Nintendo: we’re ‘evaluating’ streaming.

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IbizaPocholo

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Nintendo: we're 'evaluating' streaming | TechCrunch

Game streaming loomed large as the biggest story of E3. Between Google’s Stadia news late last week, Microsoft’s Game Pass additions, a Ubisoft
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In an interview with TechCrunch this week on the show floor, Nintendo of America executive Charlie Scibetta said the concept is one the company has been considering.

"Streaming is certainly interesting technology," he told TechCrunch. "Nintendo is keeping a close eye on it and we're evaluating it. We don't have anything to announce right now in terms of adopting that technology. For us, it's still physical and it's digital downloads through our eShop."
 
What on their LABO cardboard servers? :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Man Nintendo makes a lot of great things but online is not one of them.
 
Assassins Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 were both released on the Switch in Japan as streamed titles, which is a bit more than just hypothetical evaluation.
 
is this some kind of sick joke?

if nintendo want to start streaming games then maybe think about putting a better Wi Fi chip in the Switch! i actually can't even get a connection in my bedroom. yet somehow my PS4, XB1, PC, Phone, Tablet, Google Mini, chromecast can get a signal just fine.
 
"We'll do it 5 years after everybody else, right about the time the Nintendo fanboys have finished convincing themselves that streaming sucks and they don't care if Nintendo doesn't have it. Then those fanboys will immediately reverse their opinion and re-buy games for $12-$15 that they've bought at least 6 times already."
 
If they go into that streaming pile, I pray, that they don't take the internet latency into consideration when developing games. I really hope, that they tune the gameplay design in console terms and just throw that into the cloud, no matter how well it works there.

I'm trembling in fear, that we might start seeing our snappy platformers and fighters turning into slowly floating sticky mess in order to even the latency for all platforms.
 
How about you evaluate getting your basic online infrastructure up to 2007 standards before worrying about streaming?
 
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When the Xbox One controversy was a hot topic:

"What's really important is viewing Nintendo almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with. As a consumer you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again. I really want to retain that product nature of the games that we create so that people can do that and have that experience. To me that's something that's very important about entertainment itself. So from the approach of continuing to create things that are entertaining for people, that's an important direction for me that I want to maintain."

- Shigeru Miyamoto, 2013

Approximately five years later:

"It's necessary for developers to learn to get along with [subscription services]...When seeking a partner for this, it's important to find someone who understands the value of your software. Then customers will feel the value in your apps and software and develop a habit of paying money for them."

Source

What a tool this man has become. Nintendo used to pride themselves on strict quality control; games had to be bug-free, and be of lasting value. I miss the old Nintendo.
 
Nintendo is one of the last hardware manufacturers out there to prioritise action-based gameplay and repeatedly acknowledge the importance of instant tactile feedback.

They should avoid streamed gaming, at least as a general service, like the plague.
 
EightBit Man said:
When the Xbox One controversy was a hot topic:

"What's really important is viewing Nintendo almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with. As a consumer you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again. I really want to retain that product nature of the games that we create so that people can do that and have that experience. To me that's something that's very important about entertainment itself. So from the approach of continuing to create things that are entertaining for people, that's an important direction for me that I want to maintain."

- Shigeru Miyamoto, 2013

Approximately five years later:

"It's necessary for developers to learn to get along with [subscription services]...When seeking a partner for this, it's important to find someone who understands the value of your software. Then customers will feel the value in your apps and software and develop a habit of paying money for them."

Source

What a tool this man has become. Nintendo used to pride themselves on strict quality control; games had to be bug-free, and be of lasting value. I miss the old Nintendo.
Click to expand...

The direction in 2013 was probably coming from Iwata who is sadly no longer with us.

Nintendo will probably take a crack at it, but I don't think it's going to do well on any platform unless the industry just shoves it down people's throats. And even then it might fail.
 
Sit your ass down Nintendo. Work on your online first then think about streaming. How about you give us a messaging system? Party chat? .. Yeah, think about streaming later. There're plenty of things you're behind at.
 
E3 demonstration of switch mobile streaming setup.

20190615-154327.jpg
 
I could imagine a switch2 that works with 5g and has game streaming available but not this generation. For me this is the golden generation of physical handheld gaming via the switch. I think it's a great long-term system.. no worries of your fancy new tv in 2025 not working right with your 8 year old game console when you have a display right on the console itself.
 
It's nice to think that consumers have a say in whether streaming becomes the new primary method of video game delivery, but it seems pretty clear that the video game industry will dictate to its consumers how things will go, and is willing to bet that consumers are hooked on gaming enough to just accept it.

Stadia will be the first, but it absolutely won't be the last platform to focus exclusively on streaming as a delivery vehicle. If even Nintendo, usually the last platform holder to the table in new tech, is "evaluating" streaming, then there's no avoiding its inevitability.
 
Can't wait for my $15 a month NES and select SNES titles streaming on my phone!.

But seriously though. Yeah it makes sense for them to look into it. Though with how lacking all their online components are I think the only way this can turn out decent is if they partner up with Stadia or Microsoft or some other big player.
 
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LordRaptor said:
Assassins Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 were both released on the Switch in Japan as streamed titles, which is a bit more than just hypothetical evaluation.
Click to expand...

Yep. There's a lot of potential for Nintendo and streaming.

1. It can be a wash to get some big AAA third party games to their fans, at least those with good internet, while sticking with cheaper, underpowered hardware that makes them profit from day 1.

2. It could serve as the virtual console. Especially for NES and SNES games as they're so small and could just be temporarily stored locally rather than saved (or give option for both). They'd probably make more money on a virtual console subscription service than selling old games individually.
 
mooshie78 said:
It could serve as the virtual console. Especially for NES and SNES games as they're so small and could just be temporarily stored locally
Click to expand...
Size isn't an issue with streaming it's the latency. Considering how half baked Nintendo's online offerings has always been I wouldn't be very hopeful for a cloud offering . Maybe if the partnered with azure or AWS but even then many of Nintendo's titles require precise timing ( platforming games for example) that is gonna drive people apeshit if they keep missing jumps because the service has random latency
 
pr0cs said:
Size isn't an issue with streaming it's the latency. Considering how half baked Nintendo's online offerings has always been I wouldn't be very hopeful for a cloud offering . Maybe if the partnered with azure or AWS but even then many of Nintendo's titles require precise timing ( platforming games for example) that is gonna drive people apeshit if they keep missing jumps because the service has random latency
Click to expand...

Reports were that RE7 and AC Odyssey ran well in Japan. Not sure what tech service those companies used, but hopefully Nintendo would partner with whoever.

My point on size was just that NES/SNES games wouldn't need to stream as they could just be temp (or perm) downloads to local storage. For N64, and especially GC, onward streaming would probably need to at least be an option for a monthly subscription service (as people likely play more games than if sold individually on a VC) given the limited onboard storage and people buying Switch games digitally already and eating up space.
 
32 GB storage on the new Switchlite....streaming seems like a natural progression. I don't know how it works out cost-wise...but I imagine it would be a cost cutting measure once the streaming infrastructure is established and settled.
 
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