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Captain_Yuri said:

Well like I said, there will be smaller games that do that and I highly doubt that the major games will be like that for both platforms

And how does it not make sense if it isn't about shared software...? Not having to learn two different sets of coding is a huge advantage for any developer because they can use the same programming language on both devices which will speed up development time... And not even iOS has all software that runs on both iphone/ipad.. Here are two games that run only on ipad and not on iphones/itouch:

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/pokemon-tcg-online/id841098932?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ftl-faster-than-light/id833951143?mt=8

And there are loads more so it's not like iOS does it for everything either...

And yes they can and they have been doing it for quite a while now... It's just HD has been rough for them and having an unified OS alone would speed up development time


Dude, you'd have to be in denial to think that this is limited to just "smaller games." That quote is confirmation that they're working on having one game work on both platforms, and everything they've said since January 2014 has explicitely supported the fact that that is their main goal. The way they handled Smash 4 is proof right now that this won't be simply restricted to "smaller games." All of their games will do it, and Smash 4 was just the test for how that format will work. You can cite as many deviice exclusive apps as you want and it won't make a difference, because those games aren't the examples they've used when talking about what they want to adopt from those platforms.

A unified platform won't speed up developement time at all. This isn't magic. It's not about making developement faster, it's about making more games for a single device. A unified platform allows them to literally spend the exact same amount of time on games, but provide each peice of hardware with more than double the library they'd have otherwise.

There's literally no way to spin that as a negative. Better console sales because the library is better. Better handheld sales because the library is better. Better software sales because the installed base is larger. More games because Nintendo doesn't have to waste time making duplicates like MK7 vs Mk8. The handheld does amazing in Japan because it's library is better, and Nintendo doesn't need to worry about poor console sales there because they are both apart of the same software platform. Better console sales in the west because the west has a preference for consoles and this one would actually have a robust library. The handheld becomes the perfect second system to PS4/XBO owners who would have never entertained buying another expensive system before, but now will be able to play every single next gen Nintendo games on their $200 handheld. Nintendo gets every single one of those software sales from all those different people, plus that huge unified installed base.

Then, on top of that, they get extra hardware sales from all the people who buy both pieces of hardware, incentivised by features like cross buy, cross save, cross play, and platform-exclusive features on games depending on if you play it on the handheld or the console. Nintendo loses absolutely no money making every game cross buy, as that same gamer would have bought all those games only once anyway on the respective systems if there was no cross buy, as you see now with things like VC on the Wii U and 3DS. Which is why you see indies and Playstation so strongly pushing those features. They wouldn't push them if it would lose them money. They push it because it sells more software.