It all depends on how many of each installed base there is and how many the expect to sell, possibly for each platform, and how much cross over there is.
If it's a game that most people play on console, why should they pay for expensive cartridges. If it's a game more suited to handhelds why charge console players more?
I agree that it's simpler all around but I imagine making a cartridge is an order of magnitude or more cost than a disc. If Nintendo doesn't eat that costs publishers will be pissed off.
When you factor in logistics, retail space requirements and other factors, the cost difference shrinks significantly. And there's another factor I've considered that I will detail below that makes it a better fit, which is tangentially related to the piracy factor.
Seems like we're on the same page here, Thraktor. I just can't get on the cartridge bandwagon. It doesn't make sense to me. I like this quote from Beyond3D forums:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...l-disks-ssd-cards-and-download.42843/page-109
To me, the most logical solution would be 2 skus. One full-featured box w/ both an optical drive and HDD at ~$299. At the same time, a smaller digital only box with just the HDD at ~$250.
Discs just make sense for getting the job done...along w/ an HDD and internet connection of course.
If anything, Game Cards could possibly be phased out before discs are, as they are the pricier medium and lack the convenience of the all-digital mobile market. Portable software usually carries with it a smaller file size as well, and so it should be easier to migrate this market to digital.
Considering that movies and games are essentially the ONLY industries still using discs, and sales of disc-based media are significantly flagging in both of those industries for obviously different reasons, I wouldn't bet on discs outlasting solid-state media any time soon.
2 SKUs with or without a disc drive is a non-starter. Plain and simple, there is no logic to such a thing. And retailers would only stock the one that allows them to sell games to consumers in the first place if the only difference is that one doesn't offer any physical media option (see: PSP Go), so it's an abstraction in SKUs that would never EVER fly.
Cartridges certainly have technical advantages over discs (they always have), but the only one that's really going to factor into Nintendo's decision is cost. By the time the cost difference is truly insignificant digital downloads will have completely supplanted them both.
A disc costs a couple of cents. A 64GB flash cart (which is what you'd be looking at to hold both home console and handheld assets) costs a couple of dollars. That's two orders of magnitude in decimal, or six or seven orders of magnitude in binary, if you prefer. However you define it it's an added expense that cuts into profits, and not just Nintendo's profits, but also third parties'. Nintendo aren't exactly in a position where forcing a lower software margin on third parties is going to do them any good.
There's nothing to suggest that a lower software margin to the extent you're thinking would happen. The savings in logistics, retail space and other factors are BIG money-sinks in software distribution, and if this solution resolves those issues to a significant degree, all the better.
But there's also this...
Will probably be part of the entire NX environment.
Nintendo should strongly consider NX for China. Not sure if popularity there would lead to piracy or any other issues, but the population there is insane. Being able to deliver the cheapest option (portable) there would be a big boost for them.
People have been saying "what's the benefit of big 3rd-party games being made for handhelds" and this finally jumped out at me: faster entry into emerging markets for Nintendo and 3rd-parties alike.
Let's say Nintendo takes its handheld hardware, makes a console box out of it and starts selling it in India, China, etc. within the first year at an extremely attractive price point, alongside the standard console hardware for those who can afford it. If the content that plays on both is there, 3rd-parties make great gains.
It also would be a great reason to push cartridges as the universal storage medium, to curb piracy as much as humanly possible compared to optical media releases, which would COMPLETELY offset any additional cost of cartridges over discs via the additional sales in those emerging markets.
Being able to move into emerging markets much faster, with content available that could also be played on the standard console config when it reaches a mass-market price in the region, that's a HUGE boon for everyone involved. It's going to depend on how serious and aggressively Nintendo wants to position itself in those markets.
A lower price isn't going to do much by itself in China. The biggest factors are going to be value and software that's well suited to Chinese audiences. Nintendo is currently unable to provide either of these in China, and that's why their performance there is extremely bad. It's a market they should definitely focus on, but it's not going to be easy.
Where do you live? Because I live in Vancouver, which has a high volume of Asian immigrants, and of the people I see taking a 3DS around with them in public? Chinese immigrants.
Availability and efficacy of its other subsidiaries has been a primary factor that has worked against Nintendo in the other Asian markets, but I'll need actual data that says their games don't appeal to Chinese people, when I see their games played by a huge bulk of Chinese people in public on a regular basis.
SE have not even announced it for Xbone but will make a port for NX? Not happening unless something big happens.
FFVII on NX would sell more copies in Japan and not close them off from being able to sell more copies in the West. So there's a potential to gain more sales with Nintendo than there is with Microsoft.
And this is an effect that we will potentially see among multiple Japanese publishers, who will opt for a Nintendo-Sony multiplat situation due to an increase in sales by virtue of being on 2 platforms Japanese consumers would actually buy.
There's probably significant overlap between those people and the people that would never touch a Nintendo system due to kiddy stigma.
That stigma is much more of a Western thing. Japan isn't as hung up about it as we are and definitely not universal.
Did they say which version? The 3DS or the PS4 one?
Since both the handheld or console NX devices will be significantly more powerful than the 3DS, I think you can rule the 3DS version out by default, since it'd be a hell of a lot easier to port down than port up in that regard.
No, they are. And you're grossly underestimating how much carts would cost for today's games, as big as they are.
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And yes, they could just opt for cheaper ROM options, but there's a huge issue in doing that: cheaper ROM options is they have a shelf life; longer than SD cards yes but if having a shelf life on the data your memory can retain is essentially going to kill any collectible tendencies, why use carts at all? Why not just use SD cards and digital download platforms?
Hasn't stopped people with optical media games, which also have a shelf life, so why would it stop them in this situation?
And this is assuming that they use a ROM solution at all, since there's been great advancements made in repurposing RAM solutions into read-only uses.