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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo's Biggest Issue & How the NX might solve it- Opinion

 

Will a shared library improve Nintendo's software and hardware output?

Yup 36 83.72%
 
Nope 1 2.33%
 
Sega does what Nintendon't 6 13.95%
 
Total:43

Disclaimer: No, this isn't a Nintendo Doom Thread. Doom enthusiansts, go play Doom 3

It's no secret to Nintendo fans and non-Nintendo fans, they [Nintendo], are not in the best position. Third party has abandoned their home consoles, they just posted another operating loss of $234 Million compared to the other big 2, Sony and Microsoft, which both posted profits and increased revenue.

Nintendo's Wii U brought Nintendo into numerous consecutive losses.

To make things worse, Q2 is not projected to be much better as Nintendo really has nothing important coming to 3DS or Wii U.

To be fair, Nintendo will most likely post Pokemon Go earnings on their next quarterly report and if the rumors are true, Pokemon Go is making 10 million a day. So that have that going for them.(Albiet, it's rumored to only make 13% of profits made) But other than Pokemon Go and Pokemon Sun & Moon (coming in Q3) and the NES Classic (Coming in Q3), Nintendo's upcoming year is bleak. Nintendo fans have: Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, and Ever Oasis among other smaller titles to look forward to.

Nintendo bets big on NES Classic as it's the only new piece of hardware available for Holiday 2016.

As a Nintendo fan I am aware of this, currently the are not in a good position. And you can point to many of Nintendo's faults for their own problems. Uninteresting hardware, weak hardware, poor game quality as of late, and few games actually released on Wii U and now 3DS.

So, what is Nintendo's biggest issue?

To me, one of Nintendo's biggest issues is the fact that they have to support 2 consoles at once, each with its own contrasting OS, cpu and gpu capabilities. This is very crippling in numerous ways. Not only do they have to have 2 divisions that focus on different games from the same franchises, they have have to accept droughts on Wii U to compensate the 3DS. So what's the solution that I hope Nintendo is proposing with NX? A Shared Library

With all the recent NX rumors it is heavily being speculated that the NX will be a hybrid console. And as many of you know, I am not happy with the idea of a powerful handheld that doubles as a home console. But, I think I know why Nintendo is going this route. (And I'm sure many of you know this as well but other people might have a different view of Nintendo's biggest issue.}

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The Benefits of a Shared Library

1.) The end of game droughts on Nintendo consoles: Now, the Wii U has numerous problems as we all know and the 3DS is no DS. To make matters worse, third party companies don't want to suppor the Wii U and in result, that's less software output on Wii U and overall less sales of their [Nintendo's] hardware. So, to compensate for the lost support of 3rd parties (Not that 3rd parties will become unnecessary), Nintendo having a shared library theoretically doubles the output of Nintendo's first party software. This gives Nintendo an oppourtinity to release a steady stream of games rather than making stop gaps to make a game for 3DS, and creating another stop gap to make software for Wii U. It's painful, it has been painful to be a Wii U owner and even now, the 3DS is slowing down in terms of software output.

Let's pray this doesn't happen again

2.) More time to make new IP: One of Nintend's biggest gripes of the past few years is rehashing games. And I agree. They do a lot of rehashing of their franchises. With Zelda: Breath of the Wild being one of the latest contradictions. But, it was in 2015 when Splatoon was released when Nintendo finally released a new franchise since the Wii series (2006). The game has sold well over 4. 5 million units and has effectively cemented itself in Nintendo's IP repertoire. This is something, I feel, that Nintendo sorely needed.

You're a kid, you're a squid now.

A new IP to give fans a new experience and not just the same old, same old. Hopefully with the shared llbrary of NX, Nintendo's EAD/NPD, and their 2nd party studios will have more time to focus on one game that will be effectively playable on the go and at home. It's even been documented that Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma is contemplating on a new IP and hey, we might see what comes of  this on NX.

3.) Potentially Increased 3rd Party Support: Hear me out on this one. I am aware that Nintendo consoles aren't made to accomodate the desires of major 3rd party companies. Their hardware is as of late, very underpowered compared to the competition with the Gamecube (2001) being the last powerful Nintendo console. But with the DS and Wii, Nintendo created an environment where all developers were invited to develop software because the idea was well recieved, games were cheap to make and they could sell really well. So you had games like Call of Duty on Wii but they were very poor ports.

Now that we're in the post Wii era, we have the idea that 3rd parties won't release their games on Nintendo consoles because they are difficult to port to, but the main reason, I believe, is the fact that they can't compete with Nintendo's software due to the demographic that Nintendo is courting. With a shared library, I believe that developers wouldn't have much to lose. You are essentially making a game that's playable on a Nintendo owned market [i.e. dedicated handheld gaming], and also playable as a home console style game. I would think that would be very appealing to 3rd parties as very little would be on the line.

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So that's my take on why a shared library would improve Nintendo's hardware and software performance. I mean, just look at Smash Brothers 4. It's the only game that's recouped its total install base from the last game, Brawl. What do you think Nintendo's biggest issue is? Feel free to discuss things that Sony and Microsoft are doing in regards to how Nintendo can improve, no propaganda here. Discuss what you must, I've shared my bit.



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I'm worried on the cartridge side, not going to be very big games.



Random_Matt said:
I'm worried on the cartridge side, not going to be very big games.

