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With Sony building a PC presence do you think it's a matter of time until Nintendo switches?

ButchCat

Member
Nintendo's philosophy at the moment is different than Sony's in that they rely on a integrated hardware software business model. Also unlike Sony they rely heavily on their first party output with the former responsible for two thirds of their Switch revenue. The Switch isn't a exactly a powerhouse and is designed that way for a number of reasons this however goes against how many PC gamers might think their gaming experience should go. Also it's worth noting that a number of Nintendo games are couch coop based something that would not fit the PC gaming experience.

It's no secret that Nintendo too has been following the "remaster" trend and has an extensive list of first party remasters and has been rewarded for it.

With the Valve's Steam Deck clearly setting itself up as a competitor and assuming it has a high adopt rate do you think this is a good opportunity to enter the PC market? Is Nintendo's business sustainable considering the gaming industries future outlook without slowly introducing a "game pass"?
 

Ellery

Member
I would hope so or at least have Nintendo release a more powerful console so games have a decent resolution and framerate. I am not even asking them to make games that look as good as TLOU2, Demon's Souls, God of War, RDR2 or Metro Exodus RTX Edition, but some proper docked Switch to at least make your 4K HDR TV feel like it is in good company.
 
Not until the Switch starts to see competition and flagging sales.

Nintendo is reveling in the profits for now, but if they introduce a platform that is another Wii U, they will feel the pain.
 
With the tech Nintendo have available it will take too much effort to port it to a proper hardware. Perhaps in another 20 years they reach todays tech.
 

Quezacolt

Member
Nintendo not only makes money with the hardware but also the softwere, and compared to the other 2, it's a company that is focused 99% in games. they dont have other areas to focus on, so it makes no sense for them to create competition for their own hardware.
Besides, they already have another tactic to get people to play their games, the mobile games, also called the Lite version of their Ip's
 

Rudius

Member
They should. You can already play all of their games on PC with better quality than the Switch, and you don't even need a powerful machine. Might as well sell to PC gamers and make some more money.
 

Jaybe

Member
Aren’t Nintendo in first place doing what they are doing? Even Gabe said he envied Nintendo’s software-hardware integration and aimed to emulate it. See the Index and now Steam Deck. Nintendo literally just slapped an OLED screen on their device and are charging $50 more a unit. If Switch 2 is backwards compatible, the install base for the Switch family may be the highest of any platform in history. They won’t confuse the message or undercut their ecosystem with releasing to PC. If anything, they may invest in cloud streaming and sell games through playable on most devices vs PC native ports.
 

kingfey

Banned
spiderman GIF

Yeah, lets ask a yakuza company to release their games on pc.
 

Kerotan

Member
I mean sony are rolling the profits in and are just rolling a little more with late ass pc ports and a few mobile hits.

Nintendo are doing the mobile but probably don't want to try pc because their sales are basically 90% a result of their first party output so could damage hardware sales by doing pc.

MS were different because their games weren't selling much on xbox anyway and hardware sales were severely lagging.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Nintendo will never port their games to PC, and I doubt they will ever release another backwards compatible console.

I think we can look at Nintendo's journey collectively from the GameCube, through the family of DS consoles, the highs and lows of the Wii and Wii U, their finding partners for mobile to create titles that do not compete with their main library, and finally to the Switch, and see that they have learned through trial and error what their sweet spot is: one family of console at a time, no more backwards compatibility going forward, and keeping their past libraries locked to an online service.

They can fabricate mildly different versions of the same console, keep selling them at premium prices, and when they're ready to move on they'll force their customers to have to dip into their new hardware and its own exclusive library.

As far as business goes I think they'd be foolish to deviate from what they're doing now.
 

Wunray

Member
I would love that but Nintendo moves at a really slow pace so I'd guess about at least 4 console generations from now they would start to do that.
 
Nintendo's philosophy at the moment is different than Sony's in that they rely on a integrated hardware software business model. Also unlike Sony they rely heavily on their first party output with the former responsible for two thirds of their Switch revenue.
OP this guy did an excellent job of answering your question.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Nintendo are dinosaurs. But their console is selling like hotcakes: they have grabbed by the balls a customer base that has no standards whatsoever. If they release "Wario Ware: shove it up yo' ass" at 60 USD its going to sell millons anyway.

Also Nintendo has a lot more to lose by going to PC vs Sony. They have no modern online, no BC whatsoever, bad HW and the list goes on. That being said I think, they are leaving money on the table by not releasing games on PC, those games will eventually be emulated. Hell, we can play some games at better settings before they are released.
 

truth411

Member
Nintendo's philosophy at the moment is different than Sony's in that they rely on a integrated hardware software business model. Also unlike Sony they rely heavily on their first party output with the former responsible for two thirds of their Switch revenue. The Switch isn't a exactly a powerhouse and is designed that way for a number of reasons this however goes against how many PC gamers might think their gaming experience should go. Also it's worth noting that a number of Nintendo games are couch coop based something that would not fit the PC gaming experience.

