Yes it's time for a crazy idea thread again. Also wasn't sure where to place this but gaming discussion seemed best.
Obviously there are a lot of pros and cons with this idea. Nintendo has always valued their independence highly, probably above all else. But when it comes to the home console business they seemed to have reached a dead end (Obviously we don't know what NX will bring but i'm not going to speculate on that for know). They still have solid following but the install base has become very small and third party support is allmost completely gone.
And that would be the biggest incentive for a Steam machine right there: instant massive third party support. The entire library of the Steam store available right from the start. Allmost all of the big multi platform games would be available on their system again(something that might not happen even if they release a console on par with PS4/XBOne). Also by using the PC platform, they could keep online free. That would give Nintendo a huge advantage of Sony and Microsoft. Also the games you buy will be playable on any Steam supported platform you buy or build in the future. With current consoles, if you buy the next system you have to keep the old one otherwise your entire digital library becomes unplayable.
Now for the dissadvantages. The big one would be royalties. No more royalties from other publishers on their system and they will have to give a part of the sales of their first party games to Steam. Now this might seem like big issues, but if you look more closely they might not be. First off the royalties Nintendo gets from other publishers is already becoming less and less because their is barely any third party support and sales of them relatively low due to the small install base. Second they might have to give Valve a cut, however it's all digital so they save themselves the cut that a retailer would take and some distribution costs.
So what do you guys think could it work? And even so would Nintendo ever be open to it?
