| UncleScrooge said: It's comforting to know you are always here to educate me, Soundwave :P It's funny you act like I don't get Nintendo needs to save resources: Of course they do and that's exactly why I think they'll do what I said in my original post. So to clarify I will list some ways in which Nintendo can save resources (and not have to "increase their workforce by 2x-3x") by having two architectually similar platforms - only in my humble opinion, of course: - Virtual Console games will run on both platforms with one programming effort (resources needed cut by almost 50%) - Game engines that can be modified and used between both platforms - Not having to learn coding "from scratch" twice (this is what Iwata has been saying multiple times) - Cross-Releases for some games (when it makes sense. Some games are better suited for a home console only, etc.) - Maximising productivity of their workforce: Programmers can code for both platforms without needing special training They can even use some sort of framework for less demanding games: Program it once and use the framework to make it run on both platforms, instead of having to develop two native versions. Couple that with a unified account system and Nintendo's plans to integrate their software teams instead of having them do stuff seperately and that's a lot of resources saved. They also talked a lot about "collaborations" and I assume that means partnering up with external development studios to increase game output. I don't claim I know the truth, I'm just speculating. I assume your solution would be a Fusion console, right? But Nintendo never talked about a "Fusion" console and they don't have any plans to kill off either their home console or handheld line, so I assume they are going to maximise their game output by taking the aforementioned steps. It's perfectly fine if you disagree and think I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I distinctly remember when Nintendo talked openly about "Blue Ocean Strategy" and "Disruptive Products" and "Fun and motion in our next home console like you've never seen before" and instead of taking Nintendo's words at face value the internet speculated about all kinds of crazy things. In the end Nintendo was hiding its strategy in plain sight. |
Just to ads to this, Sony tried a similar approach with Vita and PS4 development environments. Obviously this hasn't worked so well for them due to having a generally weaker handheld offering, but I could see Nintendo making it work.
Sharing development environments with the potentially added bonus of having similar architectures on both console and handheld systems that can scale quite easily from the developers perspective should help cut costs.
