Sorry if there's already a thread - I couldn't find it with a quick look.
I'm a little short on time, but a bit of an information overload this morning from Eurogamer and Kotaku. Official unveiling in September. Hybrid handheld/dedicated console. nVidia Tegra tech.
I for one am excited!
I can see myself getting one, looks to me like a Vita on steroids. For me it is all about the control scheme, so long as it has a physical layout I am in. I wanted to go in on a WiiU but held back due to lack of support and the fact that once the Gamepad dies you can't actually buy a new one. This is all moot though, March 2017 (or whenever the release is) is a long way off. At this stage I am invested in getting an Xbox Scorpio but if the price is right I would bite.
So two months since they show it. Nintendo will have all its devs working on the one device. The question is, will it sell? I think if the pricing is good, there's a good chance.
Concept looks great and I welcome a plug in at home on the go console. I hope Vooks joke is true and it's called the Portable Nintendo Entertainment System or PNES for short.
I tried buying a new Gamepad for a friend when his son damaged the screen. No one sells them. Ended up calling Nintendo Australia, said they'd repair it for $200. Not much of an option when a new system costs around $300 these days.
Pretty stupid move on Nintendo's part. Controllers always break. Reason why I never got the WiiU because it would only be a matter of time before the controller went bung.
I am genuinely excited about the NX. I need to see what the control scheme is like before committing.
Yeah doesn't seem like it wants to compete with the other two on specs but instead be 'the second console you'd buy just for in-house exclusives and your kid'.
Which is fine by me. Wiiu library was great despite the hardware selling poor. It's just the potential of the tablet never got exploited nearly enough. Xenoblade and lego city being exceptions. Indie games are great to play on it while the tv is being used and wiiu is semi portable thanks to its small size. It's a gimmick not many appreciate. Kids can bring it to a friends house to play home console games easily and not need to use the tv.
At the end of the day sony and ms libraries are identical. This is boring if you play everything. Having a third machine that does something they are already doing (more boring military shooters with shit level design) isn't going to be exciting. Focus on making polished-as-fuck unique games that define the console and give unqie experiences.
It's good to see the return of cartridges. Sick of optical discs. Vita finally ditched it and UMD was seen no more. Only natural that home consoles go the same way. Also it is easier for kids to handle. Discs scratch easily. And maybe certain games can have special chips inside the cart to enhance them like in the old days?
Now all they need to do is make sure it is priced well, maybe include free game to add value because the other two systems already have bundles. Suggestion 'New 2D metroid maker' game thanks.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto
This is where I think Nintendo keep going wrong. They look to the past to see what was good to them financially and try to imitate past successes when the world of gaming has or is or on it's way of moving on. With the Wii U it was linked too closely to the Wii, even in name. Even though the sales were good, and it basically printed money for years, the Wii had become a joke to the general gaming community, for its substandard hardware and casual games, bad ports or none at all etc, and for the casual crowd it captured, the fad was over, yet because of the money it generated, Nintendo made the mistake of branding the Wii U the "Wii U". Not only did it not catch the casuals, but it made Nintendo even more of a joke in the world of gaming in the same way the Wii did. Underperforming hardware, bad ports or none at all. Had the Wii U had a different name, lost the focus on waggle, and dedicated itself to the 2nd screen idea, even with it's hardware limitations I have a hunch it would have fared a lot better. I'm not talking 50 million units or anything, but a LOT more than the 13 million just better than Dreamcast levels it has achieved in it's life.
They did the same thing with the 3DS. Tried to capture what they did with the original DS. Which did eventually work in a way, but not without some major setbacks. But it was plain for anyone to see that smartphone and tablet gaming was where the huge casual market, a market that the DS itself helped create, was where the people were going to be.
Now Nintendo are wising up to the fact that they can't support a home console and portable with games all on their own without big publishers support, so a hybrid console that can do both will be perfect to keep a constant stream of games released even if 3rd party support is a concern again. That's great, except, if the world was shifting from portable gaming back when the 3DS was released, it is a real concern that Nintendo are again looking like they are looking to past sales figures of the 3DS and DS and thinking it is wise to make this NX concept primarily a portable gaming console with tacked on home console features a secondary function. Unless this device is some kind of miracle concept, or has Android or iOS compatibility, it has no hope of competing in that space in this day and age. If it was a home console FIRST, and a portable an optional yet highly publicised and sought after SECOND, it may stand a chance of being successful. Going the route they are now (it could change but we all know it won't) it gives Nintendo a proper set of excuses as to why the power of the NX isn't at the same level as current consoles. 1. It's a handheld. Handhelds have never been or will likely never be graphically on par with larger and more expensive home consoles, so that's why it's not as powerful. 2. There has never been a hybrid portable home console before. We are the only ones in this market so we have no competition. And the rest of the excuses will be all the same things we have heard before, where they say that it's not the power of the console, but the content. Which can be true, there are a lot of beautiful games on the Wii U, but who is going to see these games? Not the average gamer who want's a console with their favourite franchises on it and able to play with their friends who like themselves want the same thing, and it's just common knowledge in the gaming community now that if you want your FIFA or CoD or Assassins Creed or whatever, Nintendos consoles aren't the places to have the best experiences of these games if at all. And these games will not come with underpowered hardware.
