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Soundwave on 29 March 2015
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RolStoppable said:
zorg1000 said:

Well for one, Wii/DS are a clear outlier and Nintendo has only ever seen those types of sales in one out of their 6 generations.

NES+Game & Watch-roughly 100 million units hardware and 500 million units software

SNES+Gameboy-roughly 100 million units hardware and 500 million units software

N64+Gameboy Color-roughly 100 million units hardware and 500 million units software

GC+Gameboy Advance-roughly 100 million units hardware and 500 million units software

Nintendo sold a pretty consistant amount of hardware & software in their first 4 generations, with the sales per region being pretty consistant as well, Americas-50 million, Japan-25 million, Others-25 million, give or take 5 million.

Another trend to note is that each generation their consoles declined with their handhelds increasing. This shows that people really aren't buying both devices as much as we are to believe. If people aren't buying both anyway than what is the point in heavily investing in two completely different devices? Why not divert resources to a common ecosystem.

Yes, Nintendo sold consistently the same amount of hardware and software in a market that kept growing. In that sense, stagnation equates a decline.

The other trend is a result of better technology that was used to make games that the market didn't want, so the hardware struggled. Nintendo's handhelds remained unaffected by this decline for the longest time because their technology wasn't good enough to make the wrong games. What this means is that if Nintendo gets their act together and makes the right games for both devices, then we get something like the Wii and the DS. So that's the point of investing in two distinct experiences, because it means that the amount of people who buy both increases significantly. That doesn't rule out that many of Nintendo's longrunning IPs can be shared between both devices; but when it comes to new IPs, they could benefit tremendously from being something that sets them apart.

I'm pretty sure if NX is indeed a fusion/shared library concept, the console NX will still have some different type of wacky controller and said controller will then have a few unique/exclusive games specific to the console. It will however also probably have to have a traditional controller, but even the Wii had a Classic Controller. 

It just means the "tentpole" Nintendo games like Mario 3D, Mario 2D, Mario Kart, Zelda, DKC, etc. could be developed for both in one shot and shared on both. That would help Nintendo tremendously, and lets be honest ... these core Nintendo IP never really utilized the "alternative" game inputs of the Wii/DS is any huge, mind blowing way any how (aside from maybe the touch only Zelda games). 

They don't really need to even tailor said controller to casuals anymore ... the move to iPhone/Android covers that, they can just have the freedom to make whatever wacky type of controller they want next time out.