What I Want from Nintendo's NX

There is plenty of speculation about Nintendo's next home console but perhaps less excitement than there needs to be if it is to take a substantial part of the market.  With the Wii U being neither old nor successful, and with Xbox One and PS4 both still being quite new and seeming like good performers technically, gamers might be wondering what Nintendo can offer.  The Wii U had plenty of charming, good quality Nintendo-published content but that did not help it's sales.

So here is a run-down of some of the important things Nintendo has to do with the hardware to make it outsell Xbox One (not impossible) and take a decent chunk of the home console marked.

Power

The hardware has to match the PS4 for power in order that 3rd party developers have no doubts about the consoles ability to run their games.  It might also instill confidence in consumers that there will be a decent range of games available for the machine, not just excellent but numerically limited Nintendo releases.

Price

The console will have to hit the shelves at no more than £250.  Dedicated gamers have had a lot of gear to pay for recently and might resent being asked to fork out again.  Especially by a developer which is releasing another home console so quickly and is so fond of keeping the prices of its own games so high.  If sales were slow to start with this would dent the confidence of both developers and slower up-take consumers.

Backwards Compatibility

Wii U games will have to work and work well on the NX.  This might well mean patching some to work not only with new hardware but with a new controller.  This brings me on to my next point...

Controller

In order to keep costs down for themselves and life simple for developers Nintendo have to release the NX with a relatively standard gaming controller perhaps like the Wii U pro controller.  They have to face the facts that the days of the Wii are over and release a gaming machine which is 

 

What's wrong with this?

designed with gamers in mind.  Therefore reverting to the Wii controller would be a mistake.  Including two controllers in the basic package would be too awkward financially.

Even if they do all this I still think Nintendo will have to incentivise publishers to release their games on the NX, at least at first.  This and the high powered console at a reasonable price will mean that Nintendo can expect the machine to be loss making to start with, just not as loss making as releasing another flop.

Well that's what I think.  Please feel free to leave your comments below and don't forget to follow this blog using the link in the right hand column and visit my YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/petracogaming

More next Tuesday...