Take-Two “believers” in Nintendo, feeling “pretty enthusiastic” about NX

[DanneSandin]

RolStoppable said:

You need to be more realistic in your argument. You can't go from "Nintendo has to appease third parties to get quality ports" to "$350 console" when both Sony and Microsoft are already guaranteed to launch new consoles with more processing power than the PS4 and XB1, respectively. I also have to wonder how you think that it's possible for the NX home console and handheld to share most of the games when at that price difference for the hardware most of the big third party multiplatform games couldn't possible run on the handheld.

Instead of worrying about being the second choice, NX should focus on being the one and only choice for all those people who don't even consider a PlayStation or Xbox. NX should not encourage segregation between home console and handheld, but rather tear down such a wall. I get that a lot of people around here want a Nintendo console to be for the "pros", but it's exactly that kind of elitism that leads into the death spiral. The "casuals" should play on the handheld and not mess up "hardcore gaming", but the logical result of that are low sales for the home console which lead to bad sales for third party games which lead to third parties abandoning ship. The NX home console should be as much entry level as the NX handheld, so that it's up to the market to decide which device they'd rather play on.

And yes, I know that you are going to say that you aren't such an elitist, but when you arrange the pieces of the puzzle in the way you did above, there's at least a subconscious desire at work. Appeasing to third parties, home console and handheld sharing most of the games, neither of these two things are feasible at the hardware prices you mentioned. It sounds great (well, not for me, but you) as a fantasy scenario, but that's what it is: A fantasy scenario.

At $350 they would get quite a capable console, one to match and probably even surpass the current iterations of X1 and PS4 and for $400 the NX would be as powerful as the Neo and Scorpio (or close enough). And besides, they could make a home console for $300 and then have it up to the consumer to buy the handheld and link them together to boost the power, if the patents are to be believed. And regarding the graphical differences between the home console and the portable, why couldn't the games be scalable? The PC have managed that trick for years now, and by the sound of it, it seems like the NEo and Scorpio are heading that way too.

The problem with being the one and only choice for "casuals" is that they might not get a home console at all. Nintendo might be forced to invent a new gimmick each and every generation to keep them coming back. And we all know how that went down the last two times they tried it... I wanna make two points about this:

1) There isn't a big difference between the DS and 3DS, not really. The 3DS is a more powerful DS with 3D capabilities, more or less. So why didn't it sell as well as the DS? Or close to it? We could argue that the initial price point were too steep, but why haven't that been ratified since Nintendo cut the price? Why aren't the 3DS close to 100m? It's not like it has an entirely new controll mechanism, like Wii U. It's not like the entire market for handhelds disappeared, since it's still selling. Was it the 3D that scared them away? Well, that could easily be turned off, and is entirely misisng on the 2DS - which is the cheapest iteration of the 3DS, and yet, has sold the least. Or is it that the market simply moved on? Why buy a gaming device, and the games for it, when you can play for free.

2) The "casuals" are quite fickle and moved on from Wii and DS en masse. Sure, you can argue that Nintendo failed to sustain the Wii with quality games after 2010, but how about the transition from the DS to the 3DS I talked about? And what's to stop the "casuals" from moving on from the NX once they grow tired of it? The "core" gaming audience are more reliable that way, although, even that market share is having trouble retainen people these days, and I'm just speculating here; that could be because core gamers are turning to PC instead. If Nintendo made a "core" console they could win people back from the PC, since their games aren't playable anywhere else - but Nintendo would have to have strong 3rd party support for that to work.

What I'm saying is that the NX should be a place for ALL gamers to meet and play, casuals AND core. That's the argument I'm putting forth. A console strong enough to lure back 3rd parties, and thus the core gaming audience, but having the extraordinary IP's and creativity Nintendo has, they'd also bring casuals into the fold.