Topic: Switchmas Eve Rumors and Speculations Thread

[Mop it up]

Yeah, with how quickly information can travel these days with the Internet and all, I don't think game systems need a lot of pre-release hype to succeed. If the NX is a good product, it will sell regardless of when it is revealed or released. Therefore, I think the only reason to delay it would be if it still isn't fully ready.

[supermario2k]

I think they could announce it as late as November and still release in March but any later than that and it has to be delayed. The problem with announcing too early can also back fire so six months is really the sweet spot and we're there now.

[NWR_insanolord]

Why, though? What about a console launch requires that much of a lead up? Unless there's a ridiculous amount of misinformation out there, developers are already familiar with the system, so this reveal is just for the general public, and I don't see why they couldn't be successful with a 2-2.5 month window of hype as long as they really hit the marketing.

[Ian Sane]

I can see Nintendo thinking that revealing the NX too soon could hurt Wii U sales at Christmas.  But if Nintendo can get real hype going before Christmas they could also discourage PS4 and XB1 sales.  Someone who was thinking about buying one of those might save their money for the NX instead if it sounds up their alley.  Meanwhile someone who buys a PS4 in December is not necessarily going to want to buy another console in March.  Nintendo should want the NX to factor into console purchase decisions and that won't happen if we know nothing about the NX when those decisions are being made.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Why, though? What about a console launch requires that much of a lead up? Unless there's a ridiculous amount of misinformation out there, developers are already familiar with the system, so this reveal is just for the general public, and I don't see why they couldn't be successful with a 2-2.5 month window of hype as long as they really hit the marketing.

Oh sure, NOW everyone is seeing the wisdom of this. Like I was saying simply AGES ago...
like, almost a month ago. that's a LONG TIME if you're a dog. Or a budgie.

Any chance Nintendo is keeping quiet so as not to spoil holiday sales?

I could see them announcing in January, hyping and media blitzing for 2+ months and releasing in March. Why not keep the advertising window nice and short? Why play your hand too early?

[NWR_insanolord]

Sorry, this thread got kind of annoying for a while and I wasn't reading it all that closely so I must have missed that. But I don't think it'd be about not spoiling holiday sales as much as so they could get the media to focus completely on them instead of having to compete with big holiday releases on other platforms.

[Shaymin]

I think whatever 3rd parties they can get on the system at launch would want a short-but-traditional marketing cycle for their launch titles, and even a short marketing cycle (as seen with Fallout 4 or most Atlus localizations) is 5-6 months.

[NWR_insanolord]

That only makes sense if we're talking about exclusive titles from third parties, and I don't expect much in the way of those at launch. If it's ports they don't need as long to specifically market them for NX.

[supermario2k]

That only makes sense if we're talking about exclusive titles from third parties, and I don't expect much in the way of those at launch. If it's ports they don't need as long to specifically market them for NX.

PS VR is about to be all the gaming rage, if Nintendo doesn't want to end up in the situation where people forget they even have something in the works because of the media blitz the PS VR is sure to receive, which is already starting, then they do too need to get something out sooner rather than later. The benefit is people are anxious now, they are talking about it now, they are hyped or trying to get hyped now, if Nintendo waits too long these people might just spend their money on other stuff now and put off NX or lose interest in it. Surely they do not think the Wii U will magically sell gangbusters this Christmas they are probably hoping to wipe out existing inventory and quietly move on.

The only thing that really makes sense pushing the reveal closer to launch is if the idea is something that could be stolen and is so great everyone might rush out to steal it right away. They learned that lesson with Wii but if they are hoping for or expecting Wii success they had better have something truly amazing. I think the hybrid console is going to get them back to SNES levels of support and sales consistently but they need to get games out and they need to start the hype train before people move on and lose interest. That just makes it that much harder to regain trust and rebuild hype going forward. Once a console loses steam its really hard to get it back. They are already fighting an uphill battle, with boulders chained to their ankles, so they need to be smart about it. Hopefully they reveal something before everyone commits their console money this holiday season.

[ThePerm]

SM2k You're forgetting something: VR is lame.


Nintendo could just do something it hasn't done in a while. A console with a lot of launch titles. And good launch titles.

[Ian Sane]

The only thing that really makes sense pushing the reveal closer to launch is if the idea is something that could be stolen and is so great everyone might rush out to steal it right away.

