@zby
A dock is better because you don't have to detach all the cables when you plug it into the TV. As it is you can drop the Switch into the dock and it gets power, USB and HDMI out. It also means that if at some point down the line they want to add extra or different kinds of I/O to the dock they can.
A "Switch Pro" in a few years time might be 4K capable and its dock might support HDMI 2.1 with HDR and Variable Refresh. By using the single USB Type C setup not only would that version of the Switch be compatible with the current docks but that newer dock would work with the current Switch. If they had all the I/O directly on the system you'd be stuck with whatever I/O config made the most sense at launch.
@skywake What about putting the I/O in both Switch and dock. Then you could plug into any TV and also be forwards compatible, with new dock I/O just overriding internal one on older Switch.
I'm sure they had good reasons to reject the idea, no doubt it was considered, pretty cool feature to lose.
The Wii was a success, and they pretty much ditched the Wiimote and Nunchunk with the Wii U, and it was all about the GamePad. So who knows what they're going to do next. You probably can't predict it.
@Octane And then after a small period of time it will be considered a success
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Basically "Switch" for Nintendo will be what "iPhone" is for Apple.
Absolutely. Just like the "iPhone" the physical device you can buy today is just the tip of the iceberg. When you buy a Switch you're buying into a platform that will almost certainly exist on hardware beyond the hardware you can buy today. Moreover "Switch" isn't necessarily just about hardware - it's also a set of digital services that will continue to evolve over the coming years.
That's already how Sony and Microsoft have been positioning Playstation and Xbox for years now (long before the PS4 and XBox One) but I feel it might end up feeling more pronounced with Switch because the technology and marketing are so much more flexible. To a certain point Nintendo has also been able to clear the decks a little better and assess exactly where they might want to go.
Honestly I think that the Switch may even be the end point for Nintendo in the way that Windows has been for Microsoft. They may emphasise or de-emphasise parts of the Switch ecosystem as time goes on (based on how the market responds and how successful they are) but I think it's going to be the platform for all Nintendo first party games for a surprisingly long time. Which, of course, doesn't mean that you'll definitely be able to play "Zelda 2030 (working title)" on your 2017 Switch but there should be a clear continuity.
@ThanosReXXX Wow, that text wall MIGHT actually exceed the maximum I've ever done (but I'd need a word count to be sure.) Between me, you, and Ryu, I think NL is going to have to splash out on a larger webhosting package!
Actually the biggest thing I think I disagree with in your post is that you posted it with an assumption we were disagreeing, and I don't think we are You echoed quite eloquently most of my own assessment of the industry and Nintendo, and other than a few minor points (mostly unrelated to my original post, which I'll talk about more below) we mostly seem in agreement. I should clarify my discussion of Nintendo being iterative wasn't to the exclusion of the other companies iterating, but rather a reply to the OP's comment about what would Nintendo do different next since they don't iterate like Sony/MS does, and I was only adding that Nintendo also iterates, so it's not an either-or proposition
The rest about Nintendo, pretty much all agreed (and the fact that they're the old dinasaur is the only thing that keeps them tolerable compared to the others..."new trends" and "Western" generally imply "worse" in my brain ) Heck, chasing after Western concepts is how Japan dragged themselves into the second World War they'd otherwise have been practically unaware of. Westernization generally means bad things for Japan. (Though the war worked out pretty well for Nintendo when Yamauchi managed to snag the exclusive interim government contract for playing cards for occupying troops.....yeah, he was a shark that would sell his own grandmother even before the NES... )
Anyway, the points I'll disagree somewhat with:
While I agree Nintendo is Nintendo's own worst enemy, I do think some of their behavior is reactionary all the same. The bottom line is Sony's entrance to the market in the 90's upended everything as Nintendo had known it, and they were operating, at the time, as more or less a monopoly, with a monopoly mindset despite Sega's competition. But while Nintendo and Sega are both Nintendo and Sega's own worst enemies in some of their boneheaded decisions, the common theme is they were both making those boneheaded decisions as a hasty reactionary response on how to deal with Sony and the disruption Sony caused to their landscape. Back in the 90's it was pretty hard to compete with the behemoth marketing machine that was Sony and the impression they made on the popular landscape, cemented by the fact they were using gamers to subsidize their media player sales to control the media format war. Playstation became a household name because people that never even bought a single game bought Playstations as the cheapest CD, then DVD player available. So when people looked at "games", Playstation was the name they now new (or already had.) Neither Sega nor Nintendo had much ability to respond to that and both fumbled badly. In Sega's case it lead them to chase their own tail and kill it. In Nintendo's case they took a hike through the woods and up the mountain, forgot their own name and learned talk with the birds. They went way off in random directions to try to find somewhere else to be so they didn't need to deal with the crowding Sony caused to the old game market.
