Nintendo should go software-only

[ReveredPartisan]

Let's face it-- Nintendo hasn't performed in the console market since the n64 era-- maybe before that. So they struck gold with the Wii-- ok. Good call. Stroke of luck. They certainly haven't made any meaningful innovations in the past 15 years and have been consistently behind the times for the last 20.

I understand that they're making money off consoles, and thus it's in their best monetary interests to pump new plastic paperweights out. What I don't understand-- or perhaps just fervently disagree with-- are the consumers who don't want to see them go software only.

I love Zelda. I love Smash, Mario Kart is a fun time, and if they made a new Metroid, chances are I'd love the hell out of that, too; but that's it, and I highly doubt I'm alone. We justify our purchasing the Wii U by being oh so "excited" for, idk, Mario 3D World. Yeah, bull**** you're excited for Mario 3D World. You just want something to play so the console doesn't just sit there collecting dust. I know there are Nintendo fans out there who earnestly enjoy everything the company puts out, but I'm willing to bet they're a-- sizable-- minority.

The rest of us-- we'd rather not spend an extra $300 simply to play the new Zelda. And let's not turn this into an "us vs them" dichotomy-- no one wants to dish out that $300, at least not anyone who's interested in games beyond Nintendo.

(Side note: Nintendo absolutely destroys in the mobile market, and they're currently the only company providing a viable product, so no reason for them to drop out there)

Would the console industry suffer without constant innovations from Nintendo? After all, Nintendo does and Sony/Microsoft follow, right? No. When's the last time you used motion controls to slay a beast in The Witcher, or used some of that "asymmetrical gameplay" to infiltrate an encampment in MGSV? The primary innovations of this generation, and the last-- the ones that have driven the industry forward-- have been in pushing technological boundaries and interconnecting players through the internet-- both of which tenets Nintendo has decidedly shunned.

When given the prospect of Nintendo going software only, all I see are-- for the vast majority of fans-- benefits. The same games, without the $300 spent on an extra console, on an objectively better system than anything Nintendo could reasonably put out. Remember how beautiful Zelda U looks? (And it is breathtaking.) Imagine that on a console that isn't five years behind, with all the benefits of a competent online system such as those hosted by Sony/MS.

 

[Vaati101]

Nintendo will never go down the software only route, that would just be business suicide for them. I do agree that I'd rather not pay X amount for yet another console just to play Nintendo games, but the reality is without Nintendo's hardware there will be no Nintendo software, period.

This whole idea about going software only seems to only apply to western gamers. You have to remember Nintendo is much more successful in it's home turf, so much that they are thrashing Microsoft in the hardware department left, right & center. The fact that no one in Japan wants a Xbox kinda merits he thought of Microsoft going software only. Where Western Nintendo players are thinking about Nintendo going Software only, Japanese Xbox players are probably thinking the same thing about Microsoft.

Nintendo are not in the position to go software because their hardware is selling enough globally to avoid such treacherous action. If any company is anywhere near that route, It's Microsoft because of the Xbox One's Complete failure in Japan. Sure Nintendo can get a little behind on their tech these days, but at least it sells decently around the world compare to a measly 2 digit sale a week in one country.

 

[Adventurer of Hyrule]

I think it would just be easier for them to cater the many fans who just want them to be normal with the hardware and push out a non giimmicky console. I dont mind if they go software only, but they should first try to fix what they have gotten wrong recently before giving up.

 

[Emma]

I think software-only actually would be a great business choice for them. Nintendo has never been particularly good on the hardware aspect. Their strength is in the games. That's where they should put their focus. I think their games would be even better if they pulled out of consoles completely. If they're not willing to do that, at the very least they need to STOP with the hardware gimmicks and just make a normal, non-gimmicky hardware setup that just plays games. That's it. No fancy screens, no motion nonsense, no virtual reality, no simulated odor technology, nothing. I just want a box with a regular controller that will operate a game. That's it. No bells or whistles.

 

[Lozjam]

Ummm....
NX is rumored to be more powerful than PS4, so yeah. Zelda Wii U is going to look better than it would on Ps4.

Second, from the N64 era to today, Nintendo has created the following things:
The analog stick
Vibration in controllers
Analog shoulder buttons
Gyroscope technology(that is now being used in VR btw and is becoming standard)
Touch screen(which the PS4 proudly stole and put it into their dual shock controller)
Virtual Reality: Nintendo was the first one to do it with Virtual Boy
Online play(this first debuted in the SNES, however it did not become really good until N64 and the Gameboy colour. However these were exclusive to Japan.
Motion controls: do you people even remember that Nintendo wasn't the only company to do motion control gaming? Do we forget the PS Move and the Kinect? Both of which were pretty terrible compared to the outdated technology of the Wii? Why doesn't M$ and Sony get blasted for Motion controls?

