{"id":85155,"date":"2019-02-26T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/02\/talking_point_nintendo_and_microsoft_working_together_isnt_as_crazy_as_you_think"},"modified":"2019-02-26T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T16:00:00","slug":"talking-point-nintendo-and-microsoft-working-together-isnt-as-crazy-as-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/26\/talking-point-nintendo-and-microsoft-working-together-isnt-as-crazy-as-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Point: Nintendo And Microsoft Working Together Isn’t As Crazy As You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"SWITCHCOLLAB\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The whispers<\/a> that Microsoft is preparing to launch games and services on Switch are, in some ways, too fantastical to believe; a dream-come-true for fanboys-and-girls of a certain age. The rumoured deal suggests that the company is planning not only to launch Xbox Live and Game Pass integration, but also to publish \u2018native\u2019 games (including, it has been reported, Ori and the Blind Forest<\/a><\/strong> and Cuphead<\/a><\/strong>) and stream others via the company\u2019s much-hyped Project xCloud platform. It all seems so suspiciously pie-in-the-sky<\/em> that every sliver of new information has us reaching for huge<\/em> fistfuls of salt. The idea that two of video gaming\u2019s giants could come together and collaborate in such a way feels unprecedented, yet you need only glance at the history books to realise it\u2019s really not as outlandish as it first sounds.<\/p>\n

A quick search of this very site yields various complimentary comments<\/a> about Nintendo from Phil Spencer, Microsoft\u2019s Executive Vice-President of Gaming, and how he\u2019s eager to reach gamers on \u2018rival systems\u2019<\/a>. The companies\u2019 US headquarters are just down the road from each other in Redmond, Washington, and Spencer always has warm words<\/a> whenever the topic of Nintendo comes up.<\/p>\n

\"PHILSPENCER\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

This arms-open approach is very different to the previous regime, which designed the original Xbox One and bungled its launch through terrible messaging and a fundamental misread of its audience. While the company\u2019s \u2018always-online\u2019 vision of the future is slowly but surely coming to pass, Microsoft\u2019s effort to position the Xbox once again as a multimedia centre came too soon and involved too many compromises from the point of view of their gaming audience. Consequently, the incredible goodwill the company managed to salvage after the 360\u2019s \u2018red ring of death\u2019<\/a> debacle was squandered through its always-online, Kinect-enabled, secondhand game-foiling foibles.<\/p>\n

Conversely, Sony \u2013 humbled by the mauling it received after launching the PS3 for $599 \u2013 took advantage and raced ahead with PS4. Microsoft stopped officially reporting sales back in 2014, which probably tells you all you need to know, but Sony boasted in January of having sold 91.6 million<\/em><\/a> PS4s to date. While Switch sits at around 32.27 million<\/a>, it launched less than two years ago and shows year-on-year growth while sales of the ageing home consoles are rapidly declining. VGChartz<\/a> estimate that Xbox One has sold over 40 million of its various SKUs, less than half of Sony’s figure. The point is clear; Microsoft has lost this war against Sony.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth remembering that while Xbox 360 \u2018beat\u2019 PS3 last generation, the actual numbers are closer than you might imagine. While hearts and minds were won by that console\u2019s incredible catalogue of third-party games coupled with some strong first-party offerings, the final worldwide sales for 360 and PS3 put them within 4.4 million units<\/a> of each other.<\/p>\n

So, while we tend to look back and laugh at Sony\u2019s incredible hubris<\/a>, PS3 worked its way back to relative sales parity by the end of the seventh generation. While Phil Spencer has been fighting tooth-and-nail to get Microsoft back to those days \u2013 refocusing on core gamers and making an effort to humanise the corporation with a personable style that acknowledges the strengths of the competition \u2013 even the halcyon days of the 360 aren\u2019t the all-conquering benchmark they\u2019re remembered as.<\/p>\n

\"XBONE\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s also<\/em> worth remembering that the Xbox brand has always been a total non-starter in Japan. Its brashness and boldness make it a hard sell in Japan where, thanks to the perception that it\u2019s a big American product clearly<\/em> not designed with the Japanese in mind, it has always struggled. In fact, \u2018struggle\u2019 is too generous a word \u2013 sales are abysmal<\/em>. According to Famitsu<\/a>, just 15,339 Xbox Ones were sold in the country in 2018, bringing its estimated lifetime sales to a paltry 102,931 after five years<\/em>. Microsoft barely even registers in Japan, one of the world’s most important gaming markets.<\/p>\n

This puts Microsoft in an unenviable position: on the one hand, there\u2019s little incentive to even launch<\/em> in Japan \u2013 the expense of shipping, marketing, and the associated costs of supporting the Xbox infrastructure in the country (where, according to Media Create<\/a>, just 68 Xboxes were sold the week ending 17th<\/sup> February, compared to 65,958 Switches) means the company is losing money by simply being<\/em> there. However, if it ever hopes to win over Japanese gamers, Microsoft can\u2019t be seen to abandon the territory, either. Rocks to the left, hard places to the right.<\/p>\n

