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.