All of these things. What would gaming be like without them? Let me ask you that.

Third, Nintendo consoles have always been profitable, even the Wii U.

Fourth. I don't want to pay for online for my system. I already pay for an internet bill, and it's terrible that Sony and M$ have you pay for online.


Fifth: Really... What's the difference between PS4 and XBox one other than brand name and 1-2(good) exclusives per system. There really is none.... That's the problem. There is no drive to create better, no curveball.

Sixth. Wii U sold poorly because of lack of first Party games at launch. This is fact. If NX launches with a plethora of NX games, then it will sell well. As there are currently 20 million Nintendo fans actively playing games(on 3DS). People think that PS4 caused the Wii U to fail, but in reality, 3DS was its biggest competitor and is superior in nearly every way in Nintendo standards.

Seventh: Sony has a big chance of going bankrupt. That's the fact of the matter. It's not because of its gaming department, but all of its other divisions are failing pretty miserably, and the profit margins of Sony as a company keeps going down. If this happens.... Then we are all at the mercy of M$ as a monopoly. This could potentially create another huge Videogame crash.

Eight: Nintendo makes games specific to their hardware and pushes the one system to the absolute max. They wouldn't be able to do this in third party. They would have to dumb down their games to the level of XBOne compared to PS4.

Ninth: Without Nintendo consoles, all of Nintendo's greatest, but lesser known series would fade into obscurity. If Nintendo went third party, we wouldn't even have Metroid, or Star Fox, or Kirby, or Kid Icarus, or F-Zero games. These game series would likely die just do to the nature of the beast. Just look at Sega.... All they ever do is make ****ty sonic games now. It's just not good.

Tenth. How well did going third party work for Sega? Sega used to be a behemoth just like Nintendo. Going third party was one of the worst things that the company could have done. If Sega was still in the game, video gaming would be so much more advanced than it was. Sega developers always knew how to think ahead. It's truly a shame. They were nearly 10 years ahead of everyone else. A screen on their controller, fully functioning online, amazing graphics, and amazing games to boot. It was only due to poor business decisions that Sega failed, and the same should never happen to Nintendo.

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

no simulated odor technology

Don't give them any ideas.

Nintendo reminds me of that old Ed Edd n Eddy episode where they were trying to be first in making their own fad and they ended up with this

I believe they just need to stick with what works rather then constantly trying to make some new thing all the time.

 

[Mipha]

I'd like it if they made a console that can play all games from all prior systems, plus it's own, and then stop making consoles and focus on software instead.

 

[Emma]

Motion controls: do you people even remember that Nintendo wasn't the only company to do motion control gaming? Do we forget the PS Move and the Kinect? Both of which were pretty terrible compared to the outdated technology of the Wii? Why doesn't M$ and Sony get blasted for Motion controls?

Because they didn't try to force-feed motion controls onto you as the ONLY way to play games like the Wii did. With extremely rare exceptions in tiny number of Wii games that weren't eShop ports.

All of these things. What would gaming be like without them? Let me ask you that.

PC had a lot of those first. Particularly analog controls. As well as online gaming of course. And alaog sticks had been a staple of arcade games for a very long time before Nintendo touched them.

And virtual reality was done first by Stereoscopic photo viewers from the early 1800s. And for anything resembling a game was done first by the flight simulators as early as 1929. The first VR headset display linked to a computer was called the Sword of Damocles and was created in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland.

The first commercially available virtual reality gear was created by the same guy who popularized the term, Jaron Lanier, in 1987, and were a haptic feedback glove (in other words a rumble pack in glove form) called the Dataglove and a headset called the EyePhone (yes, Apple stole that name too like everything else they've done). By 1991 there were virtual reality games created by the Virtuality Group available in some arcades. Some were even connected so multiple players could have a VR multiplayer experience.

And the first company to make a serious attempt to try to bring it into private, at-home gaming was not Nintendo, but SEGA with the Sega Genesis peripheral in 1993 called the Sega VR headset. They fully intended to release the product and had four games developed for it, unfortunately it ran into technical difficulties that prevented it from leaving the prototype stage. Nintendo copied them and released the Virtual Boy, which flopped, two years later in 1995.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

This is a tired old argument by people who don't like Nintendo games, and it fails every time based on the fact that you don't like Nintendo games except for a few, and so you think a multibillion dollar company should just pack it up because you're sick of their "plastic paperweights".

The fact is, Nintendo owns the IPs for dozens of franchises that would go away if they stopped making consoles on which they could release their software. We wouldn't have gotten Splatoon, for example, had Nintendo gone software only. Going software only would be tantamount to business suicide. Nintendo would cease to exist, and all we would be stuck with would be the two clone boxes.

