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Soundwave on 04 May 2016
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MohammadBadir said:
Soundwave said:

Because Nintendo will be able to make a lot more games, or who says they can't make more the same number of games.

NX could have Mario Kart 9 and 10 ... you just wouldn't have a userbase split, where one of the game's is locked off from 3/4 of your user base like Mario Kart 8 is.

Or you could have say Super Mario 3D World followed by Super Mario Galaxy 3 instead of 3D Land and 3D World. I'd rather have that than two somewhat redundant games.

Unified platform doesn't mean fewer games or even fewer franchise oppurtunities, all it means is Nintendo can ensure all their top IP sell to ALL their audience base.

Right now, 3/4 Nintendo hardware buyers can't play Splatoon. Why? Because 3/4 Nintendo buyers this generation don't even have a Wii U to begin with.

The non-unified platform approach is not as great as traditionalists make it out to be. It's expensive ($500 for a Wii U + 3DS XL still), resource consuming (Nintendo has to make multiple versions of basically the same franchise), and forces large portions of the Nintendo buying audience to miss out on many games.

All that is moot because the console itself would be redundant. Think about it. Why would anybody buy both platforms? I honestly can't think of any reason besides playing some games at home and some outdoors, but only a minority would care about that. The console would be cheap and weak, and the handheld would be overkill. Nintendo would make more money getting you to buy 2 consoles and 10 games, rather than 1 platform and 10 games. Consumers would gain, yes,  but Nintendo wouldn't, and with their recent profit woes, it only makes sense that they'd go for the route that'd make more money. Plus we're talking about the company who doesn't even let you play Super Mario Bros 2 on 2 platforms without repurchasing them let alone modern games, lol.

That's a good question actually.

The console should go a little more upmarket in that case and be able to run some high end third party games that the portable won't be able to handle.

Beyond that though, I don't think it's even a choice so much. If you want a PS3-style portable and a PS4-style console, developing for both is not feasible because development costs are so much higher, it'd basically be like asking Nintendo to make two consoles. Even Sony/MS would buckle and break trying to support two systems like that, no chance in hell Nintendo "never met a delay I didn't like" would be able to satisfactorily support two systems.

Look at the 3DS and Wii U as is ... you have angry people on both sides right now saying they're not getting enough content. It will get worse as time goes on, the whole Nintendo console-handheld dynamic was never designed for such development requirements, it was all fine and dandy when portable games were just small little things that could be knocked out by a group of 10-15 people if need be. That's impossible now. Realistically a PS3/360 level Mario Kart would require basically the same staff as the PS4-XB1 version.

You can't just treat the portable like some kid-brother second thought anymore either. The portable is where the majority of Nintendo fans are and have been for several generations now running. So if the portable has the technology, then it deserves its own Mario Kart, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, 2D Zelda, yes now even 3D Zelda, Animal Crossing, etc. etc. etc. Something has to give.

Nintendo can't survive forever with their content split in half the way it is, while there are potential downsides to unifying there are also practical reasons why its needed now.