If the March date is real then there is only like six months for a competitor to steal the idea.  How could anyone steal it in that short time frame unless the idea is REALLY minor and easy to copy?  But if that's the case the idea ain't going to be worth a damn anyway.  If the idea is going to be stolen then the copycats are going to start the day it's revealed so Nintendo buys another couple months, maybe?  If they revealed it a year before or something like that then I can see it but it's far too late for someone to beat Nintendo to the market.  The Wii came out in 2006 and Move and Kinect didn't follow until 2010.  That was plenty of time for Nintendo to reap the benefits of the idea.  25 years ago you could crank out a game in months so a copycat product was really feasible.  These days games take YEARS to make.  A couple extra months between the reveal and launch is nothing.  No serious competitor should be able to beat Nintendo to the market or realistically even get a copycat product out before the end of 2017.

[Adrock]

Sure, companies like Apple have successfully announced a product and launched it within a couple weeks. There's no reason Nintendo can't either. However, it is so goddamn terrible at marketing, it probably shouldn't.

At the same time, maybe using the budget Nintendo would have spent on six months of marketing into three months or less would help it reach more people, more commercials, online ads etc. within a smaller time frame. That is, of course, assuming Nintendo wouldn't just half the budget because it feels it only has to market for half the amount of time it usually would.

[Stogi]

Another conclusion could be made.

Maybe Nintendo doesn't want to announce the NX because it's delayed.

[Ian Sane]

Sure, companies like Apple have successfully announced a product and launched it within a couple weeks. There's no reason Nintendo can't either. However, it is so goddamn terrible at marketing, it probably shouldn't.

At the same time, maybe using the budget Nintendo would have spent on six months of marketing into three months or less would help it reach more people, more commercials, online ads etc. within a smaller time frame. That is, of course, assuming Nintendo wouldn't just half the budget because it feels it only has to market for half the amount of time it usually would.

Nintendo is actually marketing the NX right now but they're just so inept at it that we're not aware of it!

[BlackNMild2k1]

Sure, companies like Apple have successfully announced a product and launched it within a couple weeks. There's no reason Nintendo can't either. However, it is so goddamn terrible at marketing, it probably shouldn't.

At the same time, maybe using the budget Nintendo would have spent on six months of marketing into three months or less would help it reach more people, more commercials, online ads etc. within a smaller time frame. That is, of course, assuming Nintendo wouldn't just half the budget because it feels it only has to market for half the amount of time it usually would.

Nintendo is actually marketing the NX right now but they're just so inept at it that we're not aware of it!

or Nintendo is actually marketing the NX right now, and their doing it by small controlled "leaks" that has the internet doing all the work for them... for free.

[Mop it up]

Oh sure, NOW everyone is seeing the wisdom of this. Like I was saying simply AGES ago...

Meh, I don't think it's a wise idea, they should reveal it this month. What I'm saying is that I don't think having a January reveal and a March release would have much of a negative impact if that's what happened.

[Agent-X-]

IMHO Nintendo already botched the launch by missing the holiday window. A March release is not a very good start but it does give them time to get several games released for next year's holiday season. I just hope they're able to handle any negative perception that will result from a potential slow start.

[Adrock]

Nintendo's official stance on the March 2017 launch is that the games aren't ready. That doesn't even sound like PR spin. If anything, Nintendo is avoiding a botched launch. The last time Nintendo forced a holiday season launch, we got Wii U. It had no business being shipped in the shape it was in. No thanks. I don't believe when hardware launches (even the holiday season) is more important than launching competent hardware with captivating software.

[ShyGuy]

From the squalor of Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoNX/comments/56jomc/leak_goodies_from_a_large_retail_partner/

Info about the supposed packaging.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo's official stance on the March 2017 launch is that the games aren't ready. That doesn't even sound like PR spin. If anything, Nintendo is avoiding a botched launch. The last time Nintendo forced a holiday season launch, we got Wii U. It had no business being shipped in the shape it was in. No thanks. I don't believe when hardware launches (even the holiday season) is more important than launching competent hardware with captivating software.

Don't forget the 3DS, which was forced out before the end of the fiscal year, really hurting it (though it ultimately overcame that). That's two systems in a row Nintendo made the mistake of releasing when they weren't ready yet.

