DanneSandin said:
Soundwave said:
I think Nintendo honestly about 2-3 years ago made the decision internally that they cannot compete with mobile and instead needed to embrace mobile.
I think seeing 3DS sales erode away in the US and Europe to like 1/3 of the DS pretty much sealed it.
From that decision is where Pokemon Go, the DeNA deal, and NX all stem from ... they all started in development around this same time. I think Miyamoto was basically shut out of this decision and they threw him a bone by saying "go make some Wii U games that use the tablet pad" and Star Fox, Project Guard, Project Giant Robot is basically what he came up with (which predictably failed).
"Free" Android games still stand to make Nintendo a lot of money when they're taking home a 30% cut of all the revenue generated by said games.
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I'm still torn on this whole idea of Nintendo accessing the app-market with their next console. It could be a total success, like you said, or it could be an utter failure, like Rol said. The risk of having 1000's of free app-games on your console is that people (kids) starts to think ALL games should be free, which will lead to them not buying any actual games from Nintendo.
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The problem is Nintendo is never going to stop kids from playing free apps. They know free apps are there. Now does Nintendo want any chance of getting those kids to choose their device or not?
Because if they make this about "it's our way or their way", then they are going to lose. A Nintendo NX that is a walled garden device only plays Nintendo games (at $40-$60 a pop) and a smattering of third party games is going to lose on entertainment value versus a tablet that can play kids cartoons, Snap Chat, video, Facebook, Candy Crush, and thousands of other games for free.
Nintendo just can't compete with the entertainment versatility a tablet can offer to kids and adults.
Besides, mobile is no longer Nintendo's "enemey" it's time to start viewing it as a main pillar of Nintendo's business. Pokemon GO is the biggest thing associated with Nintendo in a decade easily. On NX, Nintendo can get a 100% cut of their mobile app revenues (instead of giving Apple/Google 30%) and they can take 30% of all those other apps too.
They may have to adjust some of their pricing structure, they may have to accept some NX kids will simply be happy with free games alone (but they can still make money off that on the NX and sell their own Nintendo apps), but that is what it is. There's no putting the genie of free mobile apps back into the bottle now, it's out, the question now is whether you want to be friends with the genie or enemies with it.
Even if there a person who buys a NX and only ever buys 3 games for it in its life time (lets say they really love Mario Kart and 2D Mario and basically nothing else) and spends the rest of the time playing freemium games (on which I take home 30% of that profit), I'd rather have their business than have them buy an iPad or Android tablet instead.