Hints of Nintendo's next console revealed - 2016 release?

[Julius Seeker]

From NeoGAF:

Devinder Kumar, the CFO of AMD, has announced that the company is working on a chip for a video game console that’s due to be released in 2016. With the Wii U performing below expectation it could well be Nintendo that’s planning to bring out a new games console in 2016, but that does seem a little too soon. Maybe it’s for their Quality of Life platform they’re busy developing?

"The design wins are interesting because the funding, the R&D dollars for customizing the parts for the products to our customers is precisely pre-funded by the customer and like I said the workload is started and we are spending the money and the resources and the work to go ahead and design the parts to be introduced sometime in 2016."

"We didn’t say at which space it is in. I’m not going to give too much detail. I’ll say that one is x86 and one is ARM, and atleast one will be on gaming, right. But that’s about as much as you going to get out me today, because the customers from the standpoint to be fair to them. It is their product. They launch it. They announce it and then just like the game console or the parts you find out that its AMD’s APU that’s been used in those products."


--- My Comments ---
My guess is that this has nothing to do with a standalone QOL device, although it wouldn't surprise me if they were both integrated into the system - Nintendo's QOL will be a networked system of primarily non-wearable devices that use sensors to track various metrics, including breathing patterns and movement during sleep, in order to track the quality of life.

If this is Nintendo's, it could be the cpu components for the the Fusion Terminal and Fusion DS thing that "leaked" a year ago; it may have been a fan concept, still a very good idea that is in line with all comments made by Nintendo about their plans for future platforms - including a unified handheld/home console platform. What I am hoping is a release of the upcoming Zelda that will work on whatever their next handheld will be. Although, I think a treatment similar to Twilight Prinvess would be ideal, where the upcoming platforms get the initial launch of the next Zelda.

[Replay]

I am uninterested in Nintendo's consoles until they make it very clear that they're going to make some AAA titles for the old hardcore crowd again. There's nothing like the old AAA Nintendo games...literally. Because Nintendo has been chasing the casual dollar for years now. Fine and good, but I'm not in gaming to swing a Wiimote and look at Miis with bland graphics. I want to see the medium advanced.

[Eric]

Wouldn't surprise me, but is there anything to get excited about? I doubt Nintendo would ever try to have the most powerful system on the market again after the Gamecube0>Wii, so at this point it just means more Nintendo games, better graphics, but again requires new Nintendo Hardware. =/

[Julius Seeker]

Nintendo has only released two casual games this generation, Nintendogs and Cats, which was a 3DS launch title - and then earlier this year they released Tomodachi Life, which I feel is one of the freshest feeling game experiences of the entire generation so far, it is a fantastic game. Everything else they have released is designed for the traditional binge playing style.


On Gamecube:
There are several factors that contributed to the Gamecube failure.

1. Poor software library - During the N64 era, Nintendo put a lot of focus and emphasis on a few core second party developers to develop exclusive content. They called these second parties the "Dream Team" - and it included Rare, DMA, Factor 5, Paradigm (THQ), Midway, and Iguana (Acclaim). Rather than taking those talented developers and building the potential, Nintendo cut them loose 1 by 1 during the N64 era to the early Gamecube era - all that potential that they should have been building up more effectively went to waste.

By the end of the N64 era only Factor 5 and Rare remained, and Rare would soon be gone. This meant a Gamecube lacked much in the way of compelling exclusive content. Nintendo also seems to have treated this generation more as a "preparation for the Wii" generation, as they failed to release much in the way of compelling first party software when compared to either the Wii or N64 generations. Acclaim broke apart, and the talent that left created Retro Studios which would soon be purchased by Nintendo; but despite all the praise, Retro has not really proved to be able to produce much in the way of commercially appealing software, only having two real successes in their history with Donkey Kong Country Returns and Metroid Prime - both of which owe their success primarily to the franchise they were made in. Oh, and DMA rebranded as Rockstar North went on to develop and release GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas - which sold over 50 million copies combined on Playstation 2.

