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Soundwave on 11 January 2016
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Thunderbird77 said:
Soundwave said:

 

I'm advocating for one library. 

That means Nintendo no longer makes Mario 3D Land and Mario 3D World and Smash Bros. U and Smash Bros. 3D, etc. etc. 

They make *one* game. Then they scale the game's settings up and down to be able to play on the different devices. Can be as simple as just upping the resolution and adding a few effects, not a dramatic redo. This will also benefit Nintendo massively in that their best games (like Splatoon, Bayonetta, Mario 3D World) are no longer stuck selling to 1/4th their own fanbase, and the portable players (which is the vast majority of Nintendo's actual userbase) can buy these games. 

Your best games should not be locked off from the 75% majority of you audience, it's a stupid business model, we just don't question it because "that's how it's always been done" (which is equally stupid reasoning). 

Nintendo games scale quite well because of the cartoony art style, look at Wind Waker HD, it doesn't look out of place amongst games 2 generations older just with a little HD polish. Mario Kart 8 would probably look well at home even on a PS4 if you scaled it up to 1080P + 4X AA and added a few effects. 

The various NX models can play all the core Nintendo games. I'd advocate for different hardware models then because what the hell is the point of having a cheap console and cheap portable both aimed at the same audience? Embrace the switch to a platform (rather than singular hardware) centric business and offer models for differing audience bases. 

You need far better understanding of hardware. Unless the home console's power is completely wasted, the games made for it will need downgrades and optimization to fit the handheld. it's not as expensive as making two games but it costs considerably more than making a single game. Then there are  huge games (like a 3d mario/zelda/metroid) that would cost much more to downgrade and would be stupid to do so anyway, since all platforms need their exclusives.

 

You're acting like Nintendo has a choice. 

There is no choice. 

Nintendo cannot support a PS4 level console and a PS3/360 level portable. Sony or MS wouldn't be able to to do it either

So the only alternative then is to basically kill the console entirely and just make portables, but I doubt you're gung ho about that idea. 

But two distinct hardware platforms is over, the days where that was possible are long gone. Portable games aren't a joke anymore, they will require large teams and long dev cycles themselves going forward and the portable requires all the big gun Nintendo IP going forward too since it's the stronger seller.

Nintendo can't even keep up with the Wii U and 3DS as is. One's library suffers when they focus on the other. 

This is why Iwata started talking about unified library and iOS/Android like platform structure I feel ... they did the math 2+ years ago and realized they couldn't continue the same way forever. A share library is the only way they can have a console and portable going forward, the only alternative was basically killing the console line.