Prediction: "Cartridges" will return for the Nintendo home console

[zorg1000]

etuoyo said:

I don't get this Fusion concept. So rather than buying two video game systems (e.g Wii and DS) and two sets of games (e.g Wii Music and DS Music) you only buy one console and one set of games? That seems to mean much less revenue for Nintendo and reduction in profit opportunities. 

It's more about freedom of choice and many people simply prefer one form factor over the other. Some people prefer playing on a handheld and some prefer playing on a console, this causes many games to lose out on potential sales because a handheld only owner isn't going to buy Splatoon/3D World/Tropical Freeze and consoles only owners aren't going to buy Pokémon/Tomodachi Life/Animal Crossing because these games are on devices they don't want.

In terms of shpimemts, Pokémon X/Y are at 13.85m, Animal Crossing at 8.94m, Tomodachi Life at 4.16m, if these games were on Wii U as well they could very likely be over 15m, 10m & 5m by now. Games like Mario 3D World or Tropical Freeze could very well have sold 2-3 times as much if they had the 3DS user base to sell to as well.

The fact is that Nintendo really can't handle supporting 2 separate devices with a strong output and that's only going to get worse as their next-gen devices become more powerful and require longer/more costly development cycles.

Another key point is that by creating an ecosystem where all games are available on both devices, there is less of a need for Nintendo to make 2 separate entries of their major franchises and they can focus more on creating new ip. No longer do they need to release a Mario Kart game for their handheld and 2.5 years later release Mario Kart on their console, instead they can make one badass Mario Kart game, support it with DLC then release a brand new ip 2-3 years later.

There are a lot of benefits to the unified ecosystem approach as long as they don't make some big mistakes along the way.