If you're a Playstation or Switch gamer, would you welcome a play anywhere initiative for Sony and Nintendo games?

[ikaben]

I voted no as I think that anything that could hurt the existence of Nintendo should be avoided. Do I think that being mainly a publisher would be bad for Nintendo, not necessarily, but there are so many risks in the industry that I wouldn't want them to take that chance.

And for what exactly? I can already play most of Nintendo franchises anywhere, anytime. Heck I can even play Civilization on the go. And I think that the price of a Switch is a lot less than any decent laptop.

It's s cool that people like to wish or demand certain features from the big 3, but Nintendo is not backed by conglomerate structures that could support their operations in rough transitions. And yes, they do have some solid corporate structure and a good cash reserve, but with this option I feel like Nintendo would lose relevance in the long term, and I'm not comfortable with that.

 

[12Danny123]

I think the verdict on how viable it is business wise is still very much up in the air and the adoption rate of streaming platforms like xCloud, PS Now, Googles project stream and others coming in the next few years will determine how companies like Nintendo and Sony see's value outside their own hardware platforms.

It makes a ton of business sense to be able to sell your products to potentially 100+ million more people instead banking everything around the 100 million buying them right now, making games available through new channels could allow that. Hardware is becoming ambiguous for many tasks in our lives with services providing more choice on how we want to engage with content, so there is no reason why this can't work for games like it did with Music, Movies and TV.

I'm super curious where gaming is headed and it will be interesting to see if a companies unwilling to change like Nintendo will struggle in a service based world.

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To be honest I think the time Nintendo realizes the cloud gaming market they'll be too late.

 

[fiendcode]

I'd like to see Nintendo dip their toes with something like the Switch Online NES App. That's something that wouldn't necessairily hurt their hardware biz (unlike say PC ports of BOTW, Mario Odyssey, MK8D, SSBU, etc) and would be a good value add for NSO subscribers and might even help drive subscriptions. They might also draw subscriptions from people on other devices (Windows, Android, iOS, possibly even Xbox) that don't even have Switch.

To be honest I think the time Nintendo realizes the cloud gaming market they'll be too late.

Click to shrink...

Content is king and Nintendo is basically self sufficient there unlike Amazon, Google, Microsoft, even Sony. They can come super late to streaming (and no doubt they WILL near the end of the line) and still make it work.

 

[12Danny123]

I'd like to see Nintendo dip their toes with something like the Switch Online NES App. That's something that wouldn't necessairily hurt their hardware biz (unlike say PC ports of BOTW, Mario Odyssey, MK8D, SSBU, etc) and would be a good value add for NSO subscribers and might even help drive subscriptions. They might also draw subscriptions from people on other devices (Windows, Android, iOS, possibly even Xbox) that don't even have Switch.


Content is king and Nintendo is basically self sufficient there unlike Amazon, Google, Microsoft, even Sony. They can come super late to streaming (and no doubt they WILL near the end of the line) and still make it work.

Click to shrink...

You can't have one or the other, you need infrastructure AND content. If you don't have a cloud platform for games, then you aren't a competitor. Content is MUCH easier to fill the gap for companies like Amazon, Google and MS compared to infrastructure.

Pretty much every company that enters the game streaming market is at the mercy of Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

 

[fiendcode]

You can't have one or the other, you need infrastructure AND content. If you don't have a cloud platform for games, then you aren't a competitor. Content is MUCH easier to fill the gap for companies like Amazon, Google and MS compared to infrastructure.

Pretty much every company that enters the game streaming market is at the mercy of Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

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Google, Microsoft and Amazon all lease and license cloud services. Nintendo doesn't need to build that inhouse to deliver their own streaming platform, they just buy (rent) it. Just like they can release a console without developing their own APU, screens, batteries, etc inhouse. You can work with vendors to build your platform but Nintendo's in a relatively unique situation where they can deliver content inhouse to almost single handedly drive their platforms. Not many platform holders are in the same spot these days, and virtually none else in gaming are.

 

[Vector]

As long as you have your Switch with you. You don't need to carry your XBox everywhere to play those games anywhere.

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I'm... not sure I understand the meaning of this post Lol

Are you saying somehow Xbox games are more directly accessible than Switch?

 

[IIFloodyII]

I'd be really disappointed if PS5/PS4 games weren't cross-buy.

 

[Rosebud]

I think PS Now will be Sony "play anywhere"

 

[Nostremitus]

Yeah, Nintendo should release their own Ubuntu flavor and offer play anywhere on it.

 

[Gundam]

Other than an having an insecurity over one's platform, I see no actual negative to this for consumers.

 

[SixelAlexiS]

Sad to see so many "No" voters. Not surprised though, because some people really do hate options that don't really affect them.

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Basically... it's for the same reason that we have so few (or none) customizable options on console in terms of resolution, frame cap etc, even on OneX and Pro... ppl just love hating stuff and staying ignorant, pretty baffling.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

Another thread where it is completely baffling to me that anyone would vote no.

 

[Marano]

I'd like to see Nintendo dip their toes with something like the Switch Online NES App. That's something that wouldn't necessairily hurt their hardware biz (unlike say PC ports of BOTW, Mario Odyssey, MK8D, SSBU, etc) and would be a good value add for NSO subscribers and might even help drive subscriptions. They might also draw subscriptions from people on other devices (Windows, Android, iOS, possibly even Xbox) that don't even have Switch.


Content is king and Nintendo is basically self sufficient there unlike Amazon, Google, Microsoft, even Sony. They can come super late to streaming (and no doubt they WILL near the end of the line) and still make it work.

Click to shrink...

I think Nintendo's first party (their IPS) are the strongest in the whole industry ( I'm not sure if that's even arguable), but they're infrastructure isn't all that great, I feel MS has the best balance of content and infrastructure (obviously), while sony has potential too, but for Nintendo to do well in the cloud space I think they'd look into partnering with Amazon and maybe even MS (these things happen even among competitors you know).

 

[Aniki]

With streaming becoming ever more prevalent i think we will be able to play all our games on any hardware we want. It's something i welcome very much.

 

[Drek]

In a fantasy world where that could happen with zero cost? Sure, why not?

In reality, where doing so would require substantial actual work for the companies who don't build their games on what is already bordering on being an Windows PC? Depends on the cost.

If having PC cross play support for Sony/Nintendo games would lead to less optimization on the PS4/Switch version I'd have some concerns. If it didn't produce enough of a finanical payback I'd be overall pretty opposed because 1. I have an investment portfolio, thanks, and 2. both Nintendo and Sony take some decent content/funding risks thanks to their hardware support responsibilities.

In a vacuum it makes perfect sense. In reality it might be a self sustaining value add or it might not, and that's all that really matters here. As hardware generations have lengthened over these past two cycles the value proposition of fixed hardware products has only increased. It is just as legitimate to ask a person wanting cross play of PS4 games why they haven't bought a PS4. Both cost money. One costs a large company a tidy high six to mid-seven figure sum most likely, the other costs an individual a few hundred dollars.

 

[martincrimson87]

That would be great, as it is Sony and Nintendo have gotten 0 USD from me in around 15 years. But I have no trouble giving they money if they sell their games on pc.