I have enough devices and given how disappointed I have been in how they are taking the "big" franchises anyway, for the first time I just don't feel like I need to be in line right away.
The Switch is the answer to this problem though.
The two problems are the time and costs it takes to develop a title. The disease that has been plaguing the gaming industry is that the reach of developers has always exceeded their grasp. Games are still made under the "box art" mentality, that's been around since the Atari 2600 days, that means graphics take priority over all and if it doesn't look pretty in a still photo - it's hard to sell to consumers. Granted, that issue is even worse these days because of the ease of access to videos of games in motion; but, the case is still as always - graphics sell.
While this was always a problem in the raster graphics days when the tech was always expanding to push more sprites and colors around the screen at increased resolution, the move in the 90's to 3D polygonal based graphics started the industry down a dangerous path. Technology is increasing a faster rate than the art of game development can keep up.
Developers still haven't gotten ahead of the curve for developing games at 1080 and now the consumer bar is being pushed even further out to 4k resolutions. The time and costs to develop in the HD era was already causing the "middle ground" of development to be lost. Games are increasingly smaller in size, length, and complexity or vastly over budget and delayed. This has lead to the proliferation of small "indie" titles that can take risks and "big budget tentpole" games. *Does this sound similar to Hollywood to anyone?
Nintendo recognized the path the industry was on when they went blue ocean with the Wii and with the Switch, they are finally going to be completely in smooth sailing waters of their own control.
For the first time since the NES, all of Nintendo's development resources are focused on the same platform. While they may want to dodge the questions about if the 3DS is end of life (it is), the fact remains that from this point forward - Nintendo will be working on a unified platform. It isn't just for this generation either. The Switch is a complete switch of methodology going forward because of the architecture employed. They've switched over to using a SoC (system on a chip) platform that means all of their games hook into "software" running on the hardware. From this point forward, Nintendo platforms will simply be "more" processing via a different SoC. I know that many, many "ports" are being made right now of the various Nintendo hardware lines, so there should be a very healthy virtual console forthcoming. The fact that the Switch isn't attempting to push the envelope from a graphics technology perspective will significantly speed up development.
So, the future is bright for the big N.
Nintendo systems have always been fundamentally about playing Nintendo games. 3rd party support is great; but, a steady stream of internal content is just what the doctor ordered. They should be able to keep the console deep in titles on their own. Just the thought of all of EAD working on a single platform brings back the halcyon days of the NES. It won't just be about the old favorites returning - they can now take more risks as well in developing new titles.
Should be fun and that's more than enough for me.
and make us laugh at their antics.
