Since PS4 and Xbone are selling millions, and WiiU is still choking, many analysts are preaching Nintendo’s doom, and returning to this bizarre idea they need to flush all their IPs out to the mobile market. Michael Pachter has been suggesting this insane notion for years (god love ‘im). Reading this collection of smart op-eds at Gamasutra and this featured blog post by Chip Sineni (mostly poo-pooing that poop idea), I was struck by a different idea which has me all excited. so i’m storing it here on the blog for posterity.
my armchair solution: the best thing Nintendo could do is go whole hog at the NFC toy angle. Make it known that from now on, ALL dlc content on WiiU will be tied to a toy (dongle), from mariokart to DKCRTorpical Freeze to X to bayonetta2 and onward.
Spread the message that you’ll know if a house has a wiiU, because it’ll have dozens of little toys all over the tv area. Make it seem kind of sad that PS4 and Xbone DLC have no physical representation. Make a strong push away from digital downloads towards retail.
i think that’d be the kind of crazy ivan that would get people excited again, quickly.
+ picture a silly warioware game that you need to play with the NFC toy(s) balanced on the controller. Which goes on to encourage players to balance a dozen different toys on the gamepad border and involve them in mini game maneuvers. etc.
+ picture smash bros where you can buy every single trophy toy that they give you inside the game. if you earn the tropy in game, and have it in real life, then you can unlock a new feature (music track. concept art. etc).
+ picture an fzero game where the gamepad IS the car, and you balance the part upgrade you want for your racer on it’s shell. And/or swap them out during laps. have a toy that offers the battery recharge, one that offers spin attacks, and another that offers extra boosts. (and of course, the touch screen could be the car engine, letting you rewire and transfer power around like a podracer).
+ message that playing with little nintendo toy friends is a new form of local multiplayer. Nintendo hates networked gaming right? So keep making local 2 player and 4 split screen games – but let the players plug in mario and kid icarus and zelda to play as those other screens if no one else is home.
(secondary armchair solution: release a gamepad mini, that’s about the size of a smartphone, and has multitouch. but i’d bet this is gonna happen already)