2. Lack of innovation - Gamecube was Nintendo's laziest console. There was nothing really innovative about it - it was a box that was similar to a Playstation. Looking back on it, the controller was very noisy too, I don't like it at all.; Eric, you were right on this one 13 years ago when you were wondering "How the hell am I going to play fighters on this thing?" - the controller was bad... but it still has its fans, just not me =)

3. Poor marketing and image, because it looked like this:

And had commercials like this:


yes, I am fully willing to admit that Nintendo's N64 and Gamecube era were the result of very very poor decision making =D

Wii and DS were very fresh on the otherhand, they used state of the art interfaces with their touchscreens and motion controls, and their OS's were very smooth and intuitive to use. The design of the DS Lite and Wii were also incredibly sleek.

Come 3DS and Wii U.

3DS uses the exact same interface as the DS released in 2004 - well they did add an analog stick, but who really cares? It's not state of the art. Where the improvement should have come is on the touch screen, it should have parity with the iPhone.
It has a 3D display, but never actually leveraged it by releasing 3D movies on it. The new3DS coming out this year gives a wide 3D range (you can move it around and not lose the 3D effect), whereas the original 3DS was very narrow - you have to look almost directly onto it; it has the feeling of being flawed as a result.

Wii U - No new motion controllers. The Wii was built up as a multiplayer party-machine. Then Nintendo takes a 180 and decides their next console is for YOU. Only one gamepad was released, and no more than 1 can be used at any given time. There should have been the option to use 4 of them. The Gamepad is also too large, and does not have the sleek design of a DS Lite or Wiimote - it's just not sexy in other words. I think the Wii U is a great idea, but the technology was obviously not ready yet. In addition, since they were using a controller/tablet, there was a lot more they could have done - such as have an actual handheld that could act as a controller for the console.


When it comes to the Casual Games genre; games like Clash of Clans are making massive amounts of money. Tomodachi Life sold 3.2 million units - so it's not like there isn't a market for Nintendo to pursue. I think casual gaming is the market Nintendo needs to pursue more than anything else due to the very high demand; and the continuous market growth - especially when more traditional binge gaming markets are shrinking. People want games they only have to dedicate a few minutes to at a time, and they also want games that they'll be playing over long periods of time (months, years): Nintendo pioneered the casual games genre with Brain Age, and I still maintain to this day that it was a brilliant direction; but rather than advancing and continuing to pursue the genre, they just dropped the ball to focus more on traditional experiences.


Lastly, I would love to see Nintendo invest more heavily into hardware development and drop the whole 5-6 year per release paradigm. I would love to see them iterate on their hardware every 2 years. They did that with the DS last generation to relatively high success: GBA > GBA SP > DS > DS Lite > DSi > DSi XL - but I would prefer to see something more on the level of what Smart Device manufacturers do, and release something substantially new each time, instead of just marginally new. If Nintendo dropped a Wii HD in 2009 or early 2010, and then a Wii HD+ in 2012 instead of the Wii U, they would probably be doing a lot better now.

The Wii U concept of having a screen on the controller, would have been better with more advanced tech:
1. Allow usage of handhelds as controllers.
2. Unified platform between handhelds and home consoles.
3. Unified software library, i.e. Play a high end version of the game using the hardware of the console, or a low end version using the handheld if you decide to step away.
4. Update hardware every 2-3 years, rather than every 5-6 - and rather than supporting just one generation at a time, make software that supports multi-generational levels of hardware - this would also work well with unified software libraries between handheld and home consoles; as lower end software wouldn't just be exclusive to older generation consoles, but also for the handheld.

[Eric]

How do you target the casual market when the casual market is so fickle and there are cheaper alternatives out there that don't involve Nintendo Hardware.

