Nintendo; "In the long-term, perhaps our focus as a business could shift away from home consoles"

It's a matter of time, home consoles are a dead concept by default.

Nintendo scored high with the mobile crowd and casuals with the wii / ds and should have kept going for them on mobile platforms as service.

It's something they will be chasing for sure next generation.

@KBFloYd: Fail meme. I never stated facts, I said it’s how I ‘think’ about the handheld.

L2meme

@jeezers: As I stated, Nintendo has already proven that they're all about making RNG microtransaction games on the mobile platform, so your thinking is very unrealistic wishful thinking at this point.

Now that's a good joke. Thanks for making me chuckle.

Hmmmm. I mean, the mobile industry seems saturated to me. I don't think there is that much money to be gotten there unless you happen to be in the top 1% and I don't know that there is much rhyme or reason what games make it to that 1%. It certainly isn't ethical standards. The pricing models are all over the place, and when Nintendo tried to do it right they got slapped on the wrist by mobile gamers.

Without Nintendo, console gaming would be a shallow soulless piece of shit market.

If Nintendo stops, then PC only it is.

Oh don't worry Nintendoboy16, we already got Breath of the Wild & Super Mario: Odyssey on PC now! You can get mad to that lol.

@i_p_daily: cup is right. Anyone who can't see N's importance is a fool.

Yeah I agree. Don't underestimate how high percentage of gamers have their first console experience because of Nintendo. If you lose that, it'll be tough(er) to keep console gaming relevant.

So what makes you think Nintendo would limit themselves if they ever went ahead with cross-platform development?

It would make zero sense businesswise for Nintendo to limit it to mobile only, it would make less sense than if they sold their company to Sony or MS.

But the Switch is a console...………...Lulz.

Of course it is a console. What else is it supposed to be?

I am not begging for Nintendo games on PlayStation/Xbox. When it does eventually happen, I still won’t buy them. They make trash games only a niche audience likes.

I don’t like Nintendo’s games. Get that through your heads. Not begging.

I am using logic that says Nintendo would make more money by becoming a 3rd party developer. They waste too much money on hardware everyone hates.

It would be cheaper for them to just make their terrible games available for all platforms.

Make their own Nintendo store app and throw it up on PSN/XBL. Make billions on mobile.

People shouldn’t be forced to pay the Nintendo tax of $300-$400 every gen just to play ports of smash and kart.

interesting comment that could be taken several ways (as are many comments from large companies).

1) they are moving to multiplat development (PC, xbox, PS). they want out of the console hardware space. this is very unlikely to be honest. nintendo have a crap ton of resources involved in the design and development of gaming hardware. pulling out would be very painful and makes no sense. sure they have had some duds. sure successors have more often than not sold less than their predecessor. but by and large nintendos hardware ventures are successful (by which i mean they make money. they pay for themselves and then some). as for releasing their games on PC, xbox and PS: very very unlikely. it would undermine their hardware business badly. it would be nice (as it would be nice for sony and MS to do the same) but its not in their interest to do it.

2) Nintendo are moving to android/ios and pulling out of hardware: again i think this is unlikely though more likely than point 1. the stuff they are putting out on android and ios is not their best work (is it even developed by Nintendo or is the IP outsourced to tencent?). it does make money and its nice to have so i think its something nintendo will keep doing but they also know that mobile phones and tablets are not devices that would let Nintendo do what they want to do....at least not out of the box. its also a market that does not support nintendos usual gaming business model (full priced games on mobile dont sell. its all about those micro transactions) and to just abandon that would be silly when, by and large, it makes them money and is successful.

3) nintendo are looking to make a gaming phone either as a complimentary device to the switch or its successor. this is more likely i think. in mobile there is growth. innovation in the mobile sector has currently stalled basically. the phone as we know it is done. its complete. its a sector that is ripe for having a spanner thrown at its inner workings and one thing nintendo know how to do is throw a spanner in the works. they are also getting very friendly with tencent who have the knowledge on mobile networks and so on. gaming is huge on mobile and is growing faster than any other sector in gaming. nintendo are in a very good position to properly test the waters.

though as with all things nintendo its nearly impossible to guess what they will actually do. for all we know that mad console announced a few days ago is actually nintendos new console and they secretly bought them out. the whole thing is just a deflection tactic.

or maybe it just means they will bring the VC to PC, PS4, X1, android and ios (to help stead the waters) but new games are for switch only.

or maybe (though really unlikely because nintendo hate the internet) they are going full streaming with a focus on streaming to mobile devices. or it could be that they will develop only for android/ios but their games will only work exclusively with a new Nintendo mobile controller.

People shouldnt pay sony tax for bloodborne and god of war either....

@Sevenizz: Your feelings aren't facts. So you're objectively wrong.

I'd love to see them release their older games on Steam.

Because they're stuck. At this rate, Nintendo will be trapped in the same cycle of making minimal profit on their hardware, catering to that same core fanbase they have for over thirty years. Without having the big licensing money they could make off hosting other big third party content. But, no. Nintendo doesn't go for the majors anymore, they became their own niche. They could MTX their current customers to death, but that would turn on them, so, they're looking to mobile again.

