
Nintendo touchscreen controller patent offers clues about upcoming NX - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/12/nintendo-touchscreen-controller-patent-offers-clues-about-upcoming-nx/
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Joof
I just want them to be friendlier to indie devs. It's better, but not ideal.
Nintendo has interesting control schemes and game design could benefit from
being able to experiment with them in the form of game jams or smaller niche
titles.

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radium3d
Not sure if you've signed up, but Nintendo has an excellent program for indie
developers. Check it out here:

[https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/](https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/)

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ggreer
Is there a similar program for 3DS development? I looked around, but all I
could find was a page that really pushed individuals to try the Wii U
Developer program.[1] For anything else, it looks like Nintendo wants a real
company with prior game dev experience.

1\.
[https://developer.nintendo.com/register/about](https://developer.nintendo.com/register/about)

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CM30
I will point out that as interesting as this is, patents are not always an
accurate clue to what a company is planning. Heck, Nintendo's patented a lot
of things over the last few years or so, For example:

[http://www.nintendolife.com/tags/Patents](http://www.nintendolife.com/tags/Patents)

That said, based on my experiences with their 'gimmick' controls in the past,
I wouldn't want something like this used for the NX default control scheme.
Quite a few examples were just buggy as all heck.

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bobajeff
_Since we 're basically saying what Nintendo should do here, I'll add in my
two cents:_

They should make more games. New games not just spinoffs and sequels and many
of them. In fact they should limit each game series to 5 games each cycle
(including spinoffs)

Give several small teams of about 7 people 2 years to finish their games.
Reward the most financially successful teams with bonuses and more autonomy.
Demote or retire the ones that we're not at all successful during the cycle.

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djur
Nintendo's model has always been to use a relatively small number of common
characters (Mario, Kirby, etc.) with varying game mechanics. There's more
fundamental differences between any two given Mario titles than there is
between, say, Watch Dogs and Grand Theft Auto.

I would rather play ten high-quality Mario games with diverse mechanics than
ten over-the-shoulder cover shooters where each one features a different
gritty man shooting people for a different gritty reason.

~~~
bobajeff
I never said they should make several GTA clones (though one couldn't hurt
their library).

Recycling the same material over and over again gets old real fast unless
you're a die hard fan or toddler.

It's also a bad idea for a entertainment company to rely so heavily on a few
series like that.

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nether
It'd just be nice if they released a system whose CPU/GPU wasn't obsolete on
day one.

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threeseed
What they should do is wait for PS4/XB1 to come out, wait a year, then release
a console with the same specs at a much cheaper price (due to economies of
scale) but with Nintendo's titles and new control system. At least that way
they still get the cross platform titles coming across.

~~~
jsnell
It wouldn't be much cheaper. It'd likely be much more expensive. There's three
components to that:

1\. The prices of the competing consoles aren't static, but dropping regularly
as Sony and MS get better prices for the components or finish redesigns. If
anything, the competition is probably getting better economies of scale.

2\. Nintendo has traditionally tried to make a profit on the hardware sales at
every point in its lifecycle. Sony and MS on the other hand have been willing
to sell at breakeven or even a small loss. (The loss is made up on software
licensing, and lately on the yearly fees for semi-mandatory online services).

3\. You want the new control systems. Well, that's going to cost you. A large
part of the Xbox's failure this generation was launching with the Kinect. That
added $100 to the cost, which was pretty lethal early on. The Wii U is
obsolete and underpowered, but by now costs as much or more than the PS4 /
Xbox One at least where I live. Why? Most likely because of the gamepad. The
speculation for the NX is that the controllers are essentially handheld
consoles, which will just make this worse.

