Topic: Forbes: Nintendo's Biggest NX Problem? Making The Console Not Feel Like A Risk

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/06/08/nintendos-b...

As we head into E3, we’re going to start hearing a lot about the PS4.5 and the Xbox Scorpio, which will assuredly dominate the conversation before and after their reveals in the press events from Sony and Microsoft MSFT -0.76%.

What we will not be hearing about is the NX, and really, Nintendo as a whole, who keeps reducing their E3 presence in an apparent attempt to eventually not show up at all. They’ve previously forgone a stage show in favor of a digital presentation, now they’ve forgone a digital presentation in favor of only having a “Treehouse” live presence.

The Legend of Zelda will be the biggest Nintendo story out of E3, and the company has said outright that the NX won’t be featured or talked about at all. This is especially odd given that Nintendo claims the brand new console will be out in the spring of 2017, but the idea is that they want to throw their own reveal event after E3. Hopefully soon after, given they we’re allegedly under a year until launch.

As Nintendo watches Microsoft and Sony roll out new consoles, I feel like they have to be taking notes for their own reveals. But Nintendo suffers from a pretty unique problem that they need to address in some way with the NX reveal and the console itself.

A lack of trust, from both fans and developers alike. The fact that a new Nintendo console now feels like a risk.

Now, I know that Nintendo enjoys the luxury of a die-hard group of fans that believe they can do no wrong and will buy whatever they end up selling on day one. But as evidenced by the Wii U, such a group, even added to a number of regular consumers, is not enough to make a console a success. And the problem fundamentally comes down to the fact that Nintendo hardware no longer feels like a safe bet.

The NX needs to answer these fundamental questions:

• Can consumers trust that Nintendo’s “new way to play” with the NX (ie. its new gameplay gimmick) will actually be a better way to play?
• Can consumers trust that Nintendo and other developers will actually use this new functionality rather than mostly avoid it, and never take it to the full extent of its potential?
• Can consumers trust that Nintendo will be able to attract third party developers for big-name releases that are taken for granted on PlayStation, Xbox and PC?
• Can consumers trust that Nintendo’s line-up of first-party games will be released in a timely manner and not delayed for years, leaving a very empty calendar most of the time?
• Can developers trust that Nintendo’s “new way to play” will be easy to develop for and will be an asset to their games?
• Can developers trust that the NX will be powerful enough to even run their newest games?
• Can developers trust that the NX will sell enough units to be worth the investment to develop for?

The problem is that for the Wii, and certainly for the Wii U, the answer to most of these questions has been no.

But it’s the third party question that’s the most important one. As I’ve said before, if PlayStation or Xbox were forced to survive on exclusive releases alone, they would have withered and died a long time ago. Nintendo may be more resilient with its first-party line-up, but that also gets us into situations where there are painfully few releases, and Nintendo is missing out on dozens of AAA games that are selling tens of millions of copies on other consoles.

Right now, Nintendo’s fundamental problem is that it is hard for the NX not to feel like a risk. Whether you’re concerned about the timetable of its games line-up, its third-party support, its power, its “new way to play” or some combination of all of them, it might be a hard sell if you feel like you didn’t get your money’s worth out of the Wii or Wii U. For developers, it’s an even steeper hill to climb, as they have outright fled Nintendo since the Wii U debuted. How can Nintendo assure them that it isn’t a risk to spend time and money to develop for the NX?

I feel like Nintendo always had a tough road ahead with the NX after what’s happened with the Wii U, but now with Microsoft and Sony pushing ahead with quasi-new-gen consoles of their own, Nintendo’s journey is even more perilous.

So...a plug and play VR pack-in to target a mainstream audience? NX Virtual Sports?

And powerful enough hardware with a simple enough build and configuration to at least make triple A titles portable? Market to the mainstream to hedge your bets while trying to build bridges to game developers before development for an additional platform becomes beyond the scope of what's realistically possible in triple A game production? But I guess all it needs is to be powerful enough (and easy enough to work with (i.e. no "innovative spaghetti octopus" hardware architecture)) to have stuff ported to it.

I guess if you look at all of the ways it could definitely fail and then just not do that? what does it leave?

