Pokémon, Mario, And Zelda Headline NX “Dream” Line-Up

Megalith

Megalith

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Let’s face it; the primary reason for owning a Nintendo system these days is for their first-party titles and staple franchises. The company seems to know this all too well, as they are reportedly ensuring that your favorite characters will be debuting shortly on the NX after its launch. This report also reveals that the new console will sit between the PS3 and PS4 in terms of power.

Nintendo is putting together a triple-A software line-up, to ensure NX flies out of the gate next year. Developer Game Freak will bring Pokémon to the platform, while Nintendo’s first party titles include the previously announced Zelda game – Breath of the Wild – and a new Mario game. All three products are scheduled to appear within the first six months of the machine’s life. The firm has also been busy securing third-party support, with Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Activision and Warner Bros already on-board.
 
The NX sounds positively weird, it will be interesting to see how it sells. I might pick one up, provided it's cheap enough. Which if it really is based on a Tegra SOC of some sort could happen even if Nintendo keeps a good profit margin on the hardware.
 
Zohar78 said:
LOL.. so almost xbone performance?
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Keep in mind the kind of games Nintendo develop's do not require photo realistic graphics. Think of it like being a game designer for Android/iOS. You arent trying to compete with The Division or FarCry4. It's not even an option for you, so instead you tailor your content to meet the format. Mario/Pokemon/Zelda are all very cartooney and easy to render.
 
DPI said:
Baby games. Kids don't care about specs.
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You mean people who enjoy games don't care about specs.

I would trade every "photo realistic" game I have ever played to get the same feeling I got the first time I sat down with Zelda or Mario.

I'm not sure why "gamers" are so concerned about specs all the time. Specs don't make compelling games. IMO the spec first machines make it very hard for developers to create compelling games. Plenty of games that should get axed and never released get pushed out the door. By the time the publishers realise a game sucks they have already spent millions on development, so the game happens anyway. Give me a good Nintendo system with 10-20 Solid games at launch and I'm sold.
 
ChadD said:
You mean people who enjoy games don't care about specs.

I would trade every "photo realistic" game I have ever played to get the same feeling I got the first time I sat down with Zelda or Mario.

I'm not sure why "gamers" are so concerned about specs all the time. Specs don't make compelling games. IMO the spec first machines make it very hard for developers to create compelling games. Plenty of games that should get axed and never released get pushed out the door. By the time the publishers realise a game sucks they have already spent millions on development, so the game happens anyway. Give me a good Nintendo system with 10-20 Solid games at launch and I'm sold.
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Because some of those photo realistic games are awesome. Graphics aren't everything, but some games really combine everything to make a great game. Just as there are really (really really really) shitty "retro 16-bit look!" games out there or cartoony games, there are also a lot of shitty photo real ones. And a lot of great ones.

Specs are fine. Nintendo has a good line up of games that don't require high specs. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, etc. are fine examples where you don't need a high end machine.
 
Between PS3 and PS4? As in lower than the current PS4, the system that is currently barely able to stick to 1080p+ (though admittedly, better off than the XboxOne) and is being updated with the Neo branch? I'll be honest that I have a general objection to the principle of a console today ( I'd rather see an industry-wide push for free and open tech to ease both development and play experiences ) but Nintendo makes even less sense. They must realize by now that gimmicks aren't enough, underpowered hardware makes 3rd party support crappy etc... yet they keep this going? So far it seems like the NX is going to be some sort of portable that later on will sell a "plug in dock" - another gimmick in an era where most users have a mobile that can (through wireless or wired tech) pretty easily connect to a larger screen, connect peripherals etc. There are a few great Nintendo titles I'd like to buy that are on WiiU and 3DS, but I just can't see the point in buying the hardware for a handful of first party titles. If nothing else, they should see from the Pokemon Go phenomena that there are a ton of users on non-Nintendo hardware that would enjoy their titles (though I'd hate to see them become "mobile styled" in game design and monetization. Give me Fire Emblem: Fates Special Edition on Android for $20-40 or so and I'd buy)

Surely Nintendo would make much more money abandoning yet another platform and instead, switching to selling their titles on PC, Mobile etc.. (or hell, even other consoles). If Fire Emblem was available for sale on Android (or Steam) and Hyrule Warriors was sold on Steam et al, I'd likely buy! Nintendo could do great things being a software (first party and also sort of an incubator as they have been for Game Freak and the like ) and peripheral company selling controllers and gadgets meant to work openly on other hardware. But insisting on yet another console, much less an underpowered one with a gimmick? It seems to be a huge waste.
 
