In Theory: Nintendo's next-gen hardware - and the strategy behind it

[bdbdbd]

spemanig said:

zorg1000 said:

So basically if games like Tropical Freeze/Mario Kart/Smash Bros were on PS4 level hardware, people would be willing to spend more money on that console?

I don't think power has much to do with Wii U sales, it's because of its price+software output+advertising/marketing. If Wii U were the price of 3DS, along with the software output of 3DS than it would be selling more. If Wii U had more power but the same games it currently has, sales wouldn't improve.

My theory makes just as much sense as urs, it just comes down to preference. But if people really choose power over price, than why did Xbox One sell better than PS4 in the most recent NPD despite losing the previous 10 months? Power has literally never been the major selling point of Nintendo consoles, even when they were as powerful as the competition, it was still software that caused them to sell what they did.

Make them the same price and the only thing comes down to preference. Do u enjoy playing on a handheld or a console, if u make one significantly more powerful/expensive than ur stealing sales from one because ur overstating home much power moves Nintendo devices.

Power has absolutely everything to do with the Wii U's sales. If the Wii U were the price of the 3DS, it would barely be more powerful than the 3DS and would sell less. The Wii U would have more games than it currently has if it were more powerful.

It has nothing to do with preference. PS4 and XBO have different games that make them sell differently to different audiences. The Nintendo platform doesn't have that. It has specs and form factor. Nintendo's consoles have been selling less and less every gen for being less powerful, and everytime their power was competitive, they bottle necked it with something else whether that was carts on the N64 or miniCDs on the GCN. Selling weaker console hardware only harms Nintendo. Selling hardware as weak as you're suggesting is literally suicide. Never before has there been a console weaker than a console a generation before it, which is what you're suggestion. Not even Nintendo is stupid enough to release a 9th gen console that's not even stronger than the weakest 8th gen console.

Making them the same small price only makes the console look cheap and underpowered, and the entire platform will sell less. Consoles are bought for power and consoles are bought for portability. People spend the extra money willingly to get the most out of their system.

You have a point - Nintendo has stated on multiple occasions that it's the software sales where the profit is coming from, and this is what everyone else knows too. But you're wrong about the power; it means basically nothing, while home consoles and handhelds offer you different experience, and besides, even if the platform was unified with two (or more) different devices, the same game could have different features for each device based on their hardware characterictics. If Smash Bros required for example 80% of the work done twice, making a game for same platform with different HW characteristics could require only 10% of the work done twice.