• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Nintendo's home strategy – rebuilding the collapsed Nintendo home console business

Timeless

Member
Rise of lighter indie games such as Hotline Miami, Fez and Walking Dead show potential of technically light games in the living room
Fez requires a ton of CPU resources on the PC port. My dual-core couldn't handle it.
 

Shauni

Member
Wow, these "Nintendo is doomed/how do we save Nintendo" threads pop up all the time.

As far as the actual idea in the OP. Well, it's a solid idea, but I wouldn't want that to replace an actual Nintendo effort into new software.
 
I've been thinking about this type of system for a while, mainly due to threads like this one. Here's my proposal:



- Size of a 3DS XL, but slightly thicker to accommodate second set of triggers (either uniformly thicker, or a "lip" near the top) and a second circle pad.

- Uses technology similar to the Wii U to project the top screen image to an HDMI dongle.

- Can sync up with other wireless Nintendo controllers, such as the pro controller, for multiplayer. (don't want to lose Nintendo's local multiplayer titles, after all) Its motion controller option is redesigned top use a magnetometer to recalibrate rather than a sensor bar.

Love it. Put a D-pad on the nunchuk and we're good to go.

A Nintendo with a single platform would be great. Twice the content on one piece of hardware. Plus, they could free their teams to be more creative, instead of having to crank out similar games for both platforms (i.e. NSMB2/NSMBU).
 

Timeaisis

Member
Nintendo would never do this. And here's why:

They have the most devout and relentless fan following of any company (OK, this is debatable, but the Nintendo loyalists are really loyal), particularly because of their strong franchises. Doing "Nintendo TV" would just throw all of those under the bus and completely back-fire. Remember the outcry when the Wii was first announced and Nintendo fanboys were up in arms at this "casual" game machine? That would be this, tenfold.

Nintendo isn't about blockbuster titles and exploding sales. It's about the legs. Everything it does has lasting value. They may not have the biggest blockbuster games, but their titles are consistently bought long after they are released, and so are their consoles. Nintendo is a company about making stuff that people can play for a long time after they buy it, and creating franchises that everyone can pick up after years away.

They are the Coca-Cola of the gaming world. Sony is the Pepsi. Think about that for a minute. This "Nintendo TV" would be New Coke. People would hate it. Even people that haven't played Nintendo games in years would be annoyed after finding a stripped down $15 experience in place of the new Super Mario Game. "Where's my Mario game!?", they would shout. That's the best analogy I can give, honestly.

I guess Microsoft would be like...RC Cola?
 

jay

Member
Very detailed OP, but I am not sure I agree with some of the premises. As has been pointed out, Nintendo could make a more powerful console but for whatever reason has decided to focus on making something small and energy efficient.

Also, while Nintendo may be good at making "Quick pick up and play multiplayer games," I think it is incorrect to state that as some sort of denial that they also make solid selling and often excellent deeper, single player games.

It may be a good concept business-wise, but I would be very unhappy if it meant they stopped making Fire Emblem, Zelda, Metroid, etc. in order to focus on smaller multiplayer titles.

for years, i said this was silly: selling 1 product where you could sell 2, i just couldn't see it. but every day that goes by, this feels more likely, and the WU paving the way for that in a sense kinda cements it, even down to dev teams struggling to support both platforms where you can only imagine how hard they'd love to consolidate that right now, i bet.

I used to mock Nintendo's Booger because he insisted they would merge their console and handheld. It didn't make sense to me, either, why give up a whole market? But I agree that it seems less absurd these days.
 

Guevara

Member
Nintendo has to do something. The number of people willing to buy a console just to play Nintendo games is shrinking and 3rd party support is never coming back. I expect the Wii U to sell slightly worse than the Gamecube this gen, meaning 16-18M consoles. Nintendo can turn a profit here but it's clear that the Wii was a fluke unlikely to happen again.

Which is why I like the idea in the OP so much. I personally would buy one and it would be a great differentiator for Nintendo. The <$149 or market is still in flux but represents a great opportunity. Someone is going to get there. Nintendo could have a huge advantage, they have the name recognition, the back catalog of games, the ability to almost entirely support a platform on their own (almost, but not completely); but they're blowing it.
 

creyas

Member
The lightweight Nintendo system would actually be very desirable. They wouldn't need to sink to anywhere near mobile prices. Who cares if it's running on a "mobile chip" if the gameplay is solid, the clean Nintendo art style doesn't need that much power to look really good.

If they designed handheld games to play nice with larger resolutions from the start and matched the architectures so it could easily just run them at 1080p/60fps it'd be perfect.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
I used to mock Nintendo's Booger because he insisted they would merge their console and handheld. It didn't make sense to me, either, why give up a whole market? But I agree that it seems less absurd these days.

It only makes sense if they can't find a way to make a sizable profit in the console market.

I figure they can, even with just Gamecube like sales, if they market their product better and get their key first party games out.

It may be too late for the Wii U (time will tell), but if nothing else they can definitely do that with their next console--price it reasonably, have a big first party game (Mario and/or Zelda, main series games, not NSMB type stuff) at launch and they should be able to sell enough to make a nice profit just selling their hardware and first party stuff.
 

alan666

Banned
Nice idea OP, but what Nintendo need to do is stop sticking their head in the sand & hoping that Mario/Zelda/Kart will save them.

I have had a WiiU since launch & a 3DS, i am only now feeling ok about my 3DS, but i doubt i will ever feel ok about buying a WiiU at launch, i thought they had learned from the 3DS release, but they clearly had not, the WiiU is one of the worst consoles i have owned, the OS is still way to slow as are loading times, the pad construction (well mine seems to be having issues with the screen) the multiplayer set-up & the lack of games.

Nintendo came late to the party & their comments about finding creating HD games difficult on their own hardwear makes them look like amateurs, if Nintendo had looked where MS/Xbox & Sony/PS were heading then at least the WiiU would of been x86, i think the WiiU is dead once the X1 & PS4 are released.

The real issue Nintendo have is that they have lost trust, i have had most of the Nintendo consoles, but i would never buy one at release again, i may never buy another Nintendo console again for that matter.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Well Nintendo, today Sony announced a product that is pretty much exactly like this

- tiny box
- ARM based architecture
- $99
- games at $5-15
- classics and indies

with the added bonus that it shares an ecosystem with their portable.

Maybe it wasn't such a dumb idea after all.
 
Well Nintendo, today Sony announced a product that is pretty much exactly like this

- tiny box
- ARM based architecture
- $99
- games at $5-15
- classics and indies

with the added bonus that it shares an ecosystem with their portable.

Maybe it wasn't such a dumb idea after all.

heh, I was totally thinking of this post when I read about the Vita TV thing.
 
Top Bottom