It's no secret that Nintendo too has been following the "remaster" trend and has an extensive list of first party remasters and has been rewarded for it.

With the Valve's Steam Deck clearly setting itself up as a competitor and assuming it has a high adopt rate do you think this is a good opportunity to enter the PC market? Is Nintendo's business sustainable considering the gaming industries future outlook without slowly introducing a "game pass"?
There is 0% chance Nintendo embraces PC.
 
The only way we get Nintendo games on pc, is if they start failing at making a profit, thats how we got Nintendo games on mobile, once thought of as a wild idea. That said, the main appeal of getting a nintendo anything is the software not the hardware, so they will lose their main appeal.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
Maybe, but not like Sony is doing.

I thought they wouldn't go mobile either, and they did. So nothing is impossible. I just doubt they would relay their main output to the PC platform. At least not anytime really soon.

It's gonna take a while, if at all. Even if their success with the Switch deflates dramatically, it would still take a long time.
 
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Murdok

Member
as it is only a matter of time for sony to launch day one games on the pc, i believe that sooner or later nintendo will follow the same path. Interesting to see Ms who started with this and is expanding rapidly with Xcloud, the success of Forza 5 just shows that this idea was good and is already bearing fruit.
 

Closer

Member
They should. You can already play all of their games on PC with better quality than the Switch, and you don't even need a powerful machine. Might as well sell to PC gamers and make some more money.

This is not true If you emulate when legit but yarr harr harr amirite
 
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Pejo

Member
Nintendo arguably has the best PC presence out of the big 3. Not only are their systems easily able to be emulated, but they run better and at higher res than their actual hardware. We're also past the point now that Nintendo's newest hardware is able to be emulated while it's still in its early lifecycle.

I buy every Nintendo platform game I'm interested in, and then emulate most of them afterwards, just to get out of the morally grey area. Switch is still nice to pick up and go with for the few times I've wanted to do that, but with Deck coming out next year.....
 

CitizenZ

Banned
Im not a big Nintendo anything, but if they released BoTW with PC specs on Steam, its over 1 million day one. The only Co. on Earth I think is not a fan of $$$$, in a way.
 
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BlackTron

Member
No, and it would be unconscionably stupid for them to do so. If Nintendo games ever appear on PC in a dystopian future, take it as a sign that their management is officially dead and that they will soon be a hollow shell company ie Blizzard.
 

Holammer

Member
I imagine Nintendo already planned for and have given this topic a lot of thought. They are not idiots.
PUBG is the reason why we have MS and Sony getting serious about PC gaming today. People don't understand what an unimaginably fucking *crazy* success that was, and it's still raking in money today, as one of the highest grossing games on Steam. Nintendo have pondered this as well and no doubt watched Fortnite spin straw into gold.
Another similar phenomenon happening again could push them into PC, investors are already bothering them about it anyway. They too see this happen and wonder why Nintendo leave money on the table.

Then there is the fear of another WiiU/3DS level disaster for the next hardware cycle. Nintendo today is even more vulnerable as they no longer have a strong handheld market to cover for a poorly selling console. With only one device, they can't handle another failure like the N64, GC or WiiU.
Without a PC strategy they'll have to partner up or sell.
 

Ezekiel_

Banned
They're the only console maker that make profits out of hardware sells, and they are the only handheld console and kid friendly console.

They'll be fine doing what they do.
 

EDMIX

Member
Likely, they are already deep in mobile and I expect them to actually do more of that before going to PC. PC will likely be for older legacy type titles.
 

supernova8

Banned
No chance. The DS and Wii got pirated to shit but they still made a fortune on the hardware. There's no way Nintendo will ever give people a reason not to buy their hardware. Putting their games on PC would do that (for some people). The only time they've put their games or affiliated IP on other platforms is mainly mobile and that's really to drive people to their main platform(s).
 
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KAL2006

Banned
Nintendo is already on PC, everything upto Switch can be emulated. They wouldn't release stuff officially who the hell would buy a port of 10 year old games when you can emulate on the same platform. Mario 64 port would be worse from Nintendo themselves than the hacked version.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
No. They build their low cost hardware around their IPs to push said hardware at a premium, and that is what they have always been known for.

Their stock will remain stagnant as it has been for 2 years now unless they find other ways to expand their revenue stream as well.
 
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Nintendo have a handful of games in the 30m club, and bunch of in the 20m club. They have no incentive to release on pc when both sony and microsoft despite multiplatform release can’t sell that many games as consistently and especially not at full price for years.

Nintendo will need to suffer another Wii U debacle before it makes any real changes to its business strategy
 
I think most gaming platforms will eventually merge into the same hardware in one way or another, so you could say that it's a matter of time. But we're talking decades.
 
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