6th May 2016, 8:27 PM
If they "opened up" extra space on these carts for users, they might as well just use SD cards flat-out. I'd be for it, but among other things Nintendo's gotta go through a dramatic shift in how they approach user "ownership" of their consoles. That is "side loaded apps" becoming a thing. The PS3 ALMOST got us there, but one little hacking scandal and they went and removed the custom OS feature from the system.
I am still not sure Nintendo is willing to commit to making their own dedicated cell phones. Sony tried that and it cost them big. For one, if they attempted to put their own exclusive store front on their handhelds, like Sony, it would fail utterly. They'd need to use Google's app store (I'm saying Google and not Apple because, well, come on, it's Apple we're talking about here). Further, they would need to be sure it could run the most popular games (Angry Birds) and the most well-reviewed games (The Room), so they would need to be in lock-step with Google's Nexus line. Lastly, Nintendo would need to consider whether or not to go the customized Android OS route. The plus side would be putting their own mark on the OS to make that cell phone their's, but the downside would be if that custom layer was harder to use than Google's own or slowed down the system just by running on top of it. Besides the technical aspects, there's also the matter of keeping up to date with Android updates. I like my Nexus because I can count on getting Android updates the "day of release", and there's a decent section of android owners that don't want to wait around for various manufacturers to finish customizing each update before they can get it.
Then there's the phone company exclusion deals. Sony dealt with that when they had to make the Vita AT&T exclusive, for example, and phone companies are only a little less likely to see a Nintendo cell phone and NOT demand an exclusivity deal (which would instantly lock out a huge target audience from even being able to consider it).
The last option would be a cell phone entirely designed by Nintendo with it's own OS built from the ground up, but in today's cell phone markets there's basically zero chance anyone would seriously consider such a 5th pillar option. The days when literally every phone ran it's own custom OS are dead now, it's all about making the OS a "platform" and getting every hardware maker to adopt it. There's Apple and Google, the top dogs (Apple is more popular in mind share, but Google's got the whole "every phone maker wants to use it's OS" thing going for it), and trailing way behind there's MS, and technically Amazon's got their own version but no one cares. Nintendo may be Nintendo, but games, even the very best games in the industry, just aren't enough to get anyone to care if it means all their apps aren't going to cross over to a device that is basically what "set top box" proponents have wanted forever, only in your pocket. You'd need to convince people it's worth buying two cell phones simultaneously, like we're all Hillary Clinton or something. Keep in mind that technically the Vita is a "cell phone", but no one actually uses it for that purpose, namely due to needing to turn off the cell phone's main function just to play a game online on the Vita, which in today's society is unacceptable (that, or pay for an extra "line" just for that system, which is just too expensive to consider). Generally, the Vita is connected online on the go the same way the 3DS is, by setting up one's cell phone as a hot spot and using the wifi function on the handheld.
Put shortly, I've given the whole "Nintendo enters the cell phone market" a lot of though, and all these compounded problems with multiple different ways Nintendo could approach that challenge are.... thorny... very thorny... Frankly, I'm not at all surprised Nintendo's avoided it so far. Every direction I look I see it as an impossible situation. Well, unless.... Unless Nintendo decides to do something very un-Nintendo-like and simply go third party when it comes to portable games, working out a major deal with both Apple and Google to officially promote a special well-built "controller addon" as the official recommended controller addon for their main cell phone lines. Even then, that's going to be tough as the market for such controller addons can testify to. It's very hard to make a "one size fits all" solution with the endless variations of cell phones out there (blame that one on Google).
I am still not sure Nintendo is willing to commit to making their own dedicated cell phones. Sony tried that and it cost them big. For one, if they attempted to put their own exclusive store front on their handhelds, like Sony, it would fail utterly. They'd need to use Google's app store (I'm saying Google and not Apple because, well, come on, it's Apple we're talking about here). Further, they would need to be sure it could run the most popular games (Angry Birds) and the most well-reviewed games (The Room), so they would need to be in lock-step with Google's Nexus line. Lastly, Nintendo would need to consider whether or not to go the customized Android OS route. The plus side would be putting their own mark on the OS to make that cell phone their's, but the downside would be if that custom layer was harder to use than Google's own or slowed down the system just by running on top of it. Besides the technical aspects, there's also the matter of keeping up to date with Android updates. I like my Nexus because I can count on getting Android updates the "day of release", and there's a decent section of android owners that don't want to wait around for various manufacturers to finish customizing each update before they can get it.
Then there's the phone company exclusion deals. Sony dealt with that when they had to make the Vita AT&T exclusive, for example, and phone companies are only a little less likely to see a Nintendo cell phone and NOT demand an exclusivity deal (which would instantly lock out a huge target audience from even being able to consider it).
The last option would be a cell phone entirely designed by Nintendo with it's own OS built from the ground up, but in today's cell phone markets there's basically zero chance anyone would seriously consider such a 5th pillar option. The days when literally every phone ran it's own custom OS are dead now, it's all about making the OS a "platform" and getting every hardware maker to adopt it. There's Apple and Google, the top dogs (Apple is more popular in mind share, but Google's got the whole "every phone maker wants to use it's OS" thing going for it), and trailing way behind there's MS, and technically Amazon's got their own version but no one cares. Nintendo may be Nintendo, but games, even the very best games in the industry, just aren't enough to get anyone to care if it means all their apps aren't going to cross over to a device that is basically what "set top box" proponents have wanted forever, only in your pocket. You'd need to convince people it's worth buying two cell phones simultaneously, like we're all Hillary Clinton or something. Keep in mind that technically the Vita is a "cell phone", but no one actually uses it for that purpose, namely due to needing to turn off the cell phone's main function just to play a game online on the Vita, which in today's society is unacceptable (that, or pay for an extra "line" just for that system, which is just too expensive to consider). Generally, the Vita is connected online on the go the same way the 3DS is, by setting up one's cell phone as a hot spot and using the wifi function on the handheld.
Put shortly, I've given the whole "Nintendo enters the cell phone market" a lot of though, and all these compounded problems with multiple different ways Nintendo could approach that challenge are.... thorny... very thorny... Frankly, I'm not at all surprised Nintendo's avoided it so far. Every direction I look I see it as an impossible situation. Well, unless.... Unless Nintendo decides to do something very un-Nintendo-like and simply go third party when it comes to portable games, working out a major deal with both Apple and Google to officially promote a special well-built "controller addon" as the official recommended controller addon for their main cell phone lines. Even then, that's going to be tough as the market for such controller addons can testify to. It's very hard to make a "one size fits all" solution with the endless variations of cell phones out there (blame that one on Google).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)