Games

What Nintendo's next-gen system needs to rival, maybe even surpass, the PS4 and Xbox One

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Can Nintendo kickstart truly next-gen gaming with a system that doubles as both home and portable console?
Capcom's Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was released simultaneously on the Wii U and 3DS, and allowed users to switch between the two versions by transferring data between the systems over WiFi
Given how few people have bought a Wii U, we'd love to see the NX support Wii U games
Can Nintendo kickstart truly next-gen gaming with a system that doubles as both home and portable console?
Rumors strongly suggest that the NX will be some sort of hybrid system, replacing not only the Wii U, but also the 3DS line
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It's been less than three years since the Wii U first arrived on shelves, but Nintendo is already gearing up for a new hardware release. Codenamed NX, the new system is rumored to be launching as soon as Q4 2016, but it's currently shrouded in mystery. What form might the system take – and can it successfully combine both home console and portable gaming into one machine?

One system or two?

Rumors strongly suggest that the NX will be some sort of hybrid system, replacing not only the Wii U, but also the 3DS line. From a developmental point of view, that's a great idea for the company, but would it be practical?

Nintendo's biggest problem this generation is its lack of support from third-party publishers. This is partly due to the underpowered nature of the system compared to the Xbox One and PS4, and partly owed to the company's lackluster approach to online gaming – one of the key pillars of Microsoft and Sony's console businesses.

Either way, Nintendo has been forced to come to terms with the fact that there's only one company consistently making quality, full-length titles on the Wii U. That company's name is Nintendo.

On the other hand, while the Wii U has struggled to 10 million units sold, the company's handheld division is utterly dominant, selling more than 50 million 3DS systems to date. The success of the handheld makes developing for the 3DS over the Wii U a financial no-brainer.

The result? Even fewer quality titles hit the Wii U.

Rumors strongly suggest that the NX will be some sort of hybrid system, replacing not only the Wii U, but also the 3DS line

So the answer is obvious, right? Just combine its home console and handheld arms into one product? Well, maybe.

The biggest issue is horsepower. If the system has to be portable, then cooling, battery life and size constraints will lead to an underpowered (perhaps drastically so) home console – which brings us back to one of the biggest reasons the Wii U has tanked. For that reason, a combined system seems unlikely.

What's more likely is that the NX will be a purebred home console, but with a portable element included, acting as the controller. Like if Sony had made the PS Vita the PlayStation 4's default controller, or if you could take the Wii U Gamepad out of the house and play its own native games on it.

If both components of the system – the core console and the portable controller/system – were somehow running on the same operating system, then it's possible Nintendo could develop for them simultaneously, creating two versions of the same game, allowing the user to move between them as desired. Maybe the home version would kick the graphics up a notch or two, but the core game (on both an experience and code level) would be the same.

Capcom's Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was released simultaneously on the Wii U and 3DS, and allowed users to switch between the two versions by transferring data between the systems over WiFi

We've actually seen this cross-platform approach before on Nintendo's systems. Capcom's Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was released simultaneously on the Wii U and 3DS, and allowed users to switch between the two versions by transferring data between the systems over WiFi. If the architecture of the handheld and console components of the NX were to be similar, then it's conceivable that cross-platform play could become the norm, at least for first party titles.

In this way, the NX could be a truly groundbreaking product.

Stealing focus

There's one more element in play here. While third-party publishers like Ubisoft, EA and Bethesda have largely abandoned the Wii U, the console-maker won't want to maintain that status quo moving forward. The release timing of the NX (assuming it hits its rumored 2016 launch) screams one word: disruption.

Arriving roughly halfway through Microsoft's and Sony's current console cycles, Nintendo will want to steal as much attention away from its two rivals as possible, with the goal of pushing them onto the back-burner for the next couple of years. Make a console that's so forward-thinking that gamers start to see the Xbox One and PS4 as relics from another era.

Given the company's recent focus on unusual hardware (motion controls with the Wii and tablet controller with the Wii U) rather than raw power, it seems unlikely that the NX will outstrip the PS4 or Xbox One in terms of processing grunt (or at least not significantly), but as long as it's in the same ballpark, paired with an innovative groundwork, then Nintendo could start luring third-party developers back to its pastures.

Backwards compatibility

Given how few people have bought a Wii U, we'd love to see the NX support Wii U games

The positive reception to Microsoft's E3 announcement that you'll soon be able to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One shouldn't be surprising. Go figure: users want to be able to play their old games on a new system – something both Sony and Microsoft dismissed all too casually when their systems launched in late 2013.