I wouldn't be too worried about the carts. NX is first and foremost a handheld. So I don't think the games are going to be designed to cater to hardcore gamers. NX seems more like a console that, because it is a combination, there has to be tradeoffs. You're going to have games that look better than that of the PS Vita and then some, along with the portability factor with HD gaming in mind. 32GB isn't much but it said to also be the base cartridge size.



I think a lot of us have been saying for years that Nintendo has no choice but to consolidate their hardware business in some form, may it be as a hybrid or a unified library because HD development and its increased manpower/development costs have just wrecked any possibility of supporting two platforms going forward. Even with a shared library on the NX, Nintendo probably wouldn't come close to matching their overall software output on one platform a decade ago but at least we wouldn't have software droughts.



It will eliminate redundancy and give users twice the games with the same hardware. So yes, it will improve the output.



You know it deserves the GOTY.

Come join The 2018 Obscure Game Monthly Review Thread.

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wombat123 said:

I think a lot of us have been saying for years that Nintendo has no choice but to consolidate their hardware business in some form, may it be as a hybrid or a unified library because HD development and its increased manpower/development costs have just wrecked any possibility of supporting two platforms going forward. Even with a shared library on the NX, Nintendo probably wouldn't come close to matching their overall software output on one platform a decade ago but at least we wouldn't have software droughts.

Agreed, but I think software output would definitely outpace that of Wii U and 3DS combined due to the fact that you only have to buy one hardware unit supposedly.



Random_Matt said:
I'm worried on the cartridge side, not going to be very big games.

Honestly todays games arnt that much bigger (gameplay or world wise) than the games of yester years, they they are many times bigger in size.

Its mostly because they dont even try anymore, to keep sizes down.

 

FFX (ps2) is like 3.8gb

Why today must games be 50+ gb ?

Its not like graphics have improved 10x or more, or the game world & gameplay time is 10 times larger/longer.

I think 32gb should be enough for most games.

And whos to say they wont make 64gb cartridges?

 

I hope they dont have a HDD inside the NX.

Instead they sell you a Cartridge that you can write too, and read from. Which you would use when your downloading digital games.

Remove the HDD from the console, remove the DVD drive,.... price of console should drop alot.

Just play games directly from the cartridges.



I think Nintendo's mistake was that they were relying on third parties to fill in the gap for the wiiU. When we saw the wiiU's e3, Nintendo told everyone that it will have third party support and we had third party CEOs come on stage including EA to tell us that they will support it.

But once it came out, EA didn't even bother as well as most of them. The wiiU got terrible ports with missing content and performance issues with some games being delayed from third parties. And I think Nintendo was unprepared for it.

Now, while I agree that software output is one of their biggest issues and shared library would fix it, I don't like it due to the potential side effects. And they are essentially, why would I as a consumer buy both of their devices if they have the exact same games when I can just buy their handheld and a ps4?

Most gamers like Nintendo's handheld looking at their sales but Nintendo's consoles due to their power and lack of third party games such as cod, gta and etc don't really care for them. So I think the end result would have been similar with a shared library. Great handheld sales due to zero direct competition and poor console sales due to a competitive market and being able to play the same games on the handheld. 

The console would have just been the gimmick where if I wanted to play on the TV or get a bit higher graphics, I would buy it but I highly doubt most people would care... Because they can just save that money and buy a ps4/x1.

Edit: Imo, their biggest issue was not getting third parties on their side for their console.



                  

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Mar1217 said:
Ljink96 said:

I wouldn't be too worried about the carts. NX is first and foremost a handheld. So I don't think the games are going to be designed to cater to hardcore gamers. NX seems more like a console that, because it is a combination, there has to be tradeoffs. You're going to have games that look better than that of the PS Vita and then some, along with the portability factor with HD gaming in mind. 32GB isn't much but it said to also be the base cartridge size.

Damn. Trusting rumors now ?!

I'm going off what we have, and the rumors seem to be quite reliable at the moment. I think a lot of people saw how I felt about the rumors but as I began to think about what the NX might stand for, it's become quite appealing. I know, strange turn of events. :(



I appreciate all the work you put into this Ljink. Thanks for sharing it with us :)

I think having games that are playable on both console and handheld is a great idea, and something that will keep Nintendo software coming early and often.

But I also think it's important for Nintendo to do a few other things. It needs to make a console that turns a nice profit and caters to the demands of Nintendo software. No more consoles sold at a loss. No more hardware that either stands in the way of first-party game development or consumer interest, or both (see WiiU). Nintendo should absolutely not chase Microsoft and Sony down the rabbit hole, aiming for a high-powered, expensive system. Once you start making concessions to third parties forever will it dominate your destiny. If Nintendo continues to be self-sufficient and plays to its strengths -- durable, affordable hardware and easy-to-learn-impossible-to-master software -- third-party developers will show up eventually. A rising tide lifts all ships.

There are millions who want bleeding-edge hardware, cinematic action games, and access to yearly installments of FIFA, Madden, and Call of Duty. But there are many millions more who, assuming a low price point and consistent output of first-party software, would snatch up a Nintendo console for themselves, their friends, or their families. Nintendo's problem has never been about refusing to compete with monied powers like Sony and Microsoft, and thus finishing last. It's been about convincing itself to move away from what makes it great and disruptive, and thus failing to finish first.