[Zeus]

If any of you don't think Nintendo makes "hardcore" games, go and beat the crown levels in Mario 3D World. I doubt 75% of you would even be able to beat them all, they're as hardcore as it gets right now

[Julius Seeker]

How do you target the casual market when the casual market is so fickle and there are cheaper alternatives out there that don't involve Nintendo Hardware.

That's a problem for their marketing and hardware design.

The Wii launched with very compelling software including a much in demand Zelda, with a new highly anticipated 3D Mario game in the near future; but more importantly with the brand new gameplay experience that everyone wanted to try out - and one that proved popular in Wii Sports.

Wii U didn't have any of those factors going for it at launch. I am guessing Nintendo recognized the issue before the Wii U even launched and likely predicted the potential problem, otherwise they need new product managers.

If Nintendo can create fresh and compelling experiences which can easily generate anticipation to drive the launch of their next platform, then people will change their minds very quickly. If the new platform launches with a groundbreaking Mario Galaxy 3, then that will compound the excitement. If they tie-in the Quality of Life platform, and it pans out, then Nintendo will get a lot of positive mainstream press. That's what I think they should do at least.

If I could make a few predictions: first, Nintendo's biggest changes will come on the handheld side, a unified platform is almost guaranteed. I would also predict that Nintendo will have some new avenues into accessing that platform, maybe through mobile and PC client applications, maybe Nintendo will team with Sharp and make their own phone; they have already experimented with the Miiverse.

[Eric]

If any of you don't think Nintendo makes "hardcore" games, go and beat the crown levels in Mario 3D World. I doubt 75% of you would even be able to beat them all, they're as hardcore as it gets right now

They're dealing with the opposite problem atm, like the Wii U has some great core games, its easily one of my favorite Nintendo consoles off of its library so far heh, but that's not the market that made the Wii sell 100 million. That market was all like "ohh, shiney new technology," because of the Wii's motion controller and its casually friendly game line-up. Of course that same audience jumped ship for tablet and mobile gaming, and Nintendo doesn't really have a way to get it back. The biggest problem is the price of admission, you buy Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo products, and nothing else, while everything else has a multifunction.

[Zeus]

Yeah, it's a different market, but the way "hardcore" is used is a misnomer. Since the GC days, Nintendo has made, on average, the most challenging "games" out there. We've seen all games become walkthroughs in order to appeal to a mass audience, even moreso on the PS3/360 generation. When I used to count on Veteran mode in Call of Duty to kick my ass and force me to fight through it and figure out how to beat it (#2 in particular was insane, as were parts of #4) - you know, to "play" the game - the vast majority of games (and nearly all "AAA" titles) are quite literally automatic now. The last 3 CoDs on Veteran I never even got stuck for more than 20 minutes anywhere (and that was because of bad checkpoints where I ran way too far ahead) and I distinctly remember playing Assassin's Creed 3 for nearly and hour by just pushing forward and holding X while navigating my way through the landscape, which including climbing and hoping through the trees, rocks, etc. I wasn't doing anything, I wasn't really playing. Wasn't much different with Uncharted (I played and beat all three) aside from the insane bullet sponges those guys were. I enjoyed them, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't because of the gameplay.

We aren't playing games anymore, we're just going through them almost automatically....aside from Nintendo's games. They make you work to beat the level, challenge you with very difficult main and side things to do, force you to fail (often) and retry new things...you know, the "hardcore" stuff. You just have a generation who looks at the cutesy exterior and discounts them solely based on that. It's like we've evolved from graphics bashing of the PS1/Saturn/N64 days to simple ignorance on what's out there aside from the hyped stuff on websites or TV shows (you know how many people don't even know games like Shovel Knight exist? Probably 85%+ of people who own systems).

Just because you don't care to know don't mean it ain't out there. And no one is consistently making you actually play their games more than Nintendo. Do I wish for a Metroid game with a storyline and production values like Uncharted or MGS? Fucking right I do. But those elements don't make a "game" (we won't talk about Other M right now...).