I don't think it's their hardware, but their platform that they've been clinging to. Owning the platform gives gives them a lot of control over the gameplay experience.
I don't think they need to give up their platform-owner (or first party in game industry parlance) status in order to take advantage of the mobile space. Just an adjustment in strategy.
Nintendo has always relied on ancillary hardware to make their console platform work - TVs. If you think of Apple and Samsung as the screen makers the same way that Zenith and RCA were the screen makers when the NES launched, then you can see that what Nintendo really needs to do is launch their own platform app.
How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100? All of the games could come via in-app purchases and loaded or streamed from the cloud at the user's convenience. Meanwhile, Nintendo still gets their platform, but this time as a virtual console instead of a hardware one.
> How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100?
I doubt most users would pay anything at all. It's essentially just an app-store in an app-store. How much would you pay to download Steam?
But keeping all their content inside a Nintendo NX app would be a great idea. When I went to download Pokemon GO, I wasn't sure which was the correct app, there were tons with similar names, and the top one was by "Niantic", when I was expecting to see Nintendo. You're never really sure these days if an app will be good, or sometimes even if you're downloading the right one. But people trust the closed Nintendo ecosystem, or at least I do, I feel I could pick any game at random in one of their major IP's, and it would be at least an 8/10.
>oh and playing Zelda, Mario, hell even a real pokemon game, on a touchscreen sounds awful
I completely agree with this. But it's easily solvable - just make a controller. You buy the app on the platform, play a limited selection of games with the touch screen, and when you're ready to upgrade, you go buy a controller at your preferred retailer.
I don't think they need to give up their platform-owner (or first party in game industry parlance) status in order to take advantage of the mobile space. Just an adjustment in strategy.
Nintendo has always relied on ancillary hardware to make their console platform work - TVs. If you think of Apple and Samsung as the screen makers the same way that Zenith and RCA were the screen makers when the NES launched, then you can see that what Nintendo really needs to do is launch their own platform app.
How much would a gamer pay for the Nintendo NX app? $50? $100? All of the games could come via in-app purchases and loaded or streamed from the cloud at the user's convenience. Meanwhile, Nintendo still gets their platform, but this time as a virtual console instead of a hardware one.