The Nintendo NX - Is it risky to announce a March release at this point in time?

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zabattacks

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#1  Edited By zabattacks

Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong perspectives. Maybe I took it to heart what we heard months ago about Nintendo confirming a March 2017 release.

My question for you all is simple: Given the fact that they have announced nothing, and being very generous by stating that they announce something in October, would 4-5 months be an adequate time to convince the general public?

What are your thoughts?

Thank You!

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FrodoBaggins

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Convince them what, exactly?

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Dogma

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#3  Edited By Dogma

A lot of people buy a lot of products without knowing about them years in advance. Seems to work fine. As long as Nintendo has a promising game line-up ready I couln't really care how far in advance they announce this thing.

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ripelivejam

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new monster hunter or updated monster hunter generations plz

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bigsocrates

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#5 bigsocrates  Online

I don't think that 4-5 months is too little time to promote a product, especially when it's from a very well known brand like Nintendo.

The main problems Nintendo will have are A) They announced this thing WAY too early and people have built up hype to the point where the actual product is likely to disappoint many. By allowing speculation and rumor to rule the day they've created benchmarks of expectation they may not be able to meet. B) They're trying to sell what will essentially be a children's toy (Nintendo skews younger than most game devices) outside the holiday season. This one is kind of baffling. If the economy holds up they might do okay as people are feeling flush and willing to spend, but if something happens...I have no idea why they made this decision. Maybe they were trying to get the software ready and maybe they were tweaking the hardware, but given the lead time they had on this thing they should have tried harder to hit the holiday window. Maybe if they have a truly amazing launch lineup it won't matter, but has Nintendo ever had a great launch lineup?

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bigsocrates

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#7 bigsocrates  Online

My thoughts don't make much sense and are also probably wrong but if they release the system in Q1 2017 with a few games (Zelda, Just Dance) they will have enough time to manufacture a ton of systems in time for a big holiday push with some more games like a Mario platformer and hopefully a Warioware game.

If they launch this thing with only Zelda in March and wait until that holiday to put out a Mario or another big game they are going to be fighting a real uphill battle. Already people feel like they have been burned by Nintendo systems with too few games. The Wii U is in a deep drought right now and people are not eager to get another piece of hardware with nothing to play on it. Maybe third party support will help (though NX is rumored to be less powerful than the Xbox One) but at this point the PS4 is ubiquitous so a bunch of ports of PS4 games isn't going to excite anyone.

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FrodoBaggins

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@bigsocrates: on the other hand, DS sales and software seem to be doing fine right? And if this is the successor to not only the wii u but also the 3ds then I can see sales and software doing well.

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bigsocrates

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#9 bigsocrates  Online

@bigsocrates: on the other hand, DS sales and software seem to be doing fine right? And if this is the successor to not only the wii u but also the 3ds then I can see sales and software doing well.

3DS sales are doing fine but the 3DS had a terrible launch, which Nintendo eventually turned around. They don't want another terrible launch. It's also 5 years later, with 5 years more smartphone adoption, so it's less clear how this will turn out.

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paulmako

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I think they need to say it soon. Before the release of the PS4 Pro soon.

They need people to skip the PS4 Pro and wait for a whole new console

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sparky_buzzsaw

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It's Nintendo. They will do the exact opposite of what makes sense and somehow still wind up all right. They are the kid with their head in the clouds, utterly olbivious to everything. I'm guessing Zelda at launch, little else, and the most illogical launch date possible, outside of selling it on the same day as the new PS4 and Xboxes.

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csl316

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Nah, people don't want to wait a year from an announcement to release anymore. Not just talking games, but any sort of tech products since technology moves so fast. Announce it a year in advance and people might (fade away) and classify it as obsolete by the time they see it on shelves.

People into games are already salivating for info, while mainstream consumers will want to consume it sooner than later. I don't trust Nintendo to build and maintain mainstream hype for a year, as well.

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wallee321

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I don't think it launches in March, probably September at the earliest. Why launch a system in March with the full expectation of a couple launch games and launch window games, when they can wait 6 months and have a more mature line-up of games. If they launched in March they would need those games, and then another slew of compelling games for the holiday.

I believe Chinese New Year takes place sometime in late Jan / early Feb, and that shuts most of the country down for a week. I swear I've heard something about this relating to Foxcom. If the NX is being manufactured in China that could pose a problem to a March release.

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kindgineer

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I think Nintendo has the same effect on "gaming" as Apple has on phones. If Apple were to drop news about a new phone/tablet the DAY before it came out, everyone would end up knowing somehow (maybe this has already happened). Nintendo feels like the same thing. Nintendo, regardless of their household reputation with today's generation, is a brand name that even parents recognize as an "investment in fun." Seeing as a lot of them grew up with it. It's also a lot safer of a console in a parents mind, and will immediately be something they stop to look at in the stores come Christmas or birthday's.

