Nintendo Nintendo should just make a powerful console.

[CastletonSnob]

Why do we give Nintendo a pass for not making a powerful console like Sony and Microsoft? Why do we let them be different for the sake of being different? A triangular wheel is different, but that doesn't make it useful.

If Nintendo wants to get third party support, they need to make a powerful console. It's as simple as that.

[Biggie]

[CastletonSnob]

Just now, Biggie said:

Imagine a Nintendo console with all the great first-party games AND the great third-party games.

 

There would be no reason to buy any other console.

[TheLeon]

Is lack of third party support currently a problem for Nintendo? 

[CastletonSnob]

3 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Is lack of third party support currently a problem for Nintendo? 

The Switch isn't getting Cyberpunk, Madden, COD or Red Dead Redemption 2, so yes.

[Bacon]

Nintendo doesn't give a fuck. They produce toys that adults and children eat up. Everyone loves a good Zelda or Mario so everyone is fine with a weak console with a gimmick. Nintendo wants you to buy their system for their games. If you don't like that Nintendo will tell you to get fucked. 

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The Switch does have Control... through a streaming tech.  That is how they'll get their third party support.  There's a chance for XCloud to come to Nintendo platforms.

[skillzdadirecta]

Nintendo-don't... give a fuck. Their consoles are always profitable and it's the software and I.P.'s that push their brand. Why change that if it works for them? I agree they get a pass from gamers but it's a smart strategy business-wise. Because of their I.P.'s they make all of the tech talk irrelevant when it comes to their products.

[Chris-]

Does it really matter? Unless your heart is set on only owning one console (which isn't something that would be the case for most people on this board), you will have something that plays all the major third-party stuff. I'd much rather Nintendo focus on novel technology than try to compete from a power perspective.

[Fizzzzle]

The way I see it, the relative failure of the Gamecube made folks at Nintendo realize they couldn't compete with the juggernauts of Sony and Microsoft. They'll never win an arms race, so they don't even try. That's not their lane.

[best3444]

I personally stopped enjoying Nintendo after the GameCube. I think they're garbage now. Their prices are ridiculous and they release one good game every 2-3 years. Thank God for Microsoft and Sony.

[gamer.tv]

As the ‘alternative’ they are doing fantastically well as everyone’s other console. I’d also hate to see the battery life on a handheld that’s on par with a PS5.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Fizzzzle said:

The way I see it, the relative failure of the Gamecube made folks at Nintendo realize they couldn't compete with the juggernauts of Sony and Microsoft. They'll never win an arms race, so they don't even try. That's not their lane.

 

Exactly. Nintendo would lose trying to compete directly with Sony and Microsoft. They're perfectly happy to instead just dominate the niche they've carved out for themselves. If they made a more powerful console then they'd have to increase the price of the hardware and then they'd risk losing all the people who buy Nintendo consoles as their second gaming device in addition to an Xbox or Playstation (or PC).

[CastletonSnob]

Why do people always bring up the GameCube as a reason Nintendo shouldn't try to make powerful consoles?

The GameCube's failure had nothing to do with failure. The GameCube failed because Nintendo stupidly chose to use those mini-disks which limited storage capacity, which meant poor third party support.

[crispy4000]

9 minutes ago, CastletonSnob said:

Why do people always bring up the GameCube as a reason Nintendo shouldn't try to make powerful consoles?

The GameCube's failure had nothing to do with failure. The GameCube failed because Nintendo stupidly chose to use those mini-disks which limited storage capacity, which meant poor third party support.

 

Almost no 3rd party developer came out and said that was the reason for not supporting the Gamecube.  There were 2-disc games pretty early on always.  Also, Gamecube supposedly had more future-looking texture compression than the other consoles that gen.

 

The big reason for less support was that sales weren't there.  Not for the console, and certainly not 3rd party games on it.  A bit of a chicken and the egg scenario left over from the N64 days.  That bias still exists today somewhat among AAA publishers, so it's cathartic in a way for indies to be doing so well on Switch.  Switch tends to get many indies first (alongside PC) before the other consoles.

On paper, the Gamecube should have won.  More powerful than the PS2, almost as powerful as the Xbox, for 2/3's the price of either.  Spec wise, I don't think there's ever been a console that launched at a better value for its time.

You just get a few less liscenced music tracks or shorter FMV in some games.  That's the biggest difference in ports.

