garretslarrity said:
Soundwave said:
The reason why I'd advocate for a *slightly* more expensive portable, is I think Nintendo desperately needs to add value to their product and differniate from cheap tablets. Also with the advent of Nintendo IP on cheap tablets and smartphones themselves, you do run that risk of a lot of people saying "well I already got a Mario game on my smartphone, I don't need to pay even $170 + $40 for that on Nintendo portable".
Nintendo apps on phones/tablets already serves the need for the low-end/casual part of the market. So the dedicated Nintendo portable in this environment must adapt to go higher end IMO.
You need whatever hook you can to say "well can that cheap tablet do this?". I would advocate then for a fairly high end chip *with* the express clause here though that Nintendo chooses a smart chipset design that will scale down in cost quickly (similar to what Sony did with the PS4). So now wacky/weird propitary design.
With a high end chip, what that will open the door for are games that are "console quality", in fact the portable may even be able to function as a secondary mini-console type of thing (the graphics are so good you can stream them to your TV lets say). I think that wouldn't be a bad idea either. Then the "full" NX console has permission to be something really high-end, which is exactly what Nintendo needs to be competetive in today's console market which is largely adult driven and based in NA + Europe.
The regular 3DS still folds though too, and the full size 3DS outsells that model by a good margin too (even that cute N3DS with the candy color SFC retro buttons). So something has to be up there.
I would say a price point of $219.99-$229.99 would allow Nintendo to get an unreal cheap if they are willing to accept a good quality but cheaper end screen (which would still be a huge upgrade on the 3DS) and sell the thing at cost to begin with. I'd push for that direction. I'm not saying make something crazy like a $300-$400 portable.
$220 for something you can use as a home console, a portable, has pretty good graphics (not PS4 quality, but equal to or maybe even slightly better than a Wii U), has all the main Nintendo IP (3D Zelda too), and can run Android apps ... I mean for $220-$230, that's a pretty good freaking value, way more than a 3DS at $200, I just think that has a better chance even if some things seem initially counter-intuitive to how Nintendo has made portables in the past.
Just make damn sure you have some great games upfront, like that new Zelda game and Splatoon 2 not too far afterwards.
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Nintendo has already stated that they will not be simply porting existing games to smartphones. They will be creating new IPs designed for smartphones, like Miitomo. Like you, they too see the need to differentiate their mobile, handheld, and console ecosystems. It's not unreasonable to suspect that they will be bringing existing IP to smartphones, but they at least know of the need to differentiate the experience.
What can't a cheap tablet do? Play Pokemon, Smash Bros., Zelda, Animal Crossing, etc. The appeal of Nintendo systems is not its hardware, but its software. Making the handheld more expensive will not give the system more titles like this, nor help it differentiate itself from tablets. It will only cause less people to buy it.
As for the handheld being of capable of console quality graphics, that has the issue of now making it difficult to differentiate between the handheld and console. And please don't start with the Android idea.
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Fundamentally though if all it takes to sell hardware is "Pokemon, Smash Brothers, Zelda, Animal Crossing" ... well then every Nintendo platform should be successful because every Nintendo system has those games as exclusive for the last 20-30 years.
Obviously the business is more complicated (far moreso these days) than just that.
Even the price issue. The 2DS can be had for $99 these days, why isn't the 2DS breaking sales records? It MORE Nintendo IP than every Nintendo portable before it (DS didn't have Smash Bros or Kid Icarus or several others). The Wii U is the same price inflation adjusted as the Wii was for the first half of its life cycle and even includes two free games versus just one for the OG Wii. Shouldn't sales be like remotely close?
There's also a fundamental misread of what entails "cheap" parts. The PS4 is a "cheap" console. The only remarkable thing about it is the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM that they chose, but even that they chose is smartly because they knew the price of GDDR5 RAM would scale down quickly in cost because every major graphics card will be using that RAM for the next couple of years.
"Cheap" doesn't have to mean "crap hardware". Nintendo's lazy hardware policies post Yamauchi and insistence on weird "our way or the high way" propietary hardware has gotten them in trouble. They have made perfectly powerful hardware like the Super NES and N64 and the GameCube in the past for affordable prices (which is all that Sony does today) too.
