| padib said: The next console we both foresee releasing in 2016 will neither be a handheld or a home console in the traditional sense of the term. It will simply be a first of many Nintendo "brother" devices which will all run largely the same software. So for Nintendo the arms race in hardware is over. They are gearing up to take it over with software. One, beefed-up, unified software library. They make the games on one console, they are playable on all. So your analysis based on "home console" or "handheld console" is just ineffective because it is based on a soon to be outdated paradigm. |
Unifying home and handheld won't solve their software issue. The Wii U has way less software than the PS4, since it won't get any 3rd party game. But the 3DS isn't in a much better shape. Aside of Japanese games (Persona, MH), most of them being niche, it has very few 3rd party support. A lot of the 1st party offers already intersect: MK7 vs MK8, NSB2 vs NSBU, Smash, etc.
And these "unified software" thing isn't easy from a technical standpoint. What's the advantage? What's the catch? Let's see:
- Both run the same software, handheld versions downgraded: It would be like iPhone and iPad, like you said. This have a big, big drawback. It will need a middleware, something to make 2 hardwares that are distinct look like they are the same. And this will remove the magic optimization and will immediatily halve the power of the console. It would be a disaster. And anyway, it isn't possible to simply downgrade the game. When you talk about PS4 and X1, both have the exact same hardware capabilities, with one just being slight more powerful. But everything the PS4 does, the X1 can do, even if it ended with an unplayble framerate. But mobile hardware lacks a lot of the modern functions. Console and mobile hardware aren't even on the same league. Current consoles have the same hardware and shader functions of modern PCs. Current mobiles aren't even on full PS360 hardware functions.
- Both run softwares with similar APIs, software is developed immediatilly: the problem is that the APIs will differ significantly, like I said above. You will end up just developing 2 versions, but with less hassle since the APIs are similar and the learning curve is lower. But that isn't new: PS Vita uses libGDM and it makes it very similar to develop for to the PS4.
The second bolded part is simply impossible, unless you aren't interested in having console optimization. You would need to sacrifice a lot of power to do it, it would be hard even to make it beat PS4/X1 in power.