The Wii U, however, got an A in this class, with full backwards compatibility for Wii games. Given how few people have bought a Wii U, we'd love to see the NX support Wii U, 3DS (and perhaps even original Wii and DS) games. If the new console proved popular, it could introduce titles like Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World to people who would have otherwise missed these brilliant games.

It also couldn't hurt for Nintendo to drop the "Wii" branding with the new system. The Wii U moniker was a disaster, leading many consumers to think that the console was simply an add-on for the original Wii, or a slightly new version of that system (like the DS Lite, DSi or new 3DS), rather than an all new home console. A fresh brand will announce to buyers that Nintendo has something new and exciting, with no room for confusion.

These are all just theories, but it would make a lot of sense for Nintendo to bring the two arms of its hardware operation closer together. If the system combined raw power with a unique portable/home nature, that could perhaps be the magic formula to disrupt Sony's and Microsoft's systems and put Nintendo back on the home console map.

Would such a system create too many compromises on both sides of the fence? Is Nintendo up to the technical challenge of making such a hybrid platform? Well, the company has promised to tell us about the NX next year, so we won't have to wait too long to find out exactly what it's been cooking up. E3 2016 could be very interesting.

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3 comments
MaxPrime
Nintendo do not want to compete with them, a simple google search will identify this. Making this article, pointless. Nintendo do their own thing and that's why we love them
ParallaxScroll
The late Mr. Iwata stated that Nintendo does NOT plan to make only one new gaming system. Whatever NX is, it is not going to be some kind of hybrid console-handheld system.
(2013)
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html
"As you might already know from some newspaper reports, we will reorganize our development divisions next month for the first time in nine years. Two divisions which have independently developed handheld devices and home consoles will be united to form the Integrated Research & Development Division, which will be headed by Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director."
"Last year we also started a project to integrate the architecture for our future platforms. What we mean by integrating platforms is not integrating handhelds devices and home consoles to make only one machine. What we are aiming at is to integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform. They will also work to avoid software lineup shortages or software development delays which tend to happen just after the launch of new hardware."
(2014)
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/140130qa/02.html
"Last year Nintendo reorganized its R&D divisions and integrated the handheld device and home console development teams into one division under Mr. Takeda. Previously, our handheld video game devices and home video game consoles had to be developed separately as the technological requirements of each system, whether it was battery-powered or connected to a power supply, differed greatly, leading to completely different architectures and, hence, divergent methods of software development. However, because of vast technological advances, it became possible to achieve a fair degree of architectural integration. We discussed this point, and we ultimately concluded that it was the right time to integrate the two teams.
For example, currently it requires a huge amount of effort to port Wii software to Nintendo 3DS because not only their resolutions but also the methods of software development are entirely different. The same thing happens when we try to port Nintendo 3DS software to Wii U. If the transition of software from platform to platform can be made simpler, this will help solve the problem of game shortages in the launch periods of new platforms. Also, as technological advances took place at such a dramatic rate, and we were forced to choose the best technologies for video games under cost restrictions, each time we developed a new platform, we always ended up developing a system that was completely different from its predecessor. The only exception was when we went from Nintendo GameCube to Wii. Though the controller changed completely, the actual computer and graphics chips were developed very smoothly as they were very similar to those of Nintendo GameCube, but all the other systems required ground-up effort. However, I think that we no longer need this kind of effort under the current circumstances. In this perspective, while we are only going to be able to start this with the next system, it will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture. It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately. When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brothers in a family of systems." _____
Finally, this image says it all: http://i.imgur.com/O9kf37Y.png
Matt Sanders
Consumers don't want to upgrade consoles every 3 years or so. If Nintendo does release NX in 2016 it will need to have backwards compatibility and be much more powerful than Xbox One or PS4. It's too late in the game for them to release something with similar specs. Consider that it takes 2 - 3 years in a consoles life cycle to start seeing games make full use of the power and be truly AAA quality. Now if the NX releases in 2016 it won't have the great games until at least 2018. At that point Sony and Microsoft may very well be getting ready to release new more powerful systems. Also, I think the tablet / portable idea may be a misstep. Keep in mind that you can now stream games from Xbox One to any Windows 10 device. Its supposed to be local network only, but if you know how to set up some basic PAT rules, it works great over the internet. I just hate the idea of dealing with a limited port on a portable device or having it be a requirement of the system. I have a WiiU and never use the tablet unless the game forces me to. I much prefer the pro controller. I also always found Nintendo portables to feel cramped and awkward to use.