I'm just going to drop this here for funny purposes:
I'm not saying that this is a negative trend or anything... but this is a negative trend... ;O;
Please add the Gameboy, DS, 3DS to that chart.
Please add the Gameboy, DS, 3DS to that chart.
Handhelds and home consoles are apples and oranges.
Handhelds and home consoles are apples and oranges.
Depends on your perspective.
Especially since the wii U somewhat blurs that line.
Depends on your perspective.
Especially since the wii U somewhat blurs that line.
Not really. The Wii U is a console. I cannot take the Wii U tablet and leave my home and play the same games on the go. Just because I can sit a few feet away playing on a separate screen, doesn't make it a portable device.
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Ah, the vibes of these threads really fills my day with incomparable joy, I should peruse them more often, no really, I should. 
Ah, the vibes of these threads really fills my day with incomparable joy, I should peruse them more often, no really, I should.
I agree, in a world where things are harder and harder to make sense of it is nice to see silly decisions be demonstrated to have been silly decisions by way of their results failing to work.
guy played pikmin 3 in an airport, all he needed was an electrical socket and his gamepad
close enough
Uh huh. How'd that work when he got on the plane? Did he play it on the plane? No? Probably because it's not portable. I could easily take my Xbox 360, and put it in one of those portable TV stations and bring it on the plane and play it for like an hour until it dies. That doesn't make my Xbox Portable though.
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problem?
There have even been similar types of screens as far back as the PS1. Those people playing the Wii U at an airport really aren't doing anything new or revolutionary.
Yeah, I actually owned one of these for my N64 back in 1999 it was just horrible quality and the resolution sucked.
I had the white one that attached to the late gen white PSOne, I believe it was Sony branded. I also have an Intec personal display still attached to my Gamecube and it works with the PS2 as well. The resolution and quality on them are great actually.
Handhelds and home consoles are apples and oranges.
How so? A handheld is still a video game console.
Sure they are different markets....Nintendos brand image does better than Sony's brand image in that hand held arena. But overall its still the video game console business and portability and needing a TV don't change the business side of things.
Since they are still video game consoles that play video games, overall you still need to sell a system in order to make the big profit on the SW. It is the same business where a robust games library adds value to your console and the higher that value the more people will be willing to pay for the cost of the HW. Lower the cost of the HW too when you can to increase your sales. To sell you want a lower cost (how much the console costs) and a higher value (the great games you can play on it) and you better well try and do both if your business is struggling.
I really think the Wii U can benefit from the same strategy as the 3DS. 3DS launched at a high cost that had some profit built in to the sale and launched with a horrid game library. The 3DS strategy started with a massive price cut that made the console sell at a loss but they also released a bunch of great games for it in conjunction and the console recovered nicely from a poor launch.
The problem with the Wii U is the launch price is already causing Nintendo to take a loss. 3DS was the first after the price cut so I guess they felt it was a sound strategy. Unfortunately it's a problem because they can't cut the Wii U's price any further because they will take a bigger loss and they have inventory they need to sell so reduced production costs can't save them either. I think the Wii U games library is currently superior to PS4 or Xbone and they got some big games coming soon. In order to maximize the effect of this games I think they need another artificial price cut (Wii U was always basically $300 and still is). If the gamepad is 1/3 of the consoles cost sell it with out the gamepad for $200 and it will play DK, Mk8, Smash and fix the artificial requirement of it on most games. Selling for $200 with a great game library will help sales even when competing with a more powerful $400 maching that has not games and makes you buy new controllers and everything. Sell this $200 bundle with Mario Kart 8 and then just label games that require a gamepad in order to be played (you can make that list pretty small with minimal effort....make the entire library that supports Off TV play compatible with a pro-controller and TV pretty easily on the OS level I believe)
Not the handheld vs home console thing again. It gets to be tricky, especially as the likes of Android and Vita continue to blur the lines and ports of SNES era games before it change things again, but there is still a clear and useful delineation between the concepts; if nothing else the controls, intended length of a play session, hardware restrictions (especially on Nintendo's comparatively weak gear). Also how does a different market (different customers, different prices to create a product, different sales avenues, different means to make a product.....) not force a different approach to business? There are certainly things you can draw very firm parallels and overlaps with but it is not necessarily the same.
PSBone library being inferior. Absolutely, however, unlike the Wii U, people are still seeing potential in it (they are PCs in all but name, have been out only a few months and have actual things many people are looking forward to) where the Wii U has done little and less with with the more than 12 months (which includes two Christmases) it has had thus far. Said period has also basically seen in snubbed by the biggest makers of games, criticised by devs in terms of the hardware/devving options, criticised by people for generally not playing ball at the MS/Sony level and generally shit upon from every direction, much of which has been justified.
Sell without the screen. It would be an interesting gambit but basically since Sega's follies in the 16 bit era right through to the Kinect and Move last time around it has been demonstrated you really do not want to split your market. This would then force devs to ignore the screen to maximise appeal (kind of necessary when the install base is so small).
As for retrofitting old games, though no doubt it would improve many of them I fear this is one of those occasions where you used the word "just" as that would be a hell of a software engineering project (both technically and from a game design perspective -- even if they screwed it up in most cases the games were still designed to used the pad) for little gain in terms of immediate profit (and loss of productivity by your engineers).