Not officially, it isn't.

Bad ports imminent. Enjoy!

Wrong

https://www.mobilegazette.com/nokia-first-touchscreen-08x09x29.htm

@crimson_v: true, nokia had some touch screen phones back in the day which they didn't promote and nobody cared about. Nintendo released the DS back in 2004, almost same time as nokia and sold 20 million units an year. It would have been easy for them to make it a mobile device. They could have made a mobile version easily and it would have given apple a huge headache. Nintendo has always been boxing itself into a very niche gaming market. They could do gangbuster sales if they ever decided to expand outside of the gaming industry and I'm sure other companies are scared of Nintendo actually doing that.

Even now if Nintendo decided to make their next portable a mobile device, I would go out and buy it. On contract. Millions more would probably do the same.

Don't expect Nintendo to ever do it though, they're run by a bunch of 90 year old geezer Japanese farts who are afraid of taking any type of risk.

@osan0: All of those are wrong. He's just saying that they have to be flexible and willing to shift focus if it becomes necessary.

@ajstyles: "They make trash games only a niche audience likes."

Now you're just trolling.

Right, because developers making games like Spiderman, The Witcher 3, Red Dead 2 aren't making giant strides in open world game design.

They aren't.

Spiderman uses formulas we've had since last gen. The Witcher 3 does practically nothing new and is downright bad in multiple respects, it's basic combat is abysmal and it's open world is about as uninspired as a it gets.

Can't comment on Red Dead, but if it's anything like prev Rockstar Games, not much will have changed beyond a very polished experience.

BOTW (Nintendo) is the one that pushed foward. Go figure.

BotW has broken, terrible gameplay. Enjoy slipping on rocks, getting hit by lightning and not making it to somewhere because you didn't eat the right food.

Sounds like a torture sim.

@jcrame10: The way you describe BOTW’s "broken" mechanics actually make it sound awesome.

Oh really?

@Juub1990: maybe if you’re a kid that sounds cool. Someone that has other shit besides video games to focus on isn’t gonna have the patience for that crap

For real, I want them to make another handheld.

Smartphone and tablet gaming is the shittiest shit.

@jcrame10: If you can’t be assed to learn systems and mechanics then you should gravitate more towards casual games with a more simple and streamlined approach. Don’t bitch because a game is too hard.

you're mistaking hard for broken lol

Note the phrase "in the long-term". We're talking at least a decade before Nintendo will seriously consider abandoning the console market.

This is how Super Mario Run is sold, and it's in last place in terms of mobile game revenue for Nintendo, so as much as gamers might find this theorizing attractive, it doesn't appear to translate into real-world success.

If you want Nintendo to do so, why not Sony or Microsoft?

Because nobody really cares about Sony and Microsoft's back catalog.

If its a console its the most underpowered console ever compared to its contemporaries. In fact the Switch is a generation ahead of The One and PS4 and can't run games that the generation of consoles before it run with ease.

Give it up. Its a handheld full stop.

@onesiphorus:

I'd have no problem with them releasing their games on Steam either, however I don't like the idea of buying stuff from Nintendo's online store.

@dzimm: If Nintendo went microtransactions with Mario Run to begin with, it would've been a smash hit. They made a big mistake with the buy model.

If their mobile attempts so far are any indication, abandoning consoles to go full tilt mobile would be a disastrous proposition. But Nintendo being Nintendo, they probably will. At that point, I'll say goodbye to them entirely.

We here often talk about how certain consoles are "under-powered" versus others, with Nintendo often the one with making the under-powered consoles. Do most console gamers (i.e. outside of System Wars or the Internet) even care if the console they buy, rent, or play is under-powered compared with the competition? In all my years of console gaming, I never cared if the system I played is under-powered or not to the competition. I play games, and if the home console is reliable, that what I cared about. I do not care if the Wii is technically-inferior to the PS3 or Xbox 360, and I still do not care if the Switch is technically-inferior to the PS4 and Xbox One.

@onesiphorus: I think some do care about power to a point. They don't care if it's the greatest but some where near the same. Like the switch is great. It's not as powerful as the PS4 but it comes close enough to it (when docked) that I don't care. But the difference between the Wii and PS3/360 was too great.

End of an era if that happens ... And also it could mean the end of home consoles as a whole. Hopefully they will take their sweet years to make this transition.

@kuu2: Actually Wii was more underpowered compared to PS3/360

If these are your examples of making strides in game design then yeah, thanks for the chuckle. These games are good examples of production values and presentation, that's it. All are examples of run of the mill decade+ old game design.

C'mon, geeezerz, they already have abandoned the console market. The Switch is nothing more than a Handheld able to connect to a TV. If it were a real home console as we've always defined; that thing would be bombing in sales worse than Wii U. :P

It's the best move for Nintendo they have had the handheld market for years. It makes perfect sense I don't know many people who use it as a home console.

This is great news. Its about time Nintendo move out of the console space and embrace the joys of multiplatform solutions. This move will be a win for everyone... except fanboys.