exmachina64
Banned
Why can't the dock be sold separately for x price.
The crux of this idea is that Nintendo will take advantage of the SCD patent and other technology to make a high-powered external CPU, GPU, and memory combo. That effectively makes the dock a console by itself.
Disregarding the issues with latency and trying to use all the disparate hardware elements in tandem, it would be a pain to program for. That and it would be expensive.
Selling the handheld for $300+ and the dock for $200+ is going to be a hard sell for many people. By virtue of no dock being included, it's already going to be limited to a subset of the NX's install base. A high price further limits the amount of people that will buy one. If you only get 30% of customers buying a dock because it's an expensive add-on, only Nintendo's going to support it.
So if Nintendo listens to everyone saying they want a powerful, expensive dock, then most third party support will be handheld games.