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So they will be abandoning the Wii U next year when this comes out.

We bought a Wii when my kid was young due the family & kid type games.

Didn't bother with the Wii U due to the high price and since most the games where just rehashes.
Also wasn't happy at the lack of new Wii games a year before the Wii U came out, and then complete abandonment of it afterwards.
Just like they abandoned the DS Lite after the 3DS came out.

I expect the same to happen to the Wii U. Little or nothing coming out since the new system will be released next year.

No thanks.

And if they stop bringing games that run on the older 3DS's then my kid won't be running those games either.

They really should give up on the hardware and start releasing games on other platforms.
 
Look. I'm just a grown ass man who wants a Pokemon game that's fully featured (i.e. not another Stadium), on console, and not another re-hash of the gameboy/DS/3DS games. FFS!
 
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Obviously specs matter up to a point. We would never get to experience Mario in 3D if we were using SNES specs. We needed a much more powerful system to handle the content. So specs matter. The question comes down to "do we need enough horsepower to render each eyelash on Zelda's eyelids" or just enough to give her some facial features. I mean you could probably downscale and port the latest Nintendo games to the N64 and still make it fun, but you know we're to that point now where things like volumetric water do indeed add a nice touch of flair to make it more enjoyable.
 
MarkVI said:
Different studios. They took some chances with Other M and they didn't really work. It happens. I, for one, would love to see another Prime.
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Don't get me wrong. Another prime game would be great but I'm not expecting anything good anymore.
 
DPI said:
Baby games. Kids don't care about specs.
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and that's why there are in the position they are now.. A limited market. A lot of kids have older siblings that rather want a playstation or xbox and with older people playing games that have kids, less reason to own a Nintendo... Don't get me wrong, I love Nintendo (plan on picking up a wiiu because I want to play Mario 3d).

One thing I think is getting overlooked is if it is portable that will be quite a bit of power for portable.
 
Xaeos said:
But insisting on yet another console, much less an underpowered one with a gimmick? It seems to be a huge waste.
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You do realize they are the ONLY company making money on gaming hardware right ?

Nintendo has made more profit with the WiiU then PS4 and Xbone combined. The fact is they own the profits from almost all of the top 20 WiiU selling games. The other guys make scraps in the form of royalties which they have both negotiated down to almost nothing in an attempt to score exclusives and early launch deals. Combine all of that with the fact that they have always turned a profit on the hardware itself and its not even a contest. The Big N would be stupid to try and cater to the Playstation/Xbox gaming market, there is no profit in it. They have sold close to 90 Million WiiU titles and own 100% of the profits on at least 80 Million of those sales.

Microsoft and Sony would both kill to be able to report those types of numbers to their shareholders. Instead both of them hide their numbers as best they can to hide just how much money they loose with those divisions.
 
nysmo said:
Obviously specs matter up to a point. We would never get to experience Mario in 3D if we were using SNES specs. We needed a much more powerful system to handle the content. So specs matter. The question comes down to "do we need enough horsepower to render each eyelash on Zelda's eyelids" or just enough to give her some facial features. I mean you could probably downscale and port the latest Nintendo games to the N64 and still make it fun, but you know we're to that point now where things like volumetric water do indeed add a nice touch of flair to make it more enjoyable.
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I don't think they will have any issues with the hardware if the reports are true. It should have more then enough horsepower to render great effects. Much of the issue with things like water and lighting effects come down to the api. Nintendo has the advantage of being able to go as bare metal as they like as they have zero reason to worry about supporting other platforms in the way of ports.