If Nintendo is to go software only, it will be when they are no longer solvent and their console business model fails outright; in other words, when nature decides. That isn't happening, and it isn't close to happening. There are a lot of poor business decisions that Nintendo has made in the last 15 years, but to say that Nintendo has been "behind the times" for the last 20 years ignores the Wii and the Game Cube — one of which is the second-best selling console of all time, and the other which was far more powerful than the PS2 and was home to the highest-rated game of the generation: Metroid Prime, which could not have run on the PS2.

Without Nintendo remaining in the console business, I wouldn't have been able to play Splatoon, Bayonetta 2, Xenoblade X, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, or any of the other games I've enjoyed exclusively on the Wii U. Why? Because those games would not have been released for another console. Simply, none of those games would exist.

So as much as it's great that you don't care about any of those games, and therefore you can't fathom how another person could possibly enjoy them, I truly hope that your stupid idea stays in your head and doesn't become reality. Some of us actually like games.

 

[Terminus]

"The NX will be more powerful than the PS4!"

If it wan't more powerful than a console released in 2013 I'd be very worried. But, Microsoft and Sony will have more time to make souped-up powerhouses, so it'll be a repeat of the WiiU situation, especially if there's not a good software library on launch.

 

[Soul]

I think the 3DS is a great console, and I'm happy it exists.

 

[Adventurer of Hyrule]

I think any console that sets itself up as a secondary product in a gamers household should at least be priced accordingly. Imo the wiiu was and still is too pricey for what it offered. Anything can do well at the right price, like the wii did.

Also for me Nintendo needs to work on more than just power issues. Network, interface, store, controller. Those aspects make or break the overall user experience

 

[Lozjam]

I think the 3DS is a great console, and I'm happy it exists.

^ ^ this in its entirety.
People all look doom and gloom because of the Wii U, which was frankly a mistake. However they completely miss the point that Nintendo are simply the best when they want to. Wii U was half baked, had zero real games for it(I'm sorry, but NSMB and NintendoLand don't count). And it didn't have any really unique games to it until it's last real year.

However, when they do a console correctly, it's successful. The 3DS is a greater success than the PS4, XBOne, and the Wii U combined. Why is this? Games games games games. Some of the best games of all time are on this system, and there is a ton of variety there as well. From having some of the best Zelda games on the console, to returning old franchises in all of their glory(Luigi's Mansion and Kid Icarus), to making a leap into 3D in a main series Pokemon game. The 3DS did everything right after its rocky start, and it's been an amazing success. They just need to take what they did on the 3DS and put it onto the NX to make it work.

 

[the8thark]

Let's face it-- Nintendo hasn't performed in the console market since the n64 era-- maybe before that. So they struck gold with the Wii-- ok. Good call. Stroke of luck. They certainly haven't made any meaningful innovations in the past 15 years and have been consistently behind the times for the last 20.

That is factually wrong what you said. All 3 of the big console makers have innovated of recent. In all different ways though.

Can you cite your sources for these "facts."

Even if Nintendo were not the ones to first invent all that, they certainly used all that to good effect in their consoles of recent. That's a lot of innovation to get all that to improve our gameplay experience (which it has done).

Also the WiiU has helped Nintendo get out of the red and start making profit again. That to me is the defitiion of a comercially successful console. Not all consoles make a profit these days. It was only recently that the PS4 starting making sony's gaming division a profit also. Lots of console sales mean nothing when you make a loss on each one and can't recoup the loses with game sales.

Nintendo should go software-only

This is not possible. Not possible for any TV console. Because of the ISP bottleneck. The ISP plans are too pricey and too restrictive for people like Nintendo to go all digital. The customers would not have or be able to afford the data to download their games. Sure some customers could do this but a large portion could not. This is the exact same reason why the movie DVD still exists and it's not all digital yet.

 

[Dio]

I'm just posting here to say that yes they should go software only for home consoles. Wii U and Wii branding have destroyed serious gamers faith in Nintendo home consoles. Most Wii sales were from the fickle casual market and Wii U doesn't appeal to core gamers. Anyone serious about general Gaming that aren't Nintendo's fans will have gone with Microsoft and Sony or will go to Microsoft and Sony. NX is probably going to fail even if it is more powerful due to consumer perception of the brand. It's going to be hard for Nintendo to change that and I don't think they will be able to. You can make a case for it but I am betting on the NX failing and Nintendo doing a Sega on the home console front.

They are actually doing well with the 3DS so I would recommend they milk that until mobile gaming destroys the handheld market, then of course they should go software only too.