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Asstruck

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@wallee321 said:

I believe Chinese New Year takes place sometime in late Jan / early Feb, and that shuts most of the country down for a week. I swear I've heard something about this relating to Foxcom. If the NX is being manufactured in China that could pose a problem to a March release.

Nah, the consoles would have to be manufactured way before CNY anyway if they launch in March, Nintendo probably needs to start manufacturing soon-ish.

My hot take is that the wild success of their mobile phone experiments have forced them to pull the brakes and reconsider what they're trying to accomplish with the NX.

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bigsocrates

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#16  Edited By bigsocrates  Online

@kseoul said:

I think Nintendo has the same effect on "gaming" as Apple has on phones. If Apple were to drop news about a new phone/tablet the DAY before it came out, everyone would end up knowing somehow (maybe this has already happened). Nintendo feels like the same thing. Nintendo, regardless of their household reputation with today's generation, is a brand name that even parents recognize as an "investment in fun." Seeing as a lot of them grew up with it. It's also a lot safer of a console in a parents mind, and will immediately be something they stop to look at in the stores come Christmas or birthday's.

You say that...but look at Wii U sales. Nintendo botched the launch and it cost them big time. It's easy to say "It's Nintendo, they'll be fine" but while they are financially fine right now, they risk becoming a permanent underdog if they launch another console that only sells 12-13 million. The NX should do better because it's a handheld, but they will damage their brand if they actually let two years go by with almost no releases (there's been some stuff this year, especially on 3DS, but nothing that has dominated conversation.) People will feel like Nintendo systems HAVE to be secondary to some other platform because otherwise you will be waiting months between games.

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MezZa

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#17  Edited By MezZa

@bigsocrates: The issue with the wii u wasn't timing though. It was branding and the launch lineup. They branded it in a way that a large number of people who don't follow Nintendo in depth didn't understand what was being sold at first. Too many thought it was just another upgrade to the wii.

They can announce it a couple months ahead of the actual release and be fine as long as they have some sort of lineup to offer and get an understandable message out for advertising. Granted this is Nintendo we're talking about so who knows if that'll happen or not.

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FinalDasa

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#18 FinalDasa  Moderator

Nintendo is operating on their own PR schedule, away from the typical timelines that Sony and Microsoft took to a few years back.

Without some real strange twist (like say, a motion controller) the NX won't take much convincing. It's a game console, it plays the Mario and Zelda games, what else do you need to know?

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kindgineer

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@kseoul said:

I think Nintendo has the same effect on "gaming" as Apple has on phones. If Apple were to drop news about a new phone/tablet the DAY before it came out, everyone would end up knowing somehow (maybe this has already happened). Nintendo feels like the same thing. Nintendo, regardless of their household reputation with today's generation, is a brand name that even parents recognize as an "investment in fun." Seeing as a lot of them grew up with it. It's also a lot safer of a console in a parents mind, and will immediately be something they stop to look at in the stores come Christmas or birthday's.

You say that...but look at Wii U sales. Nintendo botched the launch and it cost them big time. It's easy to say "It's Nintendo, they'll be fine" but while they are financially fine right now, they risk becoming a permanent underdog if they launch another console that only sells 12-13 million. The NX should do better because it's a handheld, but they will damage their brand if they actually let two years go by with almost no releases (there's been some stuff this year, especially on 3DS, but nothing that has dominated conversation.) People will feel like Nintendo systems HAVE to be secondary to some other platform because otherwise you will be waiting months between games.

I wasn't really commenting on whether it would succeed or not, I'm just pointing out that I don't think Nintendo needs the same kind of build-up other companies need based on their reputation. I haven't owned a Nintendo console since the GCN, but I still know when the games are coming out for each of them. The big ones that is.

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TheWildCard

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#20  Edited By TheWildCard

There's a pretty good chance it won't make that march release at this point. Of course Nintendo tends to disregard conventional logic, but saying it will get in just before the end of the fiscal year always sounds suspicious.

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People's attention spans seem shorter than ever, A shorter timeframe may be better than longer

I think they wanna get it out there news wise before November though, you don't want potential customers to pass on it because they got an Xbox One or PS4 for Christmas.

tbf I'm not 100% convinced this isn't going to be a holiday 2017 launch anyway.

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Dixavd

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I'm thinking that Nintendo just want breathing room before next year's holiday season. I think some mind-share is put into the idea that a console's most important release period is the first holiday season and if it isn't a success by the end of the year, it never will be. If they release earlier, they have more room to slowly grow the console sales with early adopters first, hopefully get a good amount of support (especially with a title like Zelda) before hitting their second wind at the holiday season.

Also, they definitely do not want to compete with the Scorpio directly if that console is releasing next holiday season. Even if the NX is more powerful than the new Xbox One (which it almost certainly won't be), any third party games on both will look worse on the NX simply because it's newer and developers haven't had a chance to acclimatise to whatever quirks it has.

