Nintendo may be stranded at sea with the home console market, but we all know they still rule the roost when it comes to the handheld. So, what it Nintendo were to merge the home console with their renowned handheld talents? What if Ninty created a handheld console that could be placed in a dock station, giving it the ability to transform from handheld to home console?
SNK have already released a handheld dock station concept. As long as it’s not patented, Nintendo could build on this design for their next console
Confused? Look above to see a similar idea with the current Neo Geo X. See how the handheld connects up to form a home console? That’s what Nintendo can grab and run with (to be honest, how many other companies have yoinked Nintendo’s ideas over the years, eh?).
The best of both worlds
Nintendo’s new dock station handheld could offer cartridge game compatibility with the handheld itself, but then download-only games once the handheld is docked to the main console. Travel and play (handheld). Sit down in front of your home TV and play (dock station).
The only issue would be handheld cart capacity. 3DS carts can store up to 8GB each. Nintendo could up this but if it led to a major cost hike, they could simply keep larger and more graphically demanding games to the docked set-up.
Satoru Iwata announced plans to move to mobile and PC gaming. As well as a clue on hardware, this also allows Nintendo to save cash with digital-only releases. These savings can be invested back into new console R&D. Good news, indeed.
Digital friendly
The Wii U had the major flaw of not providing players with enough hard drive space. Nintendo can easily eliminate this issue by allocating at least 500GB storage to the dock station, and/or by making it fully upgradable with laptop hard drives.
This would mean that both the handheld and dock station would need storage. Certainly not cheap or easy to design, but once again, Nintendo’s non-essential look at DVD/Blu-ray playback would provide extra space and cut back on production costs, anyway.
The Smartphone
Satoru Iwata recently announced plans to focus on smartphone and PC games. This now drastically increases the chances of their next console release being a Nintendo smartphone. So, what if that dock station handheld was just that? A smartphone!
Let us know what you think?. Make no mistake, this will be Nintendo’s most important decision since launching the NES!
