Email: Sony’s Next System

Howdy!

In one of you latest posts (5/23), you were discussing the future of MS and the XBox – you signed off that posting with, “Sony is stuck in a box…    …[they will] make a Switch like product”, which is something I can totally see happening and completely agree with (I might have even suggested such a think in a previous email to you). My question though is, how powerful can they possibly make a portable product?

Sony’s advantage through the years has always been POWER, POWER, and more POWER in their consoles – that’s what their ‘hardcore’ base has always demanded and has always been the first thing those same moronic ‘hardcore gamers’ like to point out, when comparing Sony and Nintendo products. Do you see them possibly coming up with a portable system that could blow the Switch away, with specs? Or, isn’t it more than likely that (unless there is some MAJOR advancement in technology), that any portable system they make will have less power than the PS4? Will we once and for all, see a generation of similar hardware where only the games will make the difference?

And let me clarify that question, in that of course it’s always been about the games – but Nintendo hasn’t always been able to replicate the same library of games that other consoles have, mostly due to compatibility restrictions because their systems having been consistently underpowered when compared to others – but if neither console is lightyears ahead of the other in the graphics department, then there would be no reason to only port a game to one console over the other. So, first party should become the only differentiator, right?

Keep up the great work!!

 

The Unreal Engine on the Switch has done more for third party Switch support than we will ever know.

Here’s another way to look at Nintendo hardware.

On home consoles, Nintendo used to do “MORE POWER” type tagline for their hardware. However, this stopped when Sega dropped out of the home consoles. Nintendo never did MORE POWER anymore.

Nintendo’s history of handhelds had a straight design… with the exceptions being the DS and 3DS. What else is in that exception? Sony as a handheld competitor. With Sony out of the handheld space, Nintendo returns to the straight design of a single screen and less doodads.

Is it all correlation and coincidence? I don’t know. Something to consider.

Sony’s ‘advantage’ is their leverage of being an entertainment company. Sony throws in its movies, music, etc. all on its game systems. Sony was crippled in the handheld systems not because of Nintendo but because of Apple. Apple made the video iPod and then iPhone. The smartphone revolution destroyed Sony’s handhelds. It did not destroy Nintendo.

I see Sony in a tough space. Aside from Nintendo leveraging handheld side to work for them in the home console space, Sony is directly competing with PC gaming. Add in the growing irrelevance of the television in the living room, Sony needs to get out of a shrinking hole.

I’d like to see PC gaming disrupt Sony’s home console for a change.