| UncleScrooge said: I agree with the things you said and I also think it is going to be very exciting. Being able to purchase a large chunk of newly released titles, Virtual Console games and indie titles once and play them on both devices (with my save file being transferred between the two) would be awesome. What I wonder though ist this: How will Nintendo do this in a way that respects the different jobs handhelds and home consoles perform? What about input methods? We have seen multiple times that people do not want to play home console games on a handheld (at least outside of Japan). The next Nintendo handheld has to get better at competing with smartphone games: Quick, pick-up and play titles that can be played for 5 minutes during a bus ride for instance. If "all" we get is a home console + a handheld with the same control scheme Nintendo would be severely limiting its mass market appeal. The DS and Wii took off because they lowered the barrier to play games and right now Smartphone games are popular because they have a low entry barrier, as well. What I'm saying is: Nintendo's sales situation is not going to change if all we get for NX is a traditional controller (think a Gamepad without a screen) and a PS Vita-like handheld. Bundling two failed uproaches together with a unified account system is not going to make those into a success. It would just spread existing 3DS and Wii U sales more evenly across both devices or even worse make their handheld sales implode. iOS makes it easy to release one App for all devices because those devices have one common input method. But so far Nintendo's approach has been to introduce new input methods whenever possible. Buttons and sticks will be present in both devices of course. But how can you replicate the DS's touch screen (assuming there won't be another gamepad) and dual screen on home console NX? What about Wii (U) motion controls on a handheld NX? Is Nintendo going to just throw those things that made their most popular home console and handheld unique out and focus on buttons? And if so, what would stop Sony and Microsoft from making even better unified platforms in the future? In the end, both Sony and Microsoft are larger companies than Nintendo and this sounds a lot like direct competition. Also, third parties will still prefer to release games on their platforms if they offer a similar service. I'm not saying your argument is flawed or anything. I totally agree with what you said. I just wonder how Nintendo is going to take on these problems. Because taking away what made the DS and Wii successful for a unified system that features exactly the same input methods as every other console and handheld on the market doesn't seem like a very smart move to me. |
I mean, first, they're still going to have two screens for both the handheld and home console, so cross and backwards compatability won't be an issue. I don't think we've seen, at all, that people don't want to see console experiences on a handheld. We've seen the opposite. I think the gaming industry has this issue with thinking that when a platform fails, it's because of that platform's marketed feature. "The PSP Go proves people don't want all digital." "The Wii U proves people hate second screens." "The Vita proves people don't want console experiences on the go." No, they don't. They were just unsuccessful products because of their own plethora of issues.
Case point: The Vita didn't fail because it tried to give console experiences on the go and people were uninterested, it failed because its memory was overpriced, its overall limited niche library is unappealing to a mainstream audience, and it completely lost the multimedia/jailbreaking selling points that made its predecessor such a mindblowing juggarnaut in the pre-iphone era.
I don't think input methods will be an issue. With the n3DS, we can already see them making the moves to syncronize the common inputs between the two. There's very little they'd need to add on top of that to make 99% of games compatible with absolutely no work done between the two outside of scaling. Scroll bumpers can easily replace the LR buttons on the handheld variant. The 3DS already has all the motion controls that the Wii U has. It just doesn't have a Wiimote, but those games just won't be compatible with the handheld, on top of just not being made anymore.
Sony and Microsoft have no platforms to unify. Sony's not doing another handheld, and while I think XB and Win10 will merge, that's not really the same thing. They can copy Nintendo and come out with hardware independant platforms, but that would take time. That's not to say that couldn't eventually compete, but as we've seen with Apple vs. Android, being first to the party helps. They wouldn't necessarily be out of luck if those guys followed suit, which I don't think they will as they have their own ideas of what the future of traditional gaming is that Nintendo won't and couldn't copy.
But lastly, I don't think the handheld will or should try and compete with smartphones at all. That's suicide. They're different markets with similar form factors, but they are not the same. People buying handhelds are looking for more dedicated experiences than what smartphones, on the whole, provide. That's why Nintendo's on smartphones to begin with. They will make those games their and dedicated games on their platform. That's not to say smart phone games are bad, because they aren't, but they are different. They are designed, priced, controlled, and played completely differently than handheld or console games. Ones that try and emulate console games are less successful than ones that take advantage of the platform and its audiences expectations. That's why its absurd to me when people say things like "Pokemon is perfect for mobiles." No, it's not. Nobody wants to play a $40 40 hour, text heavy adventure RPG on their phone. They want to play Pokemon Go on their phone.
