Nintendo NX

[seansthomas]

So shall we have a rolling NX thread?

First details sorta leaked this week.

Initial reports from first dev kits say its got a very highly powered chip set that a suped up PC struggles to run and is an all in one device, with a handheld part and a home hub.

Hard to read much into such scant details but makes me think 'won't it be just as difficult for third parties to develop for as the Wii U?'. Though if Nintendo are only making games for one machine, that'll help them a bit (though there are the mobile titles).

Anyhow. Let's talk NX.

[Flabyo]

The WiiU isn't difficult to develop for at all. That's not the reason it got little third party support in the AAA space.

It tends to get most of the same indie titles as the other consoles, sometimes earlier than them.

[chase210]

Well, are we gonna two devices that share the same OS and games, like iPad/iPod with ios, a home device with mobile support and what have you, or..... Exciting times.

[seansthomas]

The WiiU isn't difficult to develop for at all. That's not the reason it got little third party support in the AAA space.

It tends to get most of the same indie titles as the other consoles, sometimes earlier than them.

Its not technically difficult to develop for from what I've read, its note that having to factor in trying to work out what to do with the gamepad adds some extra complexity. Maybe it'll work more like the Vita or off TV play of Wii U?

[Flabyo]

There's not much AAA on it because it's underpowered compared to xbo and ps4, porting down would be very hard. Means it needs its own separate set of code and assets, so expensive to do for not enough benefit. Indie titles push the hardware less (usually) so there's more parity.

[dezm0nd]

I can't really get excited for a new Nintendo console right now. I'm not done with the two existing boxes! I'll come back to this after Christmas (or if a Nintendo Direct happens!)

[Scrustle]

Not sure what to think of all these "leaks". There don't seem to be any actual sources for it from what I've seen. Just a bunch of rumours so far.

Although, I suppose it seems plausible that dev kits are being sent out now, but the stuff about it apparently being on the same level as a really powerful PC seem a bit far-fetched, or perhaps a bit misrepresentative. There's no way the hardware spec is going to be anywhere near finalised, and maybe they overpower early dev kits to help early development or something. Plus it doesn't seem like a very "Nintendo" thing to do to go in that direction. They're not in the game of competing on hardware specs, let alone going so far ahead of everyone else like that. They would price themselves out of a huge portion of their audience for one thing, compounding one of the biggest problems of the Wii U. Then again, if these rumours about the thing being something of a handheld/console hybrid are true (which I think are pretty plausible), then maybe there could be something to the idea that it could be more powerful than the PS4/XB1.

The stuff about it coming out next year seem strange. While Nintendo seem to want to be distancing itself from the Wii U sooner rather than later, launching what would be a 9th generation console when we're not even halfway through the 8th just seems awkward. These rumours haven't been going around that long either. I would expect Nintendo would want more R&D time. Nintendo definitely aren't the type to rush something, even when they're in a tough situation. Then again, with Nintendo already having moved away from the hardware race of the other companies and going off to do their own thing, perhaps it's not so wild that they might just throw away any adherence to the generation system and go on some crazy strategy we haven't even thought of.

In general I think we can't really have any idea what Nintendo are up to right now. They are in a very weird situation at the moment, on top of already having a reputation for taking unpredictable courses with their hardware.

[seansthomas]

I agree with all of that. I'm still hoping (especially as someone who's only console is a Wii U) that Nintendo just ballsed up E3 and that 2016 is still a good year for the Wii U, with recent silences down to Iwatas passing and making sure they have lots of good news to share at once.

Guess time will tell...

[dezm0nd]

I guess it all depends on how well this supposed hybrid unit is coming along in 2016 but I really can't see it being launched until 2017. I do believe that Nintendo need to stop production of two consoles and merge them together and while i'll be a little sad to lose that tradition, it makes perfect business sense.

Get a powerful handheld which can stream to TV's. Best of both worlds.

[Scrustle]

Personally I don't like the idea of a "powerful handheld that can stream to TV". At least, not phrased like that. I don't really have a use for a handheld console, and I really don't like the idea of my home console being limited because it has to be compatible with a less powerful machine that I'm probably not ever going to use. It's not the best of both worlds to me. It's one world I'm not interested in artificially imposing its limitations on the world I want to inhabit. Also the word "streaming" worries me. I don't like the idea of streaming games. In the sense of streaming over some kind of network anyway. I don't want latency and screen artefacts.

Maybe it doesn't have to be like that though. Maybe they could make it so the home console portion has its own hardware to run higher end games, while the handheld portion simply docks to it and lets you play those same games on the TV. The console games won't be compatible with the handheld portion, but that's something no one would seriously demand or expect anyway. It wouldn't be dissimilar to what Nintendo have already tried with the likes of the Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player.

And besides, I think even Nintendo wouldn't dare put out a machine that would end up having worse graphical capabilities than its predecessor. That seems pretty suicidal for a tech company.

