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Soundwave on 01 February 2016
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OneTwoThree said:

Please, can someone explain to me what's exciting about a "unified library". Nintendo never had a problem supporting 3DS, because handheld games are cheap to make: smaller, less ambitous, less cutting edge technically. The platform they struggled making content for is Wii U. So if that's the problem a unified library is supposed to fix, it can only mean we're getting more handheld quality games for the next home console. Yaay?

I don't even get what's in it for Nintendo. This industry has always been about software sales, the hardware being just a vehicle. So in the future they won't sell 1x Mario Land + 1x Mario Bros to you, but 1x Universal Mario. That's half the software sales. Yay?

Then Nintendo has always argued that they prefer tailor-making games to the strengths of each system. Scratch that, too.

Really, I'm puzzled. But I am puzzled about most of what Nintendo is doing recently.
Slightly off-topic, anybody care to hear what IMO is the one big mistake they made with Wii U, which led to all the other issues we always talk about?

It's the one year headstart. Iwata panicked and preponed the launch. As a result they didn't have a system seller, no decent launch lineup, 3rd parties didn't have time to prepare anything and decided to wait instead. Nintendo caught 3rd parties one year before they were ready to transition to the next gen, so there was no chance of receiving crucial multiplatform titles. Miyamoto's ideas were still tech demos - many still not released today, some of them became the anemic joke that is Nintendoland. So as Nintendo's own sparse lineup bombed and 3rd parties waited before even starting any projects, Wii U was done within a few months. The headstart was an awful, awful decision.

So here we are, Nintendo makes DLC figurines, announces F2P smartphone games, covers up the most barren release schedule ever with re-releases, NX looks like a cost-cutting measure... and you're excited about that?

 

Handheld games are getting more expensive to make, crossing the threshold from PS2 level graphics to close to/better than PS3 graphics with the 3DS successor is likely a big turning point for Nintendo, there's no way they can continue to support progressively more advanced portables while doing the same with consoles forever. 

It also begs the question if the Nintendo portable can basically run very good looking versions of any Nintendo IP, even the extremely big scope titles like Zelda 3D and Xenoblade ... then what really is the draw for the console ... that it has good-er-er graphics? This is also a problem, most consumers will buy the portable and say that's "good enough" to get their Nintendo fix. 

The days where you *needed* a Nintendo console to play "real" Nintendo games like Mario 64 and GoldenEye and Zelda: Oot, because you could only play basic rudimentary 2D games on the Nintendo portable are long over. 

The reason for wanting to unify is fairly obvious for other reasons too ... 4/5 people buying Nintendo hardware don't buy Nintendo consoles in 2 of the last 3 generations. That means the vast majority of their userbase never plays the games they put the highest budget/most dev time (mostly) into. This generation Nintendo will sell 85 million pieces of hardware, but 70+ million of those are not a Wii U. 

That is an insanely stupid way to run your business for one. Imagine if we're running say a fast food business like McDonalds and the Big Mac (the "flagship sandwhich) is only available at 1 out of every 4 restaurants.