To this day, the idea of playing Nintendo games on PC is little more than a feverish delusion. is one of the companies more closed and traditional With regard to platforms: they feed theirs with the best possible catalog, and do not seek to measure themselves face to face with their main market rivals. With the same sincerity we can also say that neither Xbox nor PlayStation were particularly open brands in the past, and now both take their games to the computer (albeit through different policies). Knowing that “the big N” takes a bit longer to hop on the trend bandwagon, would it really be fair to say that it’s impossible see Furukawa and his family adapting to modern times?
Games that can come out of Nintendo
In my humble opinion, the first feature that separates Nintendo from PlayStation or Xbox is that although the latter tend to design the hardware of its consoles thinking of supporting the latest technologies and the needs of developers, the first one does it the other way around: first it goes he gimmick funny of turn, be it playing on two screens or shaking the controller, and then there are games designed to take advantage of these functions in an original way. The Pokémon saga, for example, was created with a laptop in mind and the idea that Japanese kids would have a good time trading creatures with their friends in the park.
But is it so with all company games? No. I think only some games – in the style of Nintendogs, Nintendo Switch Sports o ARMS— make sense as a total console exclusive: the vast majority are perfectly playable on PC or any other system, strictly speaking in design terms. Where I see that Nintendo has a curious opportunity is in some titles that are “best” in are platform. I explain.
ARMS only makes sense on the Nintendo Switch. Metroid Dread could be anywhere.
Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t force you to play with a DualSense controller, but if you have one at home, you can unlock certain special features like haptic feedback. Nintendo already does something similar with some of its games. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess it was released on the GameCube and the Wii; It was the same game in both, but the claim of the second was to be able to move the sword by waving the controller. was “higher” in that sense, but it did not force you to buy the console that was new at the time.
same goes for Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu / Let’s Go, Eevee; games that could be controlled with the Joy-Con or with a Poké Ball accessory that came with the special editions and was designed specifically with this game in mind. And even more modern games like Splatoon 3 o The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have gyroscopic controls 100% optional: if you turn them off, the end result makes sense on any other entertainment hardware.
I don’t think that the entire Nintendo catalog is feasible on PC, but I think that they themselves have shown that they have a free hand to continue designing a very high volume of games for their consoles that are perfectly adaptables a PC.
Free of platforms with 30% commission
Nintendo games coming to PC doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be released on Steam, where Valve rakes in 30% of all sales; not even in the most generous Epic Games (those of Tim Sweeney “only” keep 12% of the income of each article). If eventually this hypothesis ends up being fulfilled, I guess those in red would use own platform to distribute their games, a launcher like that of Rockstar or that of Blizzard Entertainment collecting its catalog.
You can play Pokémon TCG Live on PC from its own launcher.
This does not represent the interests of the players, but it would not be difficult for me to imagine it happening: we are talking about a company that traditionally would not mix its catalog with that of its competitors, and that above all, has gone free in the hateful “console war” to this day. I wouldn’t venture to bet on what kind of services it would offer, and I would imagine it would come with the most basic features imaginable, but it’s something (let’s hope it happens!)
Right now, the most “made in” Nintendo game on PC is Pokémon TCG Live, although that one has a bit of a trap because those from Kyoto only control 33% of the IP: the rest is divided equally between Creatures Inc . and Game Freak. It operates from its own launcher that can be downloaded from the official website, as is the case with many MMOs. All in all, it is already an interesting starting point, and one that more or less goes hand in hand with the next point of the article.
The PC is a terrain to discover for Nintendo
We have it so assumed that we don’t even remember it anymore, but Nintendo stopped sticking to consoles years ago: it has a relatively generous catalog on iOS and Android that continues to expand slowly and inexorably (Pokémon Sleep has been released this week, without going further). I understand that mobile phones are of vital importance to the company because we all carry one with us all the time and that is a huge potential audiencebut I also don’t see the PC as a marginal platform in comparison.
Can Nintendo see charm in a device as complex as a keyboard? | Image: Razer
If you think of DOTA 2, CS:GO, LoL, Valorant, WoW, Minecraft… you’ll see that many of the most populated games in the world are on PC, populated by a more than dedicated audience. It is clear that Nintendo has more interest in the casual gamer, but again, I refer to the possibility of carrying -at least- key titles in the style of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Splatoon 3 along with some solo adventures that fit the platform for one reason or another.
Will we ever see Nintendo games on PC, be they ports of existing games or completely new ones designed with the mouse and keyboard in mind? We will have to see: for now, it is nothing more than a handful of theories and wishes of any consumer. Or a few. But the realities are what they are, and if I have learned anything from covering the video game industry, it is that from time to time you give news of commercial agreements and swerves that you do not expect at all.
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2023-07-20 06:17:14
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