[Electric Crocosaurus]

I'm not sure that Nintendo needs to compete in the power stakes, and their recent history backs that up. The main problems for the Wii U were poor marketing (by not differentiating it sufficiently from the Wii U, and therefore confusing the casual crowd that made the Wii such a success) and a lack of killer apps in the first year. If the Wii U had launched with Mario Kart 8, or even Splatoon, Nintendo would have been in a very different position right now.

The Wii U game pad was a nuisance for third party devs, but in the end most of them just chose to ignore it. I can live with that if it means that Nintendo continue to produce innovative experiences like Nintendo Land and Splatoon that utilise their dedicated hardware.

[dezm0nd]

Those are solid points, indeed. The name Wii U was a really bad move and whilst they probably thought NintendoLand was the new Wii Sports (it was for me and my friends) it most certainly didn't resonate the same way.

[Scrustle]

Yeah, the name was definitely the Wii U's biggest problem. I remember when they first announced it at whatever E3 it was even I was a little confused thinking it was just a new controller. Granted, I was out of the room when the announcement started, so I kind of had to pick things up halfway through, but still it was pretty confusing how they only showed the controller and didn't seem to emphasise it was connected to a new machine at all.

Whatever they call this new system they need to move away from the "Wii" brand in general. Its role as a fad for the casual audience has long since passed, and the Wii U has kind of tarnished its reputation, in terms of understandability at least. They need to come up with something new to call it. I'm pretty certain they will. Even if the Wii U was a success, I couldn't see Nintendo calling the NX the "Wii 3" or something.

I totally get that Nintendo doesn't need to prove itself in the power race though. I'm actually really sceptical that the NX will be an especially powerful machine. There are rumours that it'll be at least as powerful as a PS4, given how it's allegedly getting a version of Dragon Quest XI, and while I could see that being true, that not being the case seems just as likely. I don't even necessarily want the NX to be massively powerful. While an upgrade would be appreciated, I would probably be fine if the thing had graphical capabilities on a similar level to the Wii U. Maybe give it a bit extra power so it can do the same level of graphics in 1080. It's just when I heard "handheld", that sounds like a step backwards. I don't want the NX to be the PlayStation TV of Nintendo.

[Sinclair Gregstrum]

Personally I think it's absolutely essential that the console is as at least as powerful as PS4/Xbox One.

If it isn't the major third parties won't support it, therefore it won't have the big franchise titles that millions of people love and it won't sell in big enough numbers to be a success.

For the NX to be the hit it needs for it not to be Nintendo's last home console, whenever a Call Of Duty/FIFA/GTA/Assassin's Creed/Need For Speed etc rolls around, it has to be on Nintendo's platform just to put the console on a level playing field with the competition. Then it's up to Nintendo to sprinkle the magic dust of exclusives on top utilising whatever weird and wonderful tech they've come up with, to make the NX stand out and be the no.1 console of choice.

Nintendo games alone are not enough anymore for most people. Sad but true.

[Electric Crocosaurus]

The 3rd party situation is an interesting one, as I agree that logically being able to play Assassin's Creeds and Call of Duties of this world would be a plus. Yet with Nintendo releasing a console halfway through a generation (where a lot of people will already have jumped onto the PS4 or XBox One train) is it enough of a bonus for those one console households to jump ship from a PS4/XBox1 for? Also, I'm happy for someone to correct me but the last home Nintendo console I remember having 3rd party parity with their competitors for was the GameCube, and that was Ninty's weakest console until the Wii U.

[Flabyo]

Nintendo haven't seen third party as vital to their strategy since the SNES days really. They didn't even seem all that put out when Square declared for the PS1 instead of the N64.

Something I think I'm guilty of doing is measuring Nintendo's performance against Sony and MS. It's easy to say the WiiU is a failure when compared to the sales of the PS4, but whether Nintendo consider it a failure is down to combination of how much money they put in versus what they got out. The Wii itself was unexpectedly popular, it's pretty much an outlier and something they're unlikely to ever deliberately recapture.

Nintendo play by different rules to their rivals. Sony are a multimedia empire with fingers in movies, games and music, as well as hardware other than consoles. MS are primarily a software company, and one that is in the process of reinventing itself from being a systems one to a services one. Apple are, well, Apple. Nintendo are the only company in this fight that *only* do video games, they're a far smaller company than the others and so their figures are always going to seem smaller. They're also less likely to be bound by red tape and political infighting.

They've been around longer than the others too. They've pivoted their entire business multiple times before they became known as a video game company, and I don't think it would be beyond them to consider ditching games altogether if it stopped working for them.

From what we're hearing, I think we're going to get something that works a little like how the iPad and Apple TV setup worked (prior to the new version of the Apple TV). You have a handheld that has all the power on board, and a small lightweight box plugged into the TV that the handheld can connect to to stream. Anyone that has used an iPad via AirPlay this way knows that lag is pretty much a non issue. It's how I would build the thing if I knew I wasn't going to go down the 'as many powerful parts as we can cram into a box cheaply' approach that Sony/MS use.

