Topic: In the event the console/handheld market dies or becomes niche, how should Nintendo respond (read first post)

To be clear, I'm not saying the industry is or isn't at risk of dying or becoming niche in the near future.

But there is always a chance of something happening that causes it some time in the future. Maybe not 10 years from now, but maybe 30 years from now. Maybe this causes video games to die altogether, or maybe it just means large scale consoles go away in favor of microconsoles (like the Fire TV)

Microsoft, and to a lesser degree Sony are more diversified companies that do have other areas that they can extend to. But Nintendo is really built around games and games consoles. So how should Nintendo respond to something like that? Should they jump into another hardware industry? Should they stick with games and just go third party?

I think it's an interesting question to consider.

Nintendo is already looking to diversify with things like the Quality of Life platform, and to a certain extent, Amiibo.

What is Fire TV? About microconsoles, OUYA predictions were idiotically high and most people were saying it will be a killer of next-gen... I wonder how well that went.

Anyway, about Nintento.

Stick to card games, plushies, TV shows etc., like they do now.

Also, sadly, the quickest to die is Sony with their TV department making them losses in millions.

I think the OUYA just went for the wrong thing at the wrong price. And I don't think the Fire TV is going to explode in popularity. Right now, Fire TV is still android based, so it's stuck with apps mostly written for Tablets with a touch screen and a somewhat weaker processor. Most importantly, the games that dominate the App Store and Google Play are cheap or free low budget games. Large scale experiences really aren't a big focus.

But I do think the Fire TV is a good glimpse of what consoles' greatest competition could be: Devices that allow you to stream games and apps from the rest of your computing ecosystem, like what Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, and even Chromecast do with movies.

Tablets are getting more and more powerful, and computer/laptop OS's are becoming more and more integrated with mobile smart devices. So I can really see a future where the games you play on TV can be purchased on another platform, and streamed with one of the devices I mentioned.

A lot of people say "well why don't you just hook up a tablet to your TV instead". It's because of convenience. The same reason people have a Roku and an iPad.

I just hope the future doesn't result in further saturation of the gaming market with Apple and Microsoft products

Micro consoles probably won't be that big of a seller to be honest. Take the Nexus Player its awesome and I want one manily becuase I like a graphical UX, but for $100 that's a hefty price when the chromecast also by google does the same thing for $35.

Maybe with the next generation of techies, who are used to playing on and manipulating tablets and stuff, will tablet gaming overtake concrete gaming with a controller. To me, it doesn't feel right. I hate playing games on touch screens with my hands. I don't play games on my phone or tablet for that reason. It just doesn't "feel" right. Many people who have grown up with controllers may have a hard time switching over to phone and tablet gaming. I feel that this sort of gaming trend will take quite a while to materialize.

That said, I think Nintendo knows this and that's why this "QoL" thing is something they're looking into. Maybe not as a way to save themselves if gaming goes down (it won't) but to diversify and maybe get money to fund more gaming projects.

Well, Nintendo's handhelds are already dying in the US. 13 million 3DS sold compared to 40 million GBA.

But think about this. What if chromecast could stream games from your PC...

With the the way technology is progressing, I wouldn't be surprised if that eventually happened. Would buying a console really be worth it any more?

Hmm... This poses an interesting question, but even if the services mentioned are superior in many ways, there will always be gamers who prefer actual gaming consoles/platforms. Of course, this means that market would shrink drastically and may be unable to sustain multiple platforms. So what then? I'm guessing the less successful platforms will be forced to fold and we'll see a monopoly. It's hard to predict which will prevail there but it does beg the question: what if it's not Nintendo? Asking what they should do is a moot point in my opinion, as they'll do way they want to, but what do I think they'll do? I'd like to think they'd become third party, as the alternatives are non-gaming businesses or disappearing altogether, neither of which I want. Nonetheless, if this happens, I doubt it'll be in the next couple generations. It's a slow process.

I think streaming games to smart devices is probably the future (e.g. your TV via the internet speeds are in the right realm to make this feasible now), eliminating the need to own consoles. Nintendo will likely become just a software company (and perhaps controller too) on the game side at some point.

Ah right, the good old "cherry pick two numbers and compare them whilst ignoring the rest''.

The gaming industry needs to realize that "true gamers" and the mass market are two entirely different beasts and the reason why gaming has become less popular is because the industry is trying to cater only to the mass market while alienating most of the tens of millions of people that make up their "core fanbase" believe me gaming would be as popular as it was during the PS2 era if gaming companies would realize that most of the casuals aren't coming back.

A micro-console with a closed market needs to appear. Only allow games on the market place that pass a "test" of some sort and limit the number of clones that are allowed on the marketplace. The biggest problem with micro-consoles and open markets is how quickly they get flooded with clones and garbage. Micro-console with a closed marketplace could do a lot of the industry, in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if that is where Nintendo s heading.

Nvidia pretty much has that now.

http://shield.nvidia.com/grid-game-streaming

I don't think the marketplace is closed on the Shield

EDIT: according to wikipedia the Shield has an Nvidia Marketplace and Google Play (which is very open).

These dooms day threads never interested me. People were going on and on about how the death of the PC was around the corner every year and it never happened. Get back to me when Nintendo isn't moving millions of games e...

Virtual Reality Nintendo games!!

The normal one isn't. But the cloud bit (Nvidia running PC versions of those games on their cloud) is as closed as it gets. Still in Beta but 20 games for free until June next year.

Not exactly the type of closed market I am talking about.