Wii was as much about finding a "new" market as much as creating new gamers. Iwata did famously say that it was about increasing the number of gamers, but his idea of doing that was based on the assumption that "gamers" are now a different type of gamer dominated by Sony/MS/PC so Nintendo needed to find an entirely different group of people who would become gamers by playing different types of games....which became "lifestyle product" type games. Iwata recognized and acknowledged early in the WiiU fail period that the focus on casuals was "perhaps unwise", but the Wii was a genuine attempt to basically abandon "gaming" entirely and redefine "gaming" as something else for a whole different group of people. It was successful to a degree, and if Android/iOS never happened it might have been very successful and we'd be looking at a WiiPocket that plays Candy Crush for $50 as Nintendo's latest console today. But Android/iOS did happen and proved that the kind of audience the Wii sought accepts the idea of cheap activities with a value of near nothing.
WiiU.....a mix of hubris and desperation, and a dash of incompetence. They thought the Wii crowd would become the WiiU crowd without recognizing the Wii crowd already left. While they realized the error of the Wii market and tried to crawl back to the normal gaming market (after flipping it the finger for 7 years), but without looking out the window first to wee what the real gaming market was actually buying and where the next platforms were headed. And incompetence as we've talked about before. I do, however, still suspect the WiiU was a known stopgap/failure. The real goal was Switch but it was simply not ready yet, and could no be made ready for any acceptable price point, so the WiiU got kind of thrown together hastily out of what they had as Switch prototypes bolted to a Wii. No proof, but I still suspect that to be the case. Looking even at the iteration of the gamepad from the reveal to launch with dual circlepads and a flat tablet device instead of sticks and molded grips. I'm wondering if the "prototype gamepad" was in fact a "prototype switch". And they merged handheld/console pretty much the WEEK the WiiU went out the door. You have to admit, if that was the plan, it worked in spades. Nobody's talking about it, everyone heard buzz of Nintendo's poorly selling console the WiiU, it still turned a tiny profit, and generated tons of games to port to Switch. A struggling console for 4 years still is better for holding retailer and interest than having no console for 4 years. Not a typical business strategy, but Nintendo tends to move in decades-long strategic plans. When you're over 100 you can afford to think like that I suppose
The Nintendo Playstation debacle really through them off-center from the N64 through the WiiU. They were permanently on their back heel since 1996 in the console space, but their handheld dominance meant they didn't have to care so much. And they thought Wii was their big break out of that cycle until it wasn't.
I know the idea that the WiiU was a "big DS" was common thinking around launch, but it makes sense on some levels, but Nintendo seemed to be caught off-guard by that idea. Their own games seemed to be either trying to do something very different than that, or really, trying to be Switch games. The main focus was always Off-TV, much to the complaints of many...but it highlights again, they were thinking in Switch terms throughout the WiiU early years as though that's what they were really trying to make. Sure some games had maps and inventories and I really miss that feature, honestly. But the core thinking was the whole "game without the TV or on the TV!" model.
But I do see an iterative model ahead for the Switch. It provides its own versatility and the core idea doesn't really need a big rework. Most of the iterations would be to please third parties, but they do always need to provide something "exciting" in their hardware as a big refresh. The SNES was the last time they didn't really do that. But I think the next "exciting" hardware feature might not be something that exists yet. Unless it's VR. But even then they'll have to do it in a "Nintendo-like way" to differentiate it (maybe it will display only in red )
Overall, particularly if Switch really takes off, I think they've finally settled into their own REAL position for the first time since 1996 (financial success that Wii was, it wasn't a comfortable Nintendo even then, it was very imbalanced in terms of who actually played it.)
@NEStalgia Bwahaha, I started to jump in yesterday but after I hit six paragraphs I bowed out and deleted what I had. I'm going to stay out of this one because it is an exciting conversation, but I have a few fires to put out at work. I may pop in later with my 2 cents.
I've been trying to trim my responses by the way.
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@ThanosReXXX Wow Grampa ThanosReXXX thats a mighty might of words you have there. You remind me of Grampa Simpson. "Back in my day we had this device called Nintendo, but we would call it Japan in a box, it was filled with outdated Asia traditions that just didn't get with the times, we use to be hip back in my day. By the way we had these remotes we would call magic wands, it makes things move on our tellyvisions, we would trade 5 mushrooms per remote is what we'd do. They weren't called mushrooms at the time, they we're called toad and toadettes, we'd display in our cases and on our shelves. They we're very hard to find, we'd had to wrestle mythical creatures called scalpers and throw money at them, and they drop the doo hickey stuff for you. By the way we had these remotes we would call magic wands, they we're connected to these white boxes that would calculate 5,000 mushrooms per second. Which was the style at the time."
