Topic: NX Interview by Scott Moffitt

Take Two said they are 'very interested' in NX. What ever that may mean.

@whodatninja That's where the + comes in, exactly 5 months would be March 7th 2017 and not only do I think NX will be late March (e.g. March 31st) but like you said we don't even know if Zelda is a launch title.

@skywake I'm not expecting them to compete with the Scorpio, even Sony isn't doing that. Scorpio doesn't really matter, it's its own thing. XOne S is currently the most interesting upcoming console; until we know NEO's price at least. So yes, they're just for 4K and a lesser extent VR, but 4K is becoming more mainstream every day; I would at least expect them to support that. But this is Nintendo, so I'm not sure.

If Nintendo is serious about the NX being easy to port games to, then it must surely be Xbox One/PS4 power, though it should be more inline with Xbox One S/PS4 Neo due to when it releases, and it can still easily be made affordable and be profitable for Nintendo to produce and sell.

@Octane
I'd argue that Project Scorpio is the only one that's actually doing 4K. The Neo and XBOne S are supporting the media formats and the resolution but they're not going to be running games at that resolution. The Neo is trying to position itself as a 4K console but the specs as I understand them don't really come close to what it'll need. It'll give a better VR experience and better visuals but it's not really "ready" for 4K.

So I don't think it'll matter if Nintendo doesn't chase 4K just yet. I don't think they need to chase VR either because that's still a very niche market. I think they're more than fine if they sit on 1080p for now with an attractive price and a decent library.

@skywake Yeah, I understand no 4K gaming; but media support, it should at least be capable of that. Even if it was just for marketing purposes. You've got two consoles that will make a big deal out of the 4K support, upscaling to 4K as well in the case of XOne S and their HDR visuals. And of course, XOne S and NEO are being ''held back'' by their respective vanilla consoles, but their marketing department doesn't care about that. If MS can deliver the XOne S for just $299 this year, then Nintendo should be able to deliver something similar for the same price. Assuming their new gimmick for the NX, if there is one, isn't too expensive.

If Nintendo can hit 1080p 60fps then that should be good enough for now. That would put them on par with the base models, so that should allow them to port anything that doesn't need 4K or VR to run (and I can't imagine there's going to be too much that would require that).

I still have no clue why oh why Nintendo needs to have third parties really. Even if these guys have a strong bond in them, they won't waste money on porting games on a Nintendo system simply because Nintendo's IP themselves sell higher than what these devs can ever compete on.

What reason is it that we can't have Lost world as a Nintendo exclusive? Because New Super Mario Bros U outsold it.

What reason do we have that Valkyria Chronicles can't come on the Wii U?

Either because SEGA knows that the game can't work on Nintendo systems because of Fire Emblem being better than Chronicles or...that its simply because they have a better market at PC.

Really, why the hassle. I'd rather they buy some third parties out there like Capcom and Square Enix so that they easily dominate against Sony and Microsoft because those two companies alone have IPs that are powerful when handled with care of course.

@Octane I feel like we should be careful not to mix up the Xbox One S with the Scorpio. The former is just a slimmer, smaller vanilla XB1, while the latter is the upgraded 6 Tflops console aiming for 4k.

Because, and assuming that Sony doesn't have some console exclusivity rights here, the Wii U doesn't have the userbase to justify a niche game like that and because it's a pain in the arse to port a game over to the Wii U and get it running properly.

I don't think either of those "issues" would actually be a problem, but it is a risk the developers have to consider and they probably figured it would be too big of a problem lol

@IceClimbers Agreed, although the XOne S is actually more capable than the the vanilla XOne, at least it supports upscaling to 4K and HDR visuals. It does more and it's smaller. Scorpio won't be directly competing with the other consoles, I can't see that console launching for less than $500/600. It'll create its own niche market. The reason why I lumped NEO and the XOne S together is that both will probably push 4K as an marketing trick. NEO will be more powerful than the regular PS4, but it won't render games at a native 4K resolution, it may be enough to render the games at 1440p and upscale them to 4K, but we'll see. I just think that both will make a big deal out of the idea that games can be played at 4K, even though it's not at a native resolution. If it's not that, it'll be the 4K media support.

@DefHalan It's a combination of both. If the userbase was big enough; third party devs would consider porting games to the Wii U, the problem is that the userbase is too small. High porting costs and low sales. Most devs don't want to take that risk, and there's good reason for that.

@Octane Yeah, but the Wii U has a really high attach rate which means, even though there are less users, they are buying more games than your average PS4/XB1 user. Which can tip the scale, but I understand the decision from a business/money stand point. I just think if they made the leap, they would make money. It would just be difficult to convince the company to do that. Porting Valkyria Chronicles from the PS3 version would probably be easier and lead to less QA issues than trying to port the PS4 version which is a port itself lol.

@DefHalan High attach rate for Nintendo games. It's not true for most other games though.

@Octane yeah those high rates mainly apply to Nintendo and a few indie games. 80% of Wii u software tanks

@Octane @WebHead and I think VC would have been one of those games to see a lot of support. Like I said I understand why not from a business/money stand point, I just think VC would have been successful on Wii U.

Which came first though? The lack of support or the lack of interest in the hardware? For the Wii U the latter was definitely the starting factor, with sales dropping off a cliff as early as the January after launch (a big spring game may have helped save the complete catastrophe, but the damage was done early). But with the GC, I wasn't keeping up with it to know for sure.

Convincing someone to buy a PS2 was a lot easier because of its DVD player functionality. Software may have driven sales, but people were more easily convinced by the value of the included DVD function.

@iKhan
By the time the GC launched the PS2 had already won. It had the DVD player (a factor that no-longer exists) but it also had the games. GTA was effectively a PS2 exclusive when the GC launched. Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy were the same. So I think it's fair to say that software drove the hardware.

@skywake I honestly think the PS2 being able to play DVDs was a much bigger factor than the games in terms of making it a success. There was a point rather early on in its lifespan when it made more sense to buy a PS2 instead of a DVD player to watch DVDs.