So. While I had my fun with my 3DS, and Wii U, and loved them at the time, the fun stopped when the games stopped. I am very iffy about this project the more i hear about it. I can't wait for everything to finally be officially revealed so I can stop thinking about it. My PS4 is really giving me everything I need right now. The same was true of the Wii U two years ago, but times change, and Nintendo really have to get ahead of the curve this time to stay relevant. So far, it doesn't look like they are ahead at all, instead looking firmly backward, seeing dollar signs instead of reading the current mindset of their potential customers.
The reason wii u failed is because nobody knew what it was. The concept behind it was fine. A machine where players could continue a game without worrying about the girlfriend/wife hogging the tv because it has its own screen.
The problem is developers go for whoever has the highest userbase or highest specs. It's why the DS beat the PSP, the 3DS beat the PS Vita. The ps2 beat DC and Xbox (came too late to the market with crappy oversized controller)
Mobile gamers do not represent real gamers and really nobody is going to play serious games on mobile phone. I don't care how many feminists think game culture needs to change. Most hardcore gamers want good controls so they can do that complex special move in their fighting game or not accidentally brush their finger across the screen and do a move by accident and die on a tough boss.
They are the only pure game company left out of the 3. It's beter to differentiate yourself from the other two in order to have a reason to exist...but at the same time not piss off the major publisher somehow.
Vast majority of older gamers own multiple consoles. So they have to draw game fans to buy the hardware for the first party exclusives. Then worry about third parties second. The western market doesn't do pokemon, mario, zelda etc and the reason core fanbase exists is to play these games. Until I see a monster hunter killer, pokemon killer, a smash bros killer, a mario kart killer etc I don't care what activision, EA or ubisoft is doing since I can easily play those games on the other system. But the reverse is not true for the other two machines. I can't play zelda or xenoblade on xbox or playstation.
It's not just about profits guys. It's about respect to the core patrons. If they go softcore and platformers are designed around being really really easy to cater to mobile gamers who use touchscreens to play game, you are going to be the first guys to whine about how the quality of games have dipped since the old days. You can play the what if game all you like and say "they shoulda coulda done this or that" and "woulda been better off doing this" but at their core they as a business need to care about the people that buy their shit, not the guys who only casually care about their games but not like buying the system to play it.
It would be like caring about 3DS to play a port of Need For Speed rather than exclusives like Mario Kart or Fire Emblem.
That's not how people think. Yes there are fans of those third party franchises but I would rather those companies only release their titles to the most powerful system only and work on sequels not on porting the same shit to every system. Did we really need to see those crap later Resident Evil games on Xbox and Sony, when they could have just gone to nintendo only and been polished triple A titles (exclusive to the one system like RE0 and RE1 remake on gamecube) instead of Call of Duty clones trying to please fans of generic zombie games?
You really think I care about how much capcom profited off of the shitty titles in the series rather than the good games? I care about quality. Less games, more polish, and no more microtransaction DLC nonesense. Just make one complete game, then maybe remaster it later with bonus content and/or do a fullblown sequel. I want good games, not crap games you made a big profit from just because there were a gazillion rich guys who do not care if the franchise goes down the shitter in terms of gameplay.
PC basically gets all the third party games anyway, and since the japs don't give a fuck about that platform they got to focus their efforts on making fresh games, exclusive to the platform, which appeal to a global audience. (ie not just japanese people) Then market the machine once good games are available.
Wii U was really only for the gamers who felt abandoned last Gen when Wii was trying too hard to be casual-friendly. So they launched Wii U to please this small vocal minority which buys lots of triple A titles per year so as not to piss them off. It's a stop gap machine and they know it. So they didn't advertise much. Wii could be considered a failure if you look at it from the perspective of proper gamers who care about responsiveness. (eg not liking the controls in Donkey Kong Country Returns because it shoe horned in motion sensing)
You can't have your cake and eat it.
On one hand you get angry at waggle as being a fad for the retards.
Then on the other you are angry about nintendo not selling enough machines to attract third party companies on Wii U, which fixed the problem of the previous machine only being a system that sells to casuals only, and those users failing to buy anything apart from Wii Fit because as casuals they don't buy many games per console compared to hardcore gamers who spend way more hours playing games.
If they make casual games they may piss off the hardcore guys who see the games being dumbed down too much (similar to how many pc franchises got dumbed down once they starting being console games) and feel abandoned. But if they go too hardcore, they may please the hardcore consumer who buys lots of games per console, but is smaller userbase than the armies of casual gamers out there that jump onto fads. The manual for Xenblade is very long for instance. I don't see a casual dude caring about that game but to fans of epic rpg games that might be the reason to buy wii u along with the usual zelda games and mario karts.
Last edited by GameHED on 08 Sep 2016 01:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto
Nintendo has been resurgent in the smart phone arena, maybe the strategy is to get the smart phone casuals hooked to the Nintendo brand and then offer them something a little extra via the NX.
The mario bros announcement today has been huge for their stock.