Wii U was horrible in design choice and naming. They we're trying too much to build on the success of the Wii that they even had something thats looks almost exactly like it. Console design is very important, you have to show thats its a different entirely new thing, or else people will get confused. The PS 1,2,3 and 4 all looked different. Wii U looks way to close to the Wii, so people didn't get it was a new console. Also with the name Wii U, you can clearly see how it didn't do well.
Nintendo not seeing themselves as the competition, in a way, is how they compete. Hey we're different and unique take a look at us. Nintendo may not be competing for people that own multiple systems, (because usually Nintendo is seen to as something to co exist with other consoles), But they do have to compete for people that only have the time and money for one system, and that portable aspect is really an attractive option.
I think the Switch is one of the best named Nintendo console, it sounds cool. I have no doubt that i'll do better than the Wii U. Its has everything that console didn't. A design choice to set it apart, naming to show its different, and lots of buzz and attention from getting the Nintendo name out there. With Pokemon go, Mario run, Nes Classic, lots of focus on TV advertisement, a for sure main Pokemon game on Switch that has the same quality of the portables, it'll no doubt fly off shelves. All they need, and is the only thing missing for now, is that good game support from 3rd party devs. Well see how dev support goes in the future.
What Nintendo can do for the new console after the Switch, well for a start Design it to look different, and have a catchy name that sets it apart. Come up with some new creative gimmick, and have everything that successful console has. With VR already taken, motion controls already done, portable system with tv out has been done, where do you go from here? What gimmick can you come up with that is as cool as these? Maybe a virtual room matrix style? That'll be scary, you won't know reality from fake.
@ThanosReXXX I managed to read your wall of text too. I'll give you a compliment too. You win the most words award. Congratulations. I did agree with some points. Like Nintendo being outdated and such.
@NEStalgia You might need to step up your word game, ThanosReXXX is bringing some serious competition.
@NEStalgia Full disclosure: it was not so much my assumption that you were saying completely different things, the entire reason for me posting that wall of text was me mistakenly thinking you were the one that started the topic, and I did misread some things, so there. It was way past midnight over here and I was tired but decided to make a quick last visit to NLife before hitting the sack, but ultimately, it wasn't really a quick visit...
As for the Wii U: it wasn't common thinking at all that the Wii U was a big DS, that was ACTUALLY the original concept from Nintendo themselves. The common thinking of the public was more like "what the hell?" because nobody understood it. The concept is really clear if you take a minute to sit and think about it, and see where the tech matches the two consoles that have inspired it: the Wii and the DS.
And it is very well known that Nintendo always reuses part of their own tech in their next systems, so there's always some, shall we say "genetic code" from the previous generation in the next.
But Nintendo massively dropped the ball in the marketing department, and arguably also in the architecture department, because they should have moved to a newer, or at least more modern one that wouldn't have set them miles apart from the competition. But that's all water under the bridge now, even though the ramifications are still evident, and they really do need the Switch to become a massive success to get to a good place again.
And I stand by the thought that Nintendo was mostly fighting itself, much more so than Sega, which was indeed reacting in a panicky way to what Sony was doing. All the add-ons and successors piling on top of each other in way too short a period of time certainly were testament to that.
I've never seen such behavior from Nintendo. That ancient giant just shrugged its shoulders and slowly walked off and went its own way, neither caring or worrying. Way too confident and certainly much too dismissive of Sony's chances, but not fearful or panicked. If you see that as the same, then it could arguably be two sides of the same coin with a similar outcome in the end, but to me the situation was completely different.
Agreed on the common synonym for a game console evolving from "a Nintendo" to "a Playstation".
That point is very factual, so one would have to be dense to deny that. Even though it is kind of annoying that Nintendo ever let it get that far, but they certainly had themselves to blame for that, in large part for their quite scandalous treatment of third parties in the 8 and 16 bit days, with practices bordering on mafia rules.
As for the rest, I'm with @sillyghostly. He agrees with me...
@CosmicLight You'll never hear me say that Wii U was a great name for a console, but it is what it is, right? Can't be helped...
And my comment wasn't so much about how much better the good old days were, it was just my own two cents mixed in with some facts.
Agreed with everything else you said about where it has to go from here, and I certainly also see options for the Switch to get them on the road to the right destination, but they're not quite there yet, so even the relative success they are having right now, isn't enough yet to pass the verdict on them being back or successful again, but I'm certainly hoping they will be, because a gaming industry without Nintendo will most definitely not be a better one...
P.S.
@NEStalgia will be just fine without having to step up his game. I may have overwhelmed him in text size in this topic, but most of the times, we are quite evenly matched, and sometimes I even forego commenting on some article, because he has already posted most of what I would have wanted to say. Like he himself has already said: we agree for the most part...
There are a lot of interesting points made. Special kudos to the walls of text insight that @ThanosReXXX and @NEStalgia made, they were interesting to read.
My thoughts? I hope they continue an iterative model sort of like Sony did with PS4 (maybe a Switch Pro in holiday 2021?), but I fear they might drop Switch entirely, even if it is successful, as @Octane mentioned.