On the 3ds I still hold it is not doing anywhere near DS quality in terms of games (we are now over 3 years in -- http://gbatemp.net/threads/5-years-of-ds-roms-in-5-days-year-3.236882/), that said most of the devs I like have mostly going andrIOS and I did not care for most first party/captive dev offerings.
Bring out your dead.
PSBone library being inferior. Absolutely, however, unlike the Wii U, people are still seeing potential in it (they are PCs in all but name, have been out only a few months and have actual things many people are looking forward to) where the Wii U has done little and less with with the more than 12 months (which includes two Christmases) it has had thus far. Said period has also basically seen in snubbed by the biggest makers of games, criticised by devs in terms of the hardware/devving options, criticised by people for generally not playing ball at the MS/Sony level and generally shit upon from every direction, much of which has been justified.
Sell without the screen. It would be an interesting gambit but basically since Sega's follies in the 16 bit era right through to the Kinect and Move last time around it has been demonstrated you really do not want to split your market. This would then force devs to ignore the screen to maximise appeal (kind of necessary when the install base is so small).
As for retrofitting old games, though no doubt it would improve many of them I fear this is one of those occasions where you used the word "just" as that would be a hell of a software engineering project (both technically and from a game design perspective -- even if they screwed it up in most cases the games were still designed to used the pad) for little gain in terms of immediate profit (and loss of productivity by your engineers).
On the 3ds I still hold it is not doing anywhere near DS quality in terms of games (we are now over 3 years in -- http://gbatemp.net/threads/5-years-of-ds-roms-in-5-days-year-3.236882/), that said most of the devs I like have mostly going andrIOS and I did not care for most first party/captive dev offerings.
Bring out your dead.
I am not so sure. Windwaker HD as a prime example....did it cost much development resources to make the game work with OFF TV play and with a pro-controller and TV in addition to having Gamepad TV features?
I don't really see how or why it would and I think all games should follow this model, at least core games.
Platformers don't really need the gamepad. The Mario Games basically have a boost mode and Rayman has Murphy. Mario boost mode and touch mic elements are not anything to worry about and Rayman was already worked without the GP on other plats.
Nintendoland and Game and Wario sequels I doubt will sell more or less whether or not every Wii U owner was forced to buy a GP.
A core game like Lego City is fine but do you how many times I have cursed the lack of OFF TV play for that game? How much development time would it be to make it work with one screen instead of two. All Wii U games should not be allowed this laziness.....even Zombi U would benefit from some one screen play options. But third party support is pretty much dried up so it's not really an issue anyway. Nintendo can deal with a split user base....they always split their userbase ever since I got the Deluxe Set with ROB instead of the cheaper Action Set or whatever. Motion plus with skyward sword? 3D on only some 3DS? I could go on....balance board maybe....
I think history will show that the mistake was not splitting the user base: Forcing the Gamepad and Kinect to be bought with every console is a bad business move. These things should be optional.
I am not sure I follow. Also when you say core do you mean Nintendo core franchises or some would be antonym to hardcore (see my signature for my issues with that)?
Off play TV is mainly transmission and hardware based. No doubt they would have tested it for latency and scaling issues but, assuming they are solved by the hardware/possible on the hardware, that is not such an issue.
Also adding features to an in progress build, especially at an early stage, is considerably easier than retrofitting something to a system like the Wii U with a less than robust patching system. It sounds like you are not so familiar with software development so I would suggest refraining from assuming things there.
As for optional, I guess we have a difference of opinion. The two cases where such addons have ever really worked from what I can see were the N64 expansion pack (though I might have to qualify it, especially in light of the N64's failure) and PS1 analogue pad, both of which were comparatively cheap and offered a clear improvement. The cases where it has not worked so well consist of about every other one of them, now there might have been extra extenuating circumstances (the SegaCD and 32x did hit as the Saturn was looming/out in Japan). Likewise the jury is probably still out on the original Kinect and balance board, they seem to have made their money back and that is probably what counts but beyond that.... well I guess the Kinect was a hacker favourite.
Off play TV is mainly transmission and hardware based. No doubt they would have tested it for latency and scaling issues but, assuming they are solved by the hardware/possible on the hardware, that is not such an issue.
Also adding features to an in progress build, especially at an early stage, is considerably easier than retrofitting something to a system like the Wii U with a less than robust patching system. It sounds like you are not so familiar with software development so I would suggest refraining from assuming things there.
As for optional, I guess we have a difference of opinion. The two cases where such addons have ever really worked from what I can see were the N64 expansion pack (though I might have to qualify it, especially in light of the N64's failure) and PS1 analogue pad, both of which were comparatively cheap and offered a clear improvement. The cases where it has not worked so well consist of about every other one of them, now there might have been extra extenuating circumstances (the SegaCD and 32x did hit as the Saturn was looming/out in Japan). Likewise the jury is probably still out on the original Kinect and balance board, they seem to have made their money back and that is probably what counts but beyond that.... well I guess the Kinect was a hacker favourite.
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