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Soundwave on 27 June 2015
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spemanig said:
Soundwave said:

Could mean a million different things. 

Third parties were initially very positive about the Wii and motion gaming too. 

We kind of have to know what the NX is. My suspicion is it's not a conventional "giant box" game console like some people would expect. 

My personal guess is its a handheld-portable solution *first*, with the ability to have those same games run at home on the TV for those who want it *second*. Throw in some kind of control gimmick on top of that, and voila ... NX. 


That's not really the same thing, though. The Wii didn't come out at a time where third parties were disappointed in Nintendo's hardware specs.

I still think the "gimmick" for the NX is the firmware, not a new controller. The gimmick this time is the unified platform, the OS, and how the membership program unifies the Nintendo ecosystem together. A very Apple approach. So I think this will be Nintendo's most unremarkable hardware change since the GCN. I don't think it will be "conventional," since I think it'll keep the second screen for both the console and handheld, but I don't think there will be a new controller gimmick. At least not one as drastic as the Wiimote or the Gamepad. Think DS to 3DS. Conventional handheld? No. Derivative hardware? Yes. Derivitive firmware? Not even a little. That's the beat the NX will hit, but louder and harder.

And I don't think that there will be that kind of primary focus on the handheld side. Nintendo obviously knows there handheld division is stronger, but that's never had an impact on their focus on consoles. From a hardware perspective, I think they'll be equal. Nintendo has to know by now that consoles are just more important in the West than handhelds. I think you'll see a bigger push for the console varient in the west, and a bigger push for the handheld in Japan and developing nations.

"Those who want" to play games on the TV is literally the entire western console market. That's obviously not to say that handhelds in the west are analogous to consoles in Japan, because (Nintendo) handhelds still do very well here, but they are definitely not dominant enough to prioritize them here.

I don't know if that fits under the "giant box" architype, but that's my bet on what the NX is. I do think it will be much more "conventional" like what the Wii U is, in the sence that I think it will just be a machine to play games with regular controller imputs - etc. I think it'll, at least aesthetically, target a more mainstream audience than the Wii U by revamping the urganomics of the gamepad to look and feel more like a traditional controller instead of the tablet shape it has now. It'll be a lot smaller, and have that batmarang shape so many of us love. I think it needs to be on par with the XBO/PS4 in specs, but I also don't think they'll be going with x86 if it means ditching 100% digital BC with the Wii U, which means 3rd party support comes into question again, which means the incentive to even match the specs of the PS4/XBO is lessened.

I don't think Nintendo is looking at their future relationships with third party studios as bleakly as many do though, and I think they will make a significant effort to court them with powerful hardware, but I don't think it means they will bend over backwards for them 100%. They definitey won't budge on digital BC with the Wii U and 3DS, because that'll be a key part of what will make the NX enticing at launch. Not just the Wii U games, but the Virtual Console and eshop. Having a Steam-like (as in, cross generational) digital library at launch will be a big part of what will sell the NX. It's not just a 9th gen console, but a transgen- Nintendo console.

I always wonder how different the Wii U's 3rd party situation would be if they stuck with PPC, but had it match the power of the PS4/XBO anyway. I think the Wii U would be a different system based on that alone, and I wonder if that kind of difference in architecture between the NX and the PS4/XBO would cripple its 3rd party support anyway, or if it would just become a PS3 situation where it got less ports early on, but it still got them and things got better as devs learned the hardware. I think it would be the latter.

And I think that's what we'll see with the NX. Maybe not PPC exactly, but something that can adequately absorb the Wii U's architecture. On par, power wise, with the PS4/XBO, but with a completely different architecture. I'd guess it would be the ARM whatever that people were talking about earlier this year. I think that's enough to make for a very successful hardware set up. As much at people like to rag on the gamepad, I don't think that has anything at all to do with the poor 3rd party support the Wii U got. Ubisoft proves that with the AssCreed games on Wii U. It's not difficult or resource intensive. Just throw the map on there and you're done. Do I don't think the keeping of the second screen will have any, at all, negative effect on the NX's support there.

It's literally just the power and the audience. The power will be simple to achieve. The audience is something Nintendo needs to cultivate with exclusive, preferably 1st party, western oriented software. We'll see on that front as the NX launches. If the NX's proving ground is another ZombiU non-effort, they'll just be shooting themselves in the foot. If they can knock it out of the park with something that's even on Infamous' level, as in a solid B-/C+ game that appeals to a mainstream western audience and shows off the system's technical chops, I think they'll be putting themselves in a very good position.

That's a long reply, but I'll just say this ... I really don't think there is much an apetite within Nintendo to compete directly against Sony/MS. I just don't think they give a fuck to be blunt about it. I think they have internally accepted that Sony and Microsoft are what they are (which is basically the standard console providers) and their role in the industry of today is to be the one that's different. 

I know there is a porition of the Nintendo fanbase that wants to see Nintendo wage all out war head to head with Sony and MS, going tit for tat for third party exclusives, marketing campaigns, first party Hollywood style exclusives, etc. etc. etc.

But I don't think Nintendo themselves is nearly as enthusiastic about that concept as some of their fans are. And maybe they are right, yes from a Nintendo POV it does suck that Sony/MS have basically claimed the core gamer market, but I think a head to head war at this point, where both Sony/MS are so entrenched now, would simply be foolish. 

No one is going to give a crap about a Nintendo console that's only slightly better than the PS4 three years late. They would need a system at bare minimum 3 TFLOPS in horsepower to even really be noticably better on screen, more realistically probably 4 TFLOPS with 16-24GB of RAM. 

The hardware cost for such a system, nevermind the development cost of software simply is well beyond Nintendo's comfort range. I just don't see a path to victory in either of those scenarios. Nintendo will go the low-cost/unified library + gimmick route again. They're basically said so by their own comments.