A first taste of easy, affordable mainstream VR? A catalogue of HD remakes, potentially in 3D on a virtual monitor viewable via a headset?

But people don't seem to be interested in 3D (personally I think 3D's phenomenal) and will VR go the same way as 3D?

Sometimes I don't think people play games for the games themselves but just to be a part of the culture. Will VR be just one more thing to worry about, that you don't really need since you can be a part of things with a regular television?

Look at practicality v.s established practices: dedicated mechanical gaming keyboards with huge button-throws, rather than more responsive chiclet keys; fight-sticks instead of thumb sticks where thumb-sticks offer greater ease and responsiveness and a generally higher fidelity of control; no demand for gated thumbsticks for fighting games; no gated thumbstick varient controller for extreme sports games (Skate, MX V.s ATV Reflex/Alive etc.) but novelty skateboard peripherals are viable? Disinterest in stereoscopic 3D, even for 3D platformers where it makes absolutely perfect sense; the idea that you're somehow an unsophisticated rube/sucker if you like 3D and that it should be turned off instantly for you to remain cool ("I drive with one eye closed, I'm that hardcore")...it just doesn't seem to be rationality at work here, but more like a rabid kind of group-mentality (or maybe adoption of the rabid group-mentality is the most rational choice). Sometimes I think a lot of the anger among gamers comes from the fact that they might not actually enjoy the games they play, they've just been convinced that it's the best option they have, when really, for the most part, it's probably the only option they have.

But I guess you have to give people what they want (or what they've been influenced to want) and not what they need, even if what they want makes no sense and is ultimately bad for them.

Nintendo could very well need psychologists as well as industry analysts.

The author loses all credibility with that first sentence in the second part. Yes we all know that Nintendo has that 'luxury'. But Sony obviously have it too. So do Microsoft. And EA and Activision have millions of people who play games exclusivley for their yearly retreads FIFA and Call of Duty. Blizzard fans have been on a rampage in their attempts to silence anyone who calls out Overwatch's pathetic loot system designed to pimp microtransactions, as they believe the game is literally perfect in every way. I could continue with almost every major 3rd party publisher if I wasn't in a rush to go somewhere.

When your article contains that sentence you're just asking to be ignored, at least by me. Can't say I read anything past that, he might have had an argument there somewhere but I suppose I'll never know.

@TheLastLugia I think he's talking more of their catalogue of 1st party titles. Theoretically, for the most part, all of that other stuff could be licensed for more or less any console (I mean obviously not stuff like Halo etc., but for the most part.)

Edit: Develop retrospectively with retrospective, truncated director's cut HD VR re-releases designed to appeal to super, super casual, mainstream users. Stuff that might not need a powerhouse to run it but that is tested and proven and can be uprezzed and re-cut for a new audience.

@TheLastLugia He isn't wrong though, is he? I don't think he was trying to argue that only Nintendo had a group of fans that blindly buy anything day one, actually he was trying to argue that just that group alone isn't big enough (anymore) to support a Nintendo home console. They need more than the few million Nintendo fans, and that is very true.

I guess a big part of it is supply and demand? The larger the numbers you can produce it in the cheaper you can produce each one for, so the more advanced you can make the hardware. Sony's been producing electronics for decades, they've probably got a pretty good lead on that side of things.

"Sometimes I don't think people play games for the games themselves but just to be a part of the culture. Will VR be just one more thing to worry about, that you don't really need since you can be a part of things with a regular television?"

Yeah, but that's true for many hobbies, and it's never 100% one or the other. If/when VR takes off to a significant degree, and if you like keeping up with the new stuff, then there'll eventually be something that appeals to you that you can't play on a normal TV. The price barrier will also drop over time, and it'll reach a certain point at which you either say 'why not?' or you purposefully choose not to join in. There will be a place for you, just as there is a place for retro game enthusiasts nowadays, or people who love vinyl records or whatever...

Nintendo just need to follow the model that isn't a big secret. Make a console that is powerful enough for the times, easy to program for, affordable, and the 3rd party will be attracted to it while they make their own 1st party titles. Once they have all these things, they can bring whatever risky innovation they have into the fold.