EEDAR qualitative analyst Matt Diener has warned that Nintendo shouldn’t feel forced to copy the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One in an effort to encourage third-party publishers.
He believes that the company’s strength comes from their experimentation that often results in “excellent, oddball experiences,” and that rumours swirling that NX will combine their rich handheld and console lineage would be “a fantastic move” for Nintendo and their audience.
“I don’t think the NX needs to compete against the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to be successful,” Diener shared with Examiner. “Nintendo has a history of doing things its own way, and that’s partially what’s allowed it to deliver excellent, oddball experiences like Splatoon and Super Mario Maker completely out of left field. When this experimentation works, as it did so well for the Wii, DS, and 3DS, it has paid dividends for Nintendo – but, unfortunately, when you take big risks, you’re going to have a few missteps along the way.
“For the NX to succeed in the current gaming ecosystem, it needs to focus on delivering a clever, Nintendo-only experience while enticing third-party developers to port major releases onto it. One rumour about the NX contends that it will be a hybrid handheld / console device, and I think that’d be a fantastic move for both Nintendo and players for the amount of freedom it would give.
“The worst-case scenario I could see for the NX is if Nintendo tries to copy the PlayStation 4 [or] Xbox One too closely in an attempt to entice more third party support for the platform. Those eighth generation console gamers without a Wii U are already well established in the Sony and Microsoft camps, and convincing them to leave for an experience that doesn’t offer anything different from what they’re already getting seems like an incredibly hard sell.”
The fact that you bring up the point it needs “ports” shows it will be directly competing with PS4 and Xbox One. This is also the key reason it will be getting such an extreme hardware upgrade compared to Wii and Wii U. You also can’t expect most 3rd party developers, whom are developing for multiple platforms at once on a given title, to make “worthwhile” special features/focus oriented at any oddball gimmicks, regardless of great they may prove, on the Nintendo NX unless, per unlikely exception, the NX proved so overwhelmingly desirable it became THE console of the generation giving ample excuse to give such focus.
I could list a dozen reasons, but the end point is it is absolutely competing with PS4/Xbox One. The Wii U suffered from absurdly lacking 3rd party support because developers simply felt it wasn’t worth the effort and people on their platforms were playing them for other reasons (Zelda, Mario, Smash Brothers, etc.) that were exclusive to their platforms and any 3rd party titles on the Microsoft/Sony platforms.