One thing that holds back the other consoles is the games are developed to be cross platform, greatly reducing the number of bare metal type calls that can be used. Getting away from that issue will mean the hardware will in many ways be more capable then many assume just looking at horsepower specs. It comes down to the programmers being able to harness what ever power a system has. Focusing on N system only games they can help developers work in very platform specific optimizations that just wouldn't be possible if those same games also had to be compiled to run on the other consoles.
 
ChadD said:
You do realize they are the ONLY company making money on gaming hardware right ?

Nintendo has made more profit with the WiiU then PS4 and Xbone combined. The fact is they own the profits from almost all of the top 20 WiiU selling games. The other guys make scraps in the form of royalties which they have both negotiated down to almost nothing in an attempt to score exclusives and early launch deals. Combine all of that with the fact that they have always turned a profit on the hardware itself and its not even a contest. The Big N would be stupid to try and cater to the Playstation/Xbox gaming market, there is no profit in it. They have sold close to 90 Million WiiU titles and own 100% of the profits on at least 80 Million of those sales.

Microsoft and Sony would both kill to be able to report those types of numbers to their shareholders. Instead both of them hide their numbers as best they can to hide just how much money they loose with those divisions.
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I seem to remember some considerable losses or downturn in overall projections, despite the fact they don't actually lose money on the console hardware sold. I've seen different metrics for the success of the other consoles in comparison, with especially the PS4 being very lucrative for Sony thanks to it "winning" this generation; they may have to share some of the profit, but they sell a hell of a lot larger volume and wider group of titles. Nintendo has strong sales within their tiny market, but they're operating on a much smaller scale than anything else and the money just isn't there. I'll have to check for the specifics, but not every agrees Nintendo is solidly thrashing the other consoles in terms of overall profit/health/success of their platform, regardless of having a handful of circumstances - such as not selling hardware as a loss - in their favor.

I don't want Nintendo to "try to do what Sony/Microsoft" do, I want them to do something different entirely. Their strengths are as you point out, their first party and very limited third party titles (ie those incubated developers like GameFreak that develop near exclusively for Nintendo etc), and to some degree peripherals. That's what I want them to focus upon. Get out of the console marketplace entirely - all the costs involved in developing, maintaining, marketing etc... a console platform and ecosystem could be done-away-with! THey could save a ton not investing in a hardware platform that only a tiny minority of people will buy, and instead make games for the PC and Mobile open platforms - a huge market! Designing with the PC (or in some cases Mobile OSes like Android) in mind, will mean easy and open compatibility for both porting (ie supporting multiple OSes, porting to other consoles if they wished) and gives a great target for peripherals, Nintendo's secondary business. Nintendo is known for liking to focus on (some say innovative, some say gimmicky) peripherals and makes great controllers, so a focus on PC / Mobile development would mean they could release these peripherals to a huge installed base, easily! All of what I said equally applies to the Mobile (iOS, mostly Android) sphere - they can simply release their titles to run on the high-powered mobile devices that nearly everyone is carrying today!

If they'd just give up on maintaining a separate console ecosystems and instead focused on PC / Mobile, they could bring their greatest strength to a much larger audience!
 
I think the consensus was the majority wanted a more powerful console to allow third party support, in order to give consumers ONE console to buy for all of their needs. It also would have allowed Nintendo to render their characters in a detail that had never been seen before, matching what people have become used to and giving them two incentives to buy. The NX will not be that console.

I think this will be cheap, easy to develop for, reduce development costs and fall somewhere in between the Wii and Wii U number of sales, however, I don't think this will be what they needed to reverse declining sales.

The figures for the handheld console market were already not encouraging:
Nintendo’s 3DS sales are plummeting — the NX console can’t come fast enough | ExtremeTech
ChadD said:
Instead both of them hide their numbers as best they can to hide just how much money they lose with those divisions.
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FTFY.
 