I'm also wondering about how Nintendo's mobile strategy might play into this. Releasing the NX earlier, but then using every Nintendo mobile game have some sort of connection to it immediately on release would be a good way to get publicity out for it (much better than releasing the NX later in the year and patching in support to mobile games)

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#23  Edited By Skinky

Yea, barely, and only because Nintendo has a huge budget they can put forward for advertising and hands-on promotional events. Basically it will be on Oprah and Ellen, getting moms to consider it as a family purchase. I also expect other companies will be tied into promoting it because of AR features it's said to utilise.

Zelda, Pokemon Go, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Super Mario etc Along with BGE2 and another rumoured Ubi title alone, I think will assure a far better launch than WiiU, and possibly even Wii.

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Shindig

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#24  Edited By Shindig

No Man's Sky has shown that mystery can go a long way. I mean, people talk about this. For those on the outside, if it launches with Breath of the Wild, it'll shift units. I mean, from what we know, dev kits are out. Maybe they lift the lid on this in the new year and start the train.

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deactivated-5f8907c9ada33

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Only if Nintendo does a poor job marketing it and sends out confusing messaging like the Wii U. I'm hoping Nintendo learns from their mistakes with the Wii U, because the concept of the NX being a hybrid machine (and now seemingly confirmed by the Pokemon CEO) is actually super intriguing.

As long as there's a lot of great software at launch (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a new 3D Super Mario Brothers game and some third party content), then I think they'll be fine to reveal it this close to launch.

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Hosstile17

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Cell phones are $800 and are announced like two weeks before they come out.

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Skinky

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@hosstile17:

That's not a great comparison. Customers of such phones for the most part know what they are getting. It's not quite the same with gaming devices. Gaming device success is dependant on software ultimately, not specification improvements as seen on phones.

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Hosstile17

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@skinky: I understand that. I am just positing the idea that Nintendo may be trying to move more into that market. Stupidly or not.

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Skinky

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@hosstile17:

I see. They definitely are going where the money is, their deal with DeNa implies as much, as do the mobile efforts due from themselves early next year, in time for launch.

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RalphMoustaccio

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Nintendo hasn't had a traditional console success since the SNES. Yes, the Wii was massively successful from a pure sales perspective, but that was mostly due to selling it to a more mass, casual audience. The Wii U, by any measure, was an abject failure. It sold neither to the casual nor the hardcore, in any significant numbers. So maybe they're playing into the impulse purchase angle by announcing it as close to the release date as realistically possible, so that potential customers don't really have time to critically assess things like third-party support, technical prowess, etc. It worked for shit for Sega, with the Saturn, but who knows? That said, I think I recall having heard that they were supposed to announce info in September, and missing that, if true, doesn't bode well for it actually coming out early next year.

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an_ancient

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I'm pretty sure Pokemon GO was a bit more of a hit than Nintendo expected, though they have active TV shows running. Mario Run is probably the second strongest IP so it'll keep people occupied. Think of all the family gathering with kids on their phones not wanting to talk to their relatives. Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem have less recognition but might make more sense for the domestic market. they might also push to have something more interesting for Apple's March event which would give them broader audience reach. Maybe something for an iPad. Right after that I see a good window to start marketing for a an eventual end of Q2, beginning of Q3 release. If the software lines up they'll have a big audience hungry for games, pre-E3 and post Apple Keynote. Christmas is very lucrative, but it's also become fiercely competitive. Why not wait a bit for people's wallets to recover?

That's my speculation at least.

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tavistavistavis

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I keep forgetting that the NX is actually going to come out, I guess my brain won't remember it till I know what it is. Didn't they say that they were going to say something in September?

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Skinky

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@ralphmoustaccio:

Nonsense, it did not work for Sega Saturn, quite the opposite in fact. Even retailers didn't know...

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RalphMoustaccio

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@skinky: Right. I said it "worked for shit," meaning it didn't work.

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Dayve86

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I assume they are waiting to have all of their ducks in a row so the announcement will have the highest chance of blowing people away, but man they are really getting down to the wire. Maybe they're waiting until the new year so the news doesn't get buried by the holiday season, but man 2-3 months before seems way too tight.

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Skinky

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@dayve86:

I agree, I also think that's what they're doing. As well as they're hook for NX, which I think will be a flexible wearable screen, I think the launch software line-up will be the greatest in videogame history.

edit: Shit, sorry Karate Kid/Ralph M.

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deactivated-5ba16609964d9

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How much time does Nintendo need to say we got a new console and a new Zelda for it?

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RalphMoustaccio

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#39  Edited By Skinky

The 21st of October is the 5th anniversary of Nintendo Direct. Five years ago on this date Iwata was thrust into the public domain like no other Nintendo president before him. Rumour suggests Nintendo will mark the occasion in a touching way, possibly with something Iwata-san recorded before his death.