However, there is some evidence that they go along the iterative path - they realized the Wii crowd was leaving/getting bored of the motion controls, so they wanted to attract the crowd in another way, through tablet controls. Hence the drop in focus of motion controls from Wii to Wii U. With Switch, if enough people like the hybrid concept and continue to be interested in the hybrid concept (which I don't see why they wouldn't stay interested, unlike motion controls for the Wii), it's possible they will iterate from here on out. I'm sure they'd try some new tech, like VR, but I hope it is just an accessory to the main Switch system, not an entire system based off of VR.
As for the side notes on Wii U that @ThanosReXXX and @NEStalgia made , as a Wii U owner I'd like to add my two cents. IMHO Nintendo never intended the Wii U to be a giant DS nor the prototype for the Switch. It's possible they thought of the Switch concept in the creation of the Wii U, but it didn't materialize because it would have been expensive and because they already spent money creating the 3DS - I remember an article in which they clearly stated they didn't want to make Wii U portable because it would cannibalize the then-new 3DS.
The Wii U concept was simply meant to be a tablet nearby to interact with, it just so happened that in practice it ended up like a giant DS. They thought of the tablet in terms of asymmetrical gameplay and off-TV play, but initially they heavily promoted asymmetrical play (which obviously wasn't a feature of the 3DS or DS). They genuinely thought two screens would add to gameplay, and they genuinely wanted Wii U to succeed. When it didn't, they went to the drawing board (they were probably thinking of a successor to Wii U from 2013 on, but from the end of 2014 onwards they focused heavily on the successor to Wii U) and realized, since the Wii U's most common use of the second screen at that point was off-TV play, and 3DS would be soon reaching 5 years old, they could replace both in one fell swoop. Hence the creation of the Switch.
Anyway, I hope they do iterate the Switch, I think Nintendo designed the Switch excellently and with great marketing. With its modularity it would seem obvious for iterations, but this is Nintendo so we'll never know for sure until it's officially announced.
@zby I think you re missing the point of what the dock is. It's not just a way to connect the system to the TV, but it also charges the Pro Controller. But the most important thing about the dock is looks. Sliding the Switch into the dock and having the image instantly transferred to the big TV looks so much nicer and better from a marketing/selling point of view than attaching a cable to the Switch and TV. Pure and simple.
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Whatever Nintendo goes with next, I'm just hoping they stick with the hybrid formula. This is a console from my dreams. There are so many cases where I would love to play a segment in handheld form or vice versa. Also this way, Nintendo can focus all their resources into one console, meaning more games and more awesome franchises to play.
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@shadow-wolf Thanks for the compliments, and an interesting insight.
I have to stand by the giant DS thing, though. Or let's just say that it is what I mentioned later on in this thread: an amalgam of devices that have come before, which in the case of the Wii U were of course the Wii and the DS.
And Iwata even once mentioned its likeness to those devices. Only much later in its life cycle, after the market and the general audience stubbornly kept referring to the GamePad as a "tablet controller", much to my chagrin and anger, Miyamoto also started to spin his tablet story. That tale was never there from the very beginning. The GamePad also doesn't have enough similarities to a tablet to be called such a device, and I even once made an entire comparison on it to show (and slam) all the misinformed people not only here but on multiple sites why the GamePad is not a tablet, but simply an enlarged version of the bottom screen of the DS, with integrated controller.
So, in the end what happened is that general perception branded and decided what the Wii U was, which is largely Nintendo's fault. Their marketing was a complete disaster (I'm a sales & marketing professional myself, and it was an absolute horror to watch for me) and they never did enough to counter the more prevalent misconceptions. Well, at least not in the period that mattered: their feeble attempts in the Wii U's dying years were almost completely useless.
But I'm seeing bright spots with the Switch, which to me is the culmination of ALL that has come before, and I hope they can gain more momentum and keep it up well into the next year, so here's to E3 being great for them and showing the audience that the Switch is a worthwhile purchase and here to stay. Cheers!
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@shadow-wolf By the way: agreed on the Wii U also partially being held back in its final concept by cost. They probably wanted it to be more of something, but what was on paper was probably toned down to keep it somewhat affordable, which in turn kind of bottle-necked the whole system.
Still quite an entertaining device in its own right, though. And I've never regretted buying one, even though I was VERY late in doing so...
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@FragRed Completely agree with you. And to add to that, the Switch needs to be in an upright position to allow for maximum heat dissipation. A cable in a handheld isn't going to achieve that. And the spaces in the dock itself might also do something towards the distribution of excess heat.
There may not be many electronic components inside of it, but there's definitely something more to that dock, otherwise Nintendo would have just made a plastic stand for it, like the Wii U GamePad has:
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
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Topic: Where does Nintendo go after Switch?
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