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Xaeos said:
I seem to remember some considerable losses or downturn in overall projections, despite the fact they don't actually lose money on the console hardware sold. I've seen different metrics for the success of the other consoles in comparison, with especially the PS4 being very lucrative for Sony thanks to it "winning" this generation; they may have to share some of the profit, but they sell a hell of a lot larger volume and wider group of titles. Nintendo has strong sales within their tiny market, but they're operating on a much smaller scale than anything else and the money just isn't there. I'll have to check for the specifics, but not every agrees Nintendo is solidly thrashing the other consoles in terms of overall profit/health/success of their platform, regardless of having a handful of circumstances - such as not selling hardware as a loss - in their favor.

I don't want Nintendo to "try to do what Sony/Microsoft" do, I want them to do something different entirely. Their strengths are as you point out, their first party and very limited third party titles (ie those incubated developers like GameFreak that develop near exclusively for Nintendo etc), and to some degree peripherals. That's what I want them to focus upon. Get out of the console marketplace entirely - all the costs involved in developing, maintaining, marketing etc... a console platform and ecosystem could be done-away-with! THey could save a ton not investing in a hardware platform that only a tiny minority of people will buy, and instead make games for the PC and Mobile open platforms - a huge market! Designing with the PC (or in some cases Mobile OSes like Android) in mind, will mean easy and open compatibility for both porting (ie supporting multiple OSes, porting to other consoles if they wished) and gives a great target for peripherals, Nintendo's secondary business. Nintendo is known for liking to focus on (some say innovative, some say gimmicky) peripherals and makes great controllers, so a focus on PC / Mobile development would mean they could release these peripherals to a huge installed base, easily! All of what I said equally applies to the Mobile (iOS, mostly Android) sphere - they can simply release their titles to run on the high-powered mobile devices that nearly everyone is carrying today!

If they'd just give up on maintaining a separate console ecosystems and instead focused on PC / Mobile, they could bring their greatest strength to a much larger audience!
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Getting out of hardware turns them into Sega. I don't think Nintendo would be that stupid. There is no upside turning into a 100% mobile company. Even with the WiiU out off production and sales winding down, Big N is for projecting 2016 just under 300 Million in Revenue... more importantly 150 Million in profit. That is a 50% profit margin... and its down from around 65% last year. They have blamed the profit % loss on current currency exchanges... regardless, if their rivals could achieve even half that number they would be screaming from every roof top for investors to hear.

If Nintendo gets out of hardware they turn into a only slightly better version of Sega. They are better off continuing doing their own thing and putting out their own hardware and simply wait for a good moment to push an actual "spec" machine. As its only a matter of time before one of the others Sony or Microsoft and possibly both bow out of the race. Even though Microsoft is great at burning money there are only so many stupid acquisitions and losses in the juicy corporate markets investors will tolerate before they force MS to start slashing depts not turning profit. As for Sony they may be more resistant as they appear to have a better sell through... they may have weathered the worst of the investor pressure. (after PS3 they where very close to being forced to abandon the Playstation) They have likely bought themselves at least another cycle.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
I think the consensus was the majority wanted a more powerful console to allow third party support, in order to give consumers ONE console to buy for all of their needs. It also would have allowed Nintendo to render their characters in a detail that had never been seen before, matching what people have become used to and giving them two incentives to buy. The NX will not be that console.

I think this will be cheap, easy to develop for, reduce development costs and fall somewhere in between the Wii and Wii U number of sales, however, I don't think this will be what they needed to reverse declining sales.

The figures for the handheld console market were already not encouraging:
Nintendo’s 3DS sales are plummeting — the NX console can’t come fast enough | ExtremeTech
FTFY.
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I believe they are wise to not get into the spec race. Lets all be honest people that buy based on specs where not likely to buy a Nintendo. Where as many people that currently do buy Nintendo do so as a second console. Its easier to go after more of the second console market by taking things like Blu Ray play back and bleeding edge off the table. It will allow them to hit a much lower price point. Making it easier for people to justify picking one up for their kids... or themselves as a second gaming console.

Thanks for the Grammar correction. ;)
 
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