[Ominous]

They should stop making hardware and just make software. 

[stepee]

Honestly I’m fine with Nintendo not competing, I don’t need another console that’s exactly the same as all the others.

 

And they would have to split their teams up again to support whatever portable they would have with it, because they aren’t going to get out of the dedicated handheld console space that they 100% own.

[crispy4000]

29 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Exactly. Nintendo would lose trying to compete directly with Sony and Microsoft. They're perfectly happy to instead just dominate the niche they've carved out for themselves. If they made a more powerful console then they'd have to increase the price of the hardware and then they'd risk losing all the people who buy Nintendo consoles as their second gaming device in addition to an Xbox or Playstation (or PC).

 

Nintendo may just stumble into it to some degree with DLSS 2.0.  Producing a handheld as capable as a 2060 could work well enough, especially at handheld resolutions.  Nvidia was a great partner choice for them.

[Jason]

17 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Almost no 3rd party developer came out and said that was the reason for not supporting the Gamecube.  There were 2-disc games pretty early on always.  Also, Gamecube supposedly had more future-looking texture compression than the other consoles that gen.

 

The big reason for less support was that sales weren't there.  Not for the console, and certainly not 3rd party games on it.  A bit of a chicken and the egg scenario left over from the N64 days.  That bias still exists today somewhat among AAA publishers, so it's cathartic in a way for indies to be doing so well on Switch.  Switch tends to get many indies first (alongside PC) before the other consoles.

On paper, the Gamecube should have won.  More powerful than the PS2, almost as powerful as the Xbox, for 2/3's the price of either.  Spec wise, I don't think there's ever been a console that launched at a better value for its time.

You just get a few less liscenced music tracks or shorter FMV in some games.  That's the biggest difference in ports.

 

The real problem with the discs was that you couldn't use the GCN as a DVD player. DVD players cost a pretty penny back during that generation of consoles so it made it a tougher sell for a lot of consumers vs consoles that could double as a DVD player.

 

Also I would not discount the effect of the controller only having 3 shoulder buttons. I remember Splinter Cell worked around it but I think a lot of devs didn't want to deal with redoing the control scheme for the GCN version.

[CastletonSnob]

Just now, Jason said:

 

The real problem with the discs was that you couldn't use the GCN as a DVD player. DVD players cost a pretty penny back during that generation of consoles so it made it a tougher sell for a lot of consumers vs consoles that could double as a DVD player.

 

Also I would not discount the effect of the controller only having 3 shoulder buttons. I remember Splinter Cell worked around it but I think a lot of devs didn't want to deal with redoing the control scheme for the GCN version.

The PS2 sold as well as it did because it was a lot of people's first DVD player.

[Jason]

14 minutes ago, Ominous said:

They should stop making hardware and just make software. 

 

Look at how they wouldn't increase mini NES and SNES supplies even while they were being scalped at huge markup. They would clearly rather risk leaving money on the table than risk having unsold inventory. They're not going to get out of hardware because their hardware isn't a loss-leader, they don't care if they could be more profitable just making software because they're making money doing what they're doing.

[SimpleG]

20 minutes ago, Ominous said:

They should stop making hardware and just make software. 

Switch Hardware Sales Reach 68.3 Million, Now Nintendo's Second Best-Selling Home Console Ever

WWW.NINTENDOLIFE.COM

---

Overtakes the NES - The Nintendo Switch has reached a grand total of 68.30 million hardware sales, officially overtaking t...

Clearly they should stop making hardware

[crispy4000]

12 minutes ago, CastletonSnob said:

The PS2 sold as well as it did because it was a lot of people's first DVD player.

 

Too reductive, IMO.  It wasn't its DVD player that killed the Dreamcast.

[crispy4000]

17 minutes ago, Jason said:

Also I would not discount the effect of the controller only having 3 shoulder buttons. I remember Splinter Cell worked around it but I think a lot of devs didn't want to deal with redoing the control scheme for the GCN version.

 

If there was enough money to be made on ports, it wouldn't have been a problem.  Much simpler than porting a game to the Wii, Wii U or Switch.

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

I personally stopped enjoying Nintendo after the GameCube. I think they're are garbage now. Their prices are ridiculous and they release one good game every 2-3 years. Thank God for Microsoft and Sony.

 

30 minutes ago, Ominous said:

They should stop making hardware and just make software. 

