teigaga said:
You're simplifying things waaaay too much. Being a capable system doesn't equal third party support. Even then third party support doesn't equal third party success, lack of third party success means no more third party support. Case and point for both arguments is the Wii U. Didn't recieve most games released in 2013 despite being on par with 360/PS3, those that it did recieve didn't sell very well and thus support was short lived. We have to acknowledge several things. 1. Most people who want to play third games favour Playstation and Xbox platforms for these games as a result of a decade old relationship & marketing (2 decades for playstation users). PS4/X1 have established themselves in the minds of consumers for big franchises, Nintendo is not undoing that mid generation without a miracle. This is without even bringing up the question of online membership/ecosystem. 2. Going by last gen numbers, around 40-50% of this generations userbase will have already picked up a PS4/Xbox One by the time the NX is out. Why on earth would they waste money getting an NX home console just to play the literal the same games, with the same graphics as the console they already have at home? For those yet to purchase a console, why would they lock themselves out of the online ecosystem their friends are a part of? Who are they going to play Fifa and COD with on NX when 80% of their friends own a PS4/X1. 3. The NX home console will be left to die & third party games will FLOP. So we know that Nintendo handhelds always do better then their console simblings. Now imagine that the console sibling doesn't even have its own exclusives because they're all available on the handheld. Now imagine you already have a PC/Playstation/Xbox to play third party games and the NX isn't much more powerful then the PS4. It simply doesn't make sense that such an NX home console will find much success outside from the small portion of Hardcore gamers who want every system with decent "exclusives" & Nintendo fans who strongly prefer home consoles over handhelds and somehow only find third party games interesting when they're coming to a Nintendo platform. 4. Developers will have little interest. Developers don't just throw their games on any platform thats capable. They put them on platforms they think have an audience and a future. A PS4 spec NX arriving after 3 years after the PS4, 5months after the much more power PS4 Pro and 6months before the beastly Scorpio will be a red flag to developers. Their audience who cares about optimun performance are going to go to one of the more powerful systems, their audience who cares about convenience will go to one of the more established platforms. Their future audience, if we jump 4 years forward, will not be playing on the -dated at launch/obsolete- NX. This is partially what happened to the Wii U. The mega publishers threw their generic support at it (AC, COD, Fifa etc). But all of the the slightly more core orientated games skipped it, because the developers knew that a 2012 system which barely out paces the PS3/360 is not going to attract or nurture the audience needed for their games to sell. 5.If all their games are cross platform, Nintendo aren't even going to use the power of the a PS4 level NX, not when the same game has to run on a handheld 1/5 as powerful. They'd either limit their scope for the console version or they'd spend so much time optimising for each platform they're half way developing 2 seperate games. I'm completely down for a powerful, hardcore Nintendo gaming box. 2017 is not the time though.. A real NX hybrid means -cheaper game developement & more games (arguably whats most important to Nintendo finacially). Bigger USP - portable/console in one. Not seperating their audience by platform. Not directly competing with PS4/X1 (so actually positioning themselves as meaningful secondary console). More chance for actual unique support from third parties through distinguishing itself as a unique platform to make money from-i.e its not like Nintendo are just cutting into Playstations pie, they'd be creating a whole new revenue opportunity that wouldn't exist otherwise. Tablet functionality to sell to kids & casual gamers. |
The absolute biggest flaw in your argument is #3. Essentially, if they both have the same library, how much one sells compared to the other isn't going to matter. The issue with WiiU and 3DS is when you make a game for one, you cut out any sales potential of the other (well bar the fact that some Wii U games are being ported to 3ds).
I don't think upscaling and downscaling games are going to be all that hard either, making argument 4 more of a possible issue than a real solid problem. If a 3rd party dev makes a game, a single cartridge, and it's available to both audiences (handheld or home console) it makes all the difference in the world.
