re: Fils-Aime: an artist at saying a lot without saying anything

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but that puts the nail in the proverbial coffin about Nintendo every making a current-gen console. The only thing that people could hope for in terms of 3rd parties is that Nintendo can woo developers to make ports, finally, that run on both. That might be the saving grace of the system, but I'm not sure that can happen.

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That ship sailed a long time ago. I truly doubt Nintendo's next home console will match the PS4 in terms of computational power. If it did, it would mean Nintendo would likely be selling the system at over $300, which won't happen, as Nintendo has stated they don't want to be competing directly with Sony and Microsoft. A $300+ console would put them in that territory.

These slides from Nintendo's recent investor's meeting reveal quite a bit about their intentions:







If anything, Nintendo is on the verge of transforming the entire console paradigm, as I'm sure Sony and Microsoft will quickly follow in Nintendo's footsteps. As these slides indicate, Nintendo has realized that they can no longer support two separate platforms with diverged user bases. With every successive hardware release, they've had to wipe the slate clean and start over - in terms of users owning the system, available games, etc.

Now, it seems Nintendo is emphasizing the development of a software ecosystem that will support all of their future devices. With each hardware variant running the same OS, accessing the same programming libraries, and sporting a similar hardware architecture, each system can access the same pool of games. Thus, all future Nintendo systems will have access to the same massive pool of games, similar to Steam and iOS/Android. Nintendo will no longer have to worry about rebuilding new relationships with consumers via hardware - instead, users can download, buy, and maintain their game libraries via their NNID, and can play them on their console of choice.

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It's a nice goal but they have to do it right.

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I agree, and I think Smash 4 is a prime example that Nintendo can get this right. No one would dispute the fact that Smash 4 on the Wii U is the definitive version, yet at the same time, the handheld version doesn't feel like a half-baked, poorly conceived afterthought of the Wii U version - it feels like its own distinctly robust game, ideally suited for a handheld.

I think this is the goal going forward for Nintendo.