If I was Nintendo I'd also be looking at partnering with a mobile phone manufacturer to make a Virtual Console phone. Virtual Console is Nintendo's way of going "multi format" without properly going multi format. Use releases on it to promote upcoming software and print lots of money from ROMs like Sega and Square-Enix have done with their back catalogue.

Keeping it all in a separate "Virtual Console" aspect would stop them losing control of it and they wouldn't have to pay royalties, which I suspect is the reason they have avoided this approach before.