Trying to think what I would do I were Nintendo, and first and foremost want to make sure your loyal fans in Japan and across the world would be happy with what the NX will provide. Then after that to take steps in trying to come up with a product / services that will capture as much market share as possible. As this would lead to printing the most money for them.
- Nintendo IP launched with NX and all the way throughout to avoid 8 month long draughts the Wii U suffered from after launch.
- Nintendo's Console and Handheld teams are now just Game teams. Whatever game they develop, it will work for both the NX and the handheld. They no longer have to cater to one device. Only one SKU of the game (not including bundles and digital downloads).
- OS that supports MiiVerse as a background service, no longer have to load it as a separate app. There will probably be other Nintendo developed apps that can also stay as background services.
- Powerful enough to support the games Third Parties would easily be able to port to their platform (Xbox One and PS4 class hardware minimum). The only thing that could make them spend more time on the development of ports would be to support whatever exclusive functionality Nintendo's controllers will have. And this might be optional anyway.
- My Nintendo and the whole network functionality to at least be on par with what PSN and XBL offer and can do. For both NX and the handheld.
- If the handheld somehow allows for playing the same console game (not remote play) then this will attract Third Parties even more because they will be able to develop 1 game for 2 platforms for basically the price of 1 game. This could be huge. And definitely something I would want to do if I were Nintendo.
But I suspect to do the 1 SKU game for 2 platforms (and stop the handheld being priced too high), the game would need to support 2 rendering modes. One that runs at a lower resolution, lower textures etc but same FPS (to keep parity with multiplayer networked games I assume). This might be like running the game on Low on a PC (handheld), and High on a PC (console).
I hope that is what Nintendo plans to do anyway. It makes the most sense to me if they are indeed aiming for 1 game SKU for 2 platforms.
- Nintendo IP launched with NX and all the way throughout to avoid 8 month long draughts the Wii U suffered from after launch.
- Nintendo's Console and Handheld teams are now just Game teams. Whatever game they develop, it will work for both the NX and the handheld. They no longer have to cater to one device. Only one SKU of the game (not including bundles and digital downloads).
- OS that supports MiiVerse as a background service, no longer have to load it as a separate app. There will probably be other Nintendo developed apps that can also stay as background services.
- Powerful enough to support the games Third Parties would easily be able to port to their platform (Xbox One and PS4 class hardware minimum). The only thing that could make them spend more time on the development of ports would be to support whatever exclusive functionality Nintendo's controllers will have. And this might be optional anyway.
- My Nintendo and the whole network functionality to at least be on par with what PSN and XBL offer and can do. For both NX and the handheld.
- If the handheld somehow allows for playing the same console game (not remote play) then this will attract Third Parties even more because they will be able to develop 1 game for 2 platforms for basically the price of 1 game. This could be huge. And definitely something I would want to do if I were Nintendo.
But I suspect to do the 1 SKU game for 2 platforms (and stop the handheld being priced too high), the game would need to support 2 rendering modes. One that runs at a lower resolution, lower textures etc but same FPS (to keep parity with multiplayer networked games I assume). This might be like running the game on Low on a PC (handheld), and High on a PC (console).
I hope that is what Nintendo plans to do anyway. It makes the most sense to me if they are indeed aiming for 1 game SKU for 2 platforms.