[Soren]

From the squalor of Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoNX/comments/56jomc/leak_goodies_from_a_large_retail_partner/

Info about the supposed packaging.

"Interact with your game on the go." phrase seen on a poster.

That's a clumsy tagline...

Strong co-branding effort with a Mario launch title on many posters.

Smells bull crappy

The color scheme for the packaging is white and blue (compared to the Wii U's blue and black).

The Wii U Basic model was also white and blue.

1080p and 60fps are being used by the marketing teams...

This is such a massive red flag I can't take this leak seriously.

[KeyBilly]

The wording of the more recent "leaks" implies that Nintendo hasn't yet been able to make a complete hybrid, with the portable aspect being a more limited experience.  Still, most of it lines up with the bulk of the rumors, so it could just be more echoes in our chamber of desperation.

[supermario2k]

The only thing that really makes sense pushing the reveal closer to launch is if the idea is something that could be stolen and is so great everyone might rush out to steal it right away.

If the March date is real then there is only like six months for a competitor to steal the idea.  How could anyone steal it in that short time frame unless the idea is REALLY minor and easy to copy?  But if that's the case the idea ain't going to be worth a damn anyway.  If the idea is going to be stolen then the copycats are going to start the day it's revealed so Nintendo buys another couple months, maybe?  If they revealed it a year before or something like that then I can see it but it's far too late for someone to beat Nintendo to the market.  The Wii came out in 2006 and Move and Kinect didn't follow until 2010.  That was plenty of time for Nintendo to reap the benefits of the idea.  25 years ago you could crank out a game in months so a copycat product was really feasible.  These days games take YEARS to make.  A couple extra months between the reveal and launch is nothing.  No serious competitor should be able to beat Nintendo to the market or realistically even get a copycat product out before the end of 2017.

Sure they could, suppose the idea is something that relies on existing tech that the other two have access to through their technology divisions. I am not saying they could do a complete copy cat product, but it didn't take them long to implement motion controls despite all sucking at it. What I mean is what if they have something that say Apple could steal? Apple might not like Nintendo making a play to dethrown them from the mobile scene knowing that Nintendo used to be kings of that market. We still don't know what it is but I am willing to bet you that Apple more than has the funds and resources to get a new iPhone or something else that does the same thing by the end of the year. They don't even need to have a full product ready by Christmas, they just need enough cobbled together by E3 to show they are working on it to start building hype and deflating the NX hype.

And if its really a hybrid Sony and Apple are both in a position to modify existing products very easily to get something of that effect out, hell Apple already is doing that now with their unified OS anyways. If they decided that say the breakway controller works and is a good idea they could work that into the next iPhone and Nintendo is a dead goose having to exit the console business for good if they quitely concede the living room console space which sounds like they are doing, and lose the mobile space, their finished as a game tech company.

I am not saying this is what will happen but yeah it could, your just too down on Nintendo its like nothing they do impresses you anyways.

[ShyGuy]

I'm sure no matter what Nintendo comes up with, Sony and MS have something they are messing with that they can shove out their to say "Me too!" That's how it works. You create the illusion that you have feature parity if the competition comes out with something new. The competition has done it with: D-pads, shoulder buttons, light guns, portable systems, analog sticks, trigger buttons, wireless controls, rumble,  motion controls, avatars, second screen game play, and that's not even getting into the games!

The R&D teams at Sony and Mircosoft surely have prototypes or are associated with companies that have technology like:
- Portable console gaming
- Holograms
- Mini Projectors
- Haptic feedback
- Augmented Reality
- Lightguns
Or whatever else Nintendo comes up with.

[nickmitch]

But there's still the question whether or not they have anything they could show off that would be market-ready.  Sony and MS wouldn't show some clumsy prototype that looks like a Frankenstein next to their own finalized hardware.  Nintendo knows they'll be emulated, but it's about timing.


The comparisons to Apple, while valid, are missing one point.  Apple is huge.  A lot of people stream their announcements and wait outside in lines to buy their products.  It's an annual tradition.  One that comes with free marketing.  Nintendo just doesn't have that level of social cache any more.  Delaying into the next year could really hurt them, IMO.  Regaining the relevance via the mobile space might end up hurting their credibility as a console maker.  So, for that reason, and Ian's point, I think they need an unveiling this month.