 

9 minutes ago, SimpleG said:

Switch Hardware Sales Reach 68.3 Million, Now Nintendo's Second Best-Selling Home Console Ever

WWW.NINTENDOLIFE.COM

---

Overtakes the NES - The Nintendo Switch has reached a grand total of 68.30 million hardware sales, officially overtaking t...

Clearly they should stop making hardware

 

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

If there was enough money to be made on ports, it wouldn't have been a problem.  Much simpler than porting a game to the Wii, Wii U or Switch.

 

I wasn't saying it was the only thing making ports not seem worthwhile, but I could see it being a tipping point factor since it would add to the amount of work that would need to go into a port. Less install base can be compensated for with less work having to go into the port. 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

I personally stopped enjoying Nintendo after the GameCube. I think they're are garbage now. Their prices are ridiculous and they release one good game every 2-3 years. Thank God for Microsoft and Sony.

 

Their game pricing model is total shit these days.  And I'll never touch Nintendo Online unless I absolutely need the cloud saves.  

But frankly, their output has been pretty consistent to what the Gamecube's was in the years since.  There's still so many Switch games I'd be all over if they dropped in price like Sony's stuff.

[crispy4000]

5 minutes ago, Jason said:

I wasn't saying it was the only thing making ports not seem worthwhile, but I could see it being a tipping point factor since it would add to the amount of work that would need to go into a port. Less install base can be compensated for with less work having to go into the port. 

 

If you remember from that gen, 3rd party developers didn't think their games would sell on Gamecube unless they had exclusive modes, or struck a bargain with Nintendo to force Mario & co into it.  It was much more than just the controller interface.

[gamer.tv]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Their game pricing model is total shit these days.  And I'll never touch Nintendo Online unless I absolutely need the cloud saves.  

But frankly, their output has been pretty consistent to what the Gamecube's was in the years since.  There's still so many Switch games I'd be all over if they dropped in price like Sony's stuff.

 

I bought three months of Nintendo Online as I ended up with some money back from buying the Switch. I can’t say I’ve used it extensively but the SNES VC is decent, though I think I’m correct in saying you don’t need it for Rocket League (though if you do - it would be an essential).

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Their game pricing model is total shit these days.  And I'll never touch Nintendo Online unless I absolutely need the cloud saves.  

But frankly, their output has been pretty consistent to what the Gamecube's was in the years since.  There's still so many Switch games I'd be all over if they dropped in price like Sony's stuff.

 

 

You can do things like by e-shop credit on sale from places like Amazon or Target. Amazon had 25% Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo e-store credit a couple of months ago for example.

[crispy4000]

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

You can do things like by e-shop credit on sale from places like Amazon or Target. Amazon had 25% Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo e-store credit a couple of months ago for example.

 

Yup, that's what I've done.  That Amazon deal was stellar recently.  But I keep the credit for good deals that never come.

[Fizzzzle]

Most Japanese game publishers seem to not really believe in things like sales and discounts, with the exception of Sega and Bamco. There are a lot of games that came out years ago that are still by default listed at $50 or $60.

 

They don't believe in the philosophy of "it's better to have 60% of something than 100% of nothing."

[Ominous]

48 minutes ago, SimpleG said:

Switch Hardware Sales Reach 68.3 Million, Now Nintendo's Second Best-Selling Home Console Ever

WWW.NINTENDOLIFE.COM

---

Overtakes the NES - The Nintendo Switch has reached a grand total of 68.30 million hardware sales, officially overtaking t...

Clearly they should stop making hardware

 

 

I'm talking about it from a consumer perspective.  Imagine a Mario Kart game that runs at 60, or 120, FPS in split screen. 

Playing with my kids is testing my ability to tolerate terrible frame rate and low resolution.  I toss back a few beers for some natural AA. 

[Jason]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

Yup, that's what I've done.  That Amazon deal was stellar recently.  But I keep the credit for good deals that never come.

 

It'd be nice if Nintendo games would hit $30 but effectively getting a game for $45 is enough for me to not hold out indefinitely for the extra $15.

[Mercury33]

1 hour ago, Ominous said:

 

 

I'm talking about it from a consumer perspective.  Imagine a Mario Kart game that runs at 60, or 120, FPS in split screen. 

Playing with my kids is testing my ability to tolerate terrible frame rate and low resolution.  I toss back a few beers for some natural AA. 

cool