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Soundwave on 15 June 2016
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SonytendoAmiibo said:
Soundwave said:

The question is how much of that market is left or even needs another $250-$300 console when they already play several hours a week on their phones/tablets for free. 

That will be the problem for Nintendo on this end, Apple/Google/Facebook are not any easier competitors than Sony/MS, maybe even harder truth be told. You can't beat free games. 

The Wii/DS time was different because no one was making games for lapsed/casual gamers, but today smartphone and casual browser games are like 60% of the game market, it's the most over-served segment of the market and there are more people playing games today probably than ever. 

Watching TV I now see like 5x+ more marketing for casual smartphone games than I do for even Playstation/XBox. That would be unthinkable circa 2004. 

You are 100 pecent correct. Look at the DS and it's installed base, 150 million! In one generation the 3DS only has 58 million. Thats almost 2/3 of Nintendo's handheld market that went to mobile. 

Nintendo NEEDS to incorperate mobile phones and tablets into the NX ecosystem or they are at a major disadvantage. 

In effect maybe that's what NX could be, it's kinda their attempt at creating something that factors in the monstrous impact smartphone/tablets/apps have had. 

I think that NX running Android report from Nikkei was in fact largely correct. It'll probably a custom/propietary version of Android, but it'll be able to have Android apps which Nintendo can then distribute through their store (perhaps for a fee). 

And if you look at a controller on a screen on it ... well by now smartphone chips are so dirt cheap that you could put a $10 chipset in there too that could probably run Android apps even without needing the system. 

Now whether Nintendo would actually find success with this approach is anyone's guess.