27th July 2016, 1:25 PM
Honestly it sounds like a great idea. Why bother with two pillars when one will do the job? The 3DS is Nintendo's actual money maker, it makes sense to simply treat all their games as portable games, with the added bonus of being able to hook that portable up to a TV. It should be more powerful than the Wii U, but it isn't going to dethrone the PS4 or XBone any time soon (that's just physics, it has to run small, low power, and low heat). To me, it sounds like a solid plan. Now, it won't be running any Wii/Wii U/Gamecube games, but since it's running on ARM, it can run all DS and 3DS software easily enough (technically GBA software too, but I expect the cartridge slot to be DS/3DS style with no GBA port, so that rules that out). That'll mean as a portable, it'll maintain Nintendo's tradition of backwards compatibility just fine. The removable controllers basically mean when connected to a TV, you've got a built in wii remote with a better button layout, so that's good.
Frankly, I don't see any downsides here. Nintendo is bowing out of directly competing with Sony and MS and have gone full-on with the one market they've always dominated, portable gaming. Combined with their tentative first steps into cell phone games (to great success, partly due to how terrible the vast majority of cell phone games are), they've got a clear path. Meanwhile, Sony and MS have opted to just turn consoles into PCs with none of the advantages of PCs. I'm not really sure how that's going to turn out.
There's third party concerns, but Nintendo has maintained solid third party support on their portable line, so I'm expecting that to continue on the NX. Frankly, this seems like a pretty smart decision, even if it means the days when Nintendo could compete graphically with competing systems are long behind us. The Gamecube seems to be the last time Nintendo is going to play that game.
Some are suggesting Nintendo should use Android as the OS. I don't think that's a good idea. The Android OS, in terms of raw performance, isn't so hot. It is designed to run a lot of software and allow it to be portable, and also allow lots of little apps to run in the background for push notifications. I've seen a game dedicated system that ran on Android. I bought and Ouya, and that's the one console I actually regret buying. I own a Virtual Boy, and I regret the Ouya more. That system ran very slow, slow even by the standards of the hardware it had, and it all comes down to their custom built version of Android. It would be better for Nintendo to stay the course and just keep on making their own OS as they've done. Android is fine as a general purpose OS, but not so hot as a gaming one.
I do like their inclusion of a docking station. If it was like the PSP, they'd just sell a cable that lets you hook it up to a TV and call it a day, but they've made it a lot more convenient. I'm thinking they really need to put an ethernet port on that docking station, along with the obligatory USB ports (hopefully at least 3.0 this time). I wonder how well using the NX as a second screen, ala the Wii U, will work. As it stands though, I think as a gamer, I stand to save a LOT of money going forward. Not only will I now be buying only one console from Nintendo (and no longer needing to buy two versions of Smash and Mario Kart like this gen), but I also won't be needing to buy any more XBox consoles, what with MS going for making XBox games "universal" Windows apps (I really hope they eventually let me use my physical XBox One games on my PC too). Also, Sony is bowing out of the portable games market entirely after their Vita fiasco (which is a shame, because the Vita is danged near perfect, hardware-wise). So, I'll be buying a Nintendo handheld, a Sony game system, and updating my PC every now and then (which after my recent upgrade, I shouldn't need to do for a good long while). It's a good time to be a gamer.
Frankly, I don't see any downsides here. Nintendo is bowing out of directly competing with Sony and MS and have gone full-on with the one market they've always dominated, portable gaming. Combined with their tentative first steps into cell phone games (to great success, partly due to how terrible the vast majority of cell phone games are), they've got a clear path. Meanwhile, Sony and MS have opted to just turn consoles into PCs with none of the advantages of PCs. I'm not really sure how that's going to turn out.
There's third party concerns, but Nintendo has maintained solid third party support on their portable line, so I'm expecting that to continue on the NX. Frankly, this seems like a pretty smart decision, even if it means the days when Nintendo could compete graphically with competing systems are long behind us. The Gamecube seems to be the last time Nintendo is going to play that game.
Some are suggesting Nintendo should use Android as the OS. I don't think that's a good idea. The Android OS, in terms of raw performance, isn't so hot. It is designed to run a lot of software and allow it to be portable, and also allow lots of little apps to run in the background for push notifications. I've seen a game dedicated system that ran on Android. I bought and Ouya, and that's the one console I actually regret buying. I own a Virtual Boy, and I regret the Ouya more. That system ran very slow, slow even by the standards of the hardware it had, and it all comes down to their custom built version of Android. It would be better for Nintendo to stay the course and just keep on making their own OS as they've done. Android is fine as a general purpose OS, but not so hot as a gaming one.
I do like their inclusion of a docking station. If it was like the PSP, they'd just sell a cable that lets you hook it up to a TV and call it a day, but they've made it a lot more convenient. I'm thinking they really need to put an ethernet port on that docking station, along with the obligatory USB ports (hopefully at least 3.0 this time). I wonder how well using the NX as a second screen, ala the Wii U, will work. As it stands though, I think as a gamer, I stand to save a LOT of money going forward. Not only will I now be buying only one console from Nintendo (and no longer needing to buy two versions of Smash and Mario Kart like this gen), but I also won't be needing to buy any more XBox consoles, what with MS going for making XBox games "universal" Windows apps (I really hope they eventually let me use my physical XBox One games on my PC too). Also, Sony is bowing out of the portable games market entirely after their Vita fiasco (which is a shame, because the Vita is danged near perfect, hardware-wise). So, I'll be buying a Nintendo handheld, a Sony game system, and updating my PC every now and then (which after my recent upgrade, I shouldn't need to do for a good long while). It's a good time to be a gamer.
"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)