Nintendo have no incentive to copy Sony or MS. They have *every* incentive to find the gap between that market and the mobile one. If it's there, they'll find it.

[Lego Solo]

I'm very interested in what they will do, but I do think that they need to have a more powerful machine. The Wii was an anomaly in so far as its success, I think it even shocked Nintendo themselves? But let's face it, how many Wii's are sitting under TVs with a thick layer of dust under them because they were bought by people who don't normally play games? Those people more than likely won't do that again, lightning rarely strikes twice. But if Nintendo do manage to bridge that gap of handheld and box working seamlessly together with some pretty meaty power that the big third party publishers can see as worthwhile putting there product on, then that lightning could very well come down again.

Nintendo are know for innovation but they have also made some very odd choices as well. They need to make it crystal clear what this system is, what it does, who it's for and make it easy to put any kind of games on it. They can't confuse people like they did with the WiiU. I had a very frustrating conversation with a friend who honestly thought the WiiU was just a new controller for the Wii! I took an age to get them to understand it was the next Generation of console from Nintendo! They should have just called it Wii2, people understand numbers as denotes a sequel. A follow up. If the can avoid me having to have this conversation with their new one then they have won half the battle.

Keep it simple and make it clear.

[hazeredmist]

Nintendo haven't seen third party as vital to their strategy since the SNES days really. They didn't even seem all that put out when Square declared for the PS1 instead of the N64.

Something I think I'm guilty of doing is measuring Nintendo's performance against Sony and MS. It's easy to say the WiiU is a failure when compared to the sales of the PS4, but whether Nintendo consider it a failure is down to combination of how much money they put in versus what they got out. The Wii itself was unexpectedly popular, it's pretty much an outlier and something they're unlikely to ever deliberately recapture.

Nintendo play by different rules to their rivals. Sony are a multimedia empire with fingers in movies, games and music, as well as hardware other than consoles. MS are primarily a software company, and one that is in the process of reinventing itself from being a systems one to a services one. Apple are, well, Apple. Nintendo are the only company in this fight that *only* do video games, they're a far smaller company than the others and so their figures are always going to seem smaller. They're also less likely to be bound by red tape and political infighting.

They've been around longer than the others too. They've pivoted their entire business multiple times before they became known as a video game company, and I don't think it would be beyond them to consider ditching games altogether if it stopped working for them.

From what we're hearing, I think we're going to get something that works a little like how the iPad and Apple TV setup worked (prior to the new version of the Apple TV). You have a handheld that has all the power on board, and a small lightweight box plugged into the TV that the handheld can connect to to stream. Anyone that has used an iPad via AirPlay this way knows that lag is pretty much a non issue. It's how I would build the thing if I knew I wasn't going to go down the 'as many powerful parts as we can cram into a box cheaply' approach that Sony/MS use.

Nintendo have no incentive to copy Sony or MS. They have *every* incentive to find the gap between that market and the mobile one. If it's there, they'll find it.

Excellent take on the matter, totally agree on all counts.

[hazeredmist]

Something I'd like to add is I'm also not ready to entertain a new Nintendo console just yet - my Wii U is a big factor right now and with the games I'm into, the 'underpowered' nature of it has no bearing on the longevity of the machine for me.

Splatoon, Mario Kart and more recently Mario Maker are truly stunning games which I play way more than any other current gen game besides Destiny on PS4. Mario Maker in particular has really captured my imagination, I've owned and played through many hours on all the Little Big Planet games yet never once made my own level - Mario Maker has inspired creativity I've not had in me for a long time. The infrastructure is there on this machine with these three games in particular showcasing different ways to play online together, albeit with some omissions we'd all like to see, but this could be fixed with the existing tech, just a slightly different approach. Could Mario Maker be any better with a higher specced console? I don't think so.

3DS is a slightly different story - it wasn't long ago I shelled out for a New 3DS and a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles to replace my old 3DS. I've seen almost zero real benefit other than appreciating the feel and look of the console a little better than before, my Vita gets a lot more play. Don't feel particularly good about the purchase, but that's probably on me as the issues were so predictable in preventing it from being a true 3DS evolution that I should have waited longer. I'm a handheld nut so a 3DS replacement would be something I'd consider, not as something that can only stream games though.

There's also the issue of overkill - I'm not ready to ditch my Wii U, I've got a PS4, the Xbox One is piling on the reasons for me to consider picking that up too - I don't want another new console to tempt me yet. It's too soon! There must be others in the same position, and if you bring a new console out at the wrong time, it usually spells disaster.

[dezm0nd]

It is too soon. I can't justify a new Nintendo console any time soon, really. I just bought a NEW 3DS and the Wii U is still getting regular action. The whole thing is just a confusing mess at the moment and it does need clarification sooner rather than later.