What benefits does Nintendo gets releasing the NX a year and a half after announcement?

[Mummelmann]

superchunk said:

Darwinianevolution said:

But their system has to be relevant for over five or six years, and it will have to compete with the PS4 and the PS5. 

Narrowed down to this one topic.

No it doesn't. That's the beauty of how the WiiU and others launched. NX can launch in 2016 and then still be replaced in 2019 or so when MSony go to their next hardware (should they come).

I see the hardware cycle of one console for 5~6 years is gone now. If they build the platform well (pc based) with solid software that is more like OS revisions, then there is a better opportunity to have a 3~4 year hardware cycle.

- Continued hardware advancement
- Lower up-front game costs as SDKs don't have to be recreated at each iteration - minor continuous revisions
- better backwards compatibility and longer life per game
- Lower game dev costs as ports largely become obselete - never a last/gen next/gen build again - build once and software scales
- brings consoles more in-line with mobile and pc environments as well.

Times are changing.

I agree somewhat with this, the time of 7-10 year lives for consoles has passed. The consumer electronics industry is becoming really fast-paced and consoles become static products in a turbocharged overall environment.

Times are indeed changing, I believe I've said as much in the UNITY thread as well.