NX Must Have 'Continuous Beat of Great New Games'
By Rory Young 26 August 2016
To ensure the Nintendo NX’s success, Reggie Fils-Aime says Nintendo must communicate the NX’s uniqueness and release a “continuous beat of great new games.”
Nintendo stands at the precipice of opportunity. The Wii U will finish out 2016 as the hardware manufacturer’s primary console platform, but 2017 is reserved for the launch of the NX. Whether or not the NX turns out to be the company’s next Wii, as opposed to its next Wii U depends entirely on what Nintendo has learned about the modern console landscape since the Wii U launched. No one knows that better than Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who shared a few thoughts recently regarding plans for the future.
In an interview with A-List Daily, Reggie Fils-Aime was more than willing to acknowledge the mistakes Nintendo made with the launch and support of the Wii U throughout his lifespan. Accepting those mistakes is an important part of building the Nintendo NX into something much more successful. Obviously, Fils-Aime doesn’t get down to specifics in such a casual interview, but he does bear down on two core ideas — communication and consistent game releases.
“We have to do a better job helping people to understand its uniqueness and what that means for the game playing experience. And we have to do a better job from a software planning standpoint to have that continuous beat of great new games that are motivating more and more people to pick up the hardware and more and more people to pick up the software. Those are the critical lessons.”
It’s been a common statement from Nintendo over the past years, first that they need to do a better job of differentiating the Wii U from the Wii and then later that they failed to communicate the platform’s identity. That’s not surprising. However, it’s very interesting to hear Fils-Aime discuss the platform’s failures regarding delivering consistent content on the platform.
The lack of third-party content on the Wii U is well known issue. From Ubisoft’s initial dedication and then abandonment of the platform to THQ’s bankruptcy, everything went wrong for the Wii U when it comes to third-party support. Nevertheless, the bigger story is first-party content. An enormous amount of first-party releases saw delay across the lifespan of the Wii U. More than half of the Wii U’s “launch window” titles fell out of that time frame. When those games did launch, they were extremely well received, but they were so few and far between.
Hearing that awareness from Reggie Fils-Aime is very promising. To hear him say that the NX needs a “continuous beat of great new games” is exactly what every potential buyer wants to hear from Nintendo right now. Fils-Aime even elaborates:
“… as I verbalize them, they’re really traditional lessons within the industry. You have to make sure people understand the concept, you have to make sure you’ve got a great library of games, and when you do that, you tend to do well.”
It appears, for as much as we can tell before the console has even been announced, that Nintendo is planning on walking the walk on this promise of consistent content launches. Nintendo’s all but stripped this final year of the Wii U’s lifespan of major launches. Even The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Wii U’s last hoorah, will be released on NX much like Twilight Princess was launched on both GameCube and Wii. Nintendo is saving all of their development for the NX.
Obviously, Reggie Fils-Aime can say whatever he pleases, but Nintendo still has to prove itself with the NX. Some may cite Pokemon GO‘s success as a great sign for Nintendo’s future, but that seems irrelevant to the NX discussion. For now, all fans can do is wait for Nintendo to officially unveil the NX.
The Nintendo NX is set to release sometime in March 2017.
Source: A-List Daily