What if<\/em> there was a way to make inroads into that market that would eliminate much of the expense of selling a big physical box to an audience who historically view it as the physical manifestation of the ignorant, foreign interloper? What if<\/em> Microsoft could sell its games on hardware that isn\u2019t in direct competition with its own product and that\u2019s already been accepted by that audience, not to mention millions of others around the world? Framed in this way, collaboration rumours make more sense.<\/p>\n

Getting games on the lower-spec devices also aligns with Microsoft\u2019s stated intentions. We\u2019ve heard a lot about its plans to branch the Xbox brand out into the cloud and onto a multitude of devices via Project xCloud<\/a> rather than confining it to the physical box under the telly; indeed, Microsoft is already eyeing a future where we no longer buy gaming hardware, but instead pay a monthly subscription, Netflix-style, and play on pretty much anything that has a screen and a connected wireless pad. With all the processing being done server side, lag is a significant hurdle to overcome, especially with certain games and genres, but Microsoft must be relatively confident they can solve this to the satisfaction of a general audience. Control-wise, Switch is virtually 1:1 with Xbox One (analogue shoulder triggers aside), so no problems there, but streaming relies on one factor above all else: a robust internet connection.<\/p>\n

\"RE7Switch\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

In Japan, we\u2019ve seen streaming-only games on Switch from both Ubisoft (Assassin\u2019s Creed: Odyssey<\/a><\/strong>) and Capcom (Resident Evil 7<\/a><\/strong>). The country\u2019s digital infrastructure is lightyears ahead of most other nations, mainly thanks to its smaller footprint on the map, and while North American audiences might be eager for it, the infrastructure in that vast continent is either not fit for purpose or, in some areas, completely non-existent.<\/p>\n

With 5G slowly rolling out, perhaps Microsoft is betting people won\u2019t be reliant on physical<\/em> networks for lightning-fast connection speeds, but if it\u2019s putting all its eggs in the streaming basket, Japan is the place to be while the rest of the world slowly catches up.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also another disconnect Microsoft addresses by publishing on Nintendo hardware. When it purchased British developer Rare back in 2002 for $375 million, its intentions were obvious: hijack some of that lucrative younger demographic from Nintendo to compliment the hardcore crowd it had attracted with the likes of Halo: Combat Evolved<\/strong>. The studio behind huge hits like GoldenEye 007<\/a><\/strong> and family-friendly titles like Banjo-Kazooie<\/a><\/strong> sounded like just the ticket to expand the Xbox userbase.<\/p>\n

\"SEA\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

That plan never really worked, though; at least not to the extent Microsoft wanted. After the hey-day of the \u201890s, where Rare seemed to be utterly<\/em> in sync with Nintendo and its audience, the developer arguably struggled to find its groove with Microsoft and the studio\u2019s madcap, irreverent and inescapably British sensibilities have never truly shone on the Xbox platform. The endearing quirks seem to get polished away and, despite glimpses of its former character, there\u2019s still a perception that the studio doesn\u2019t quite<\/em> fit into Microsoft\u2019s X-shaped box.<\/p>\n

Microsoft knows this; it knows it\u2019s sitting on a gold mine of IP that the majority of its customers simply aren\u2019t very interested in. That isn\u2019t to say no-one<\/em> buys them, but the Venn diagram of Halo, Gears<\/strong> and Forza<\/strong> fans simply doesn\u2019t have enough crossover with gamers who can recite the entire Great Mighty Poo song<\/a>. There\u2019s a rich vein of nostalgia for the company\u2019s retro output which it attempted to mine with the wonderful Rare Replay<\/a><\/strong> compilation but, again, it\u2019s all for nought if the audience for your product is on another console.<\/p>\n

\"RAREREPLAY\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Nintendo gamers skew younger, of course, but there are also the thirty\/forty-something gamers who miss Rare who\u2019ve embraced the convenience of Switch and would jump at the chance to replay Perfect Dark<\/a><\/strong> on a handheld or share Banjo with their kids. Nostalgia for those early polygonal games of the PlayStation\/N64 era is peaking; Rare games would sell by the bucketload<\/em> on Switch.<\/p>\n

And if Microsoft and Nintendo can work things out, they\u2019re only a hop-and-a-jump away from \u2013 whisper<\/em> it \u2013 GoldenEye 007 escaping from its N64-shaped licensing prison. Whether that dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War, could flourish in the modern gaming world is a conversation for another day, but it\u2019s a tantalising possibility.<\/p>\n

Let’s also remember that Microsoft already<\/em> publishes on rival consoles to tap into a different audience; Minecraft<\/a><\/strong> is the perfect example where cross-platform partnerships make financial sense, and a deal with Nintendo is similarly logical. Certain signature series already address the Xbox\u2019s audience perfectly, so there\u2019s far less incentive to put Halo on Switch, for example, and even less likelihood of a \u2018proper\u2019 Mario game appearing on a non-Nintendo system. The Rare angle, though, would seem to be profitable for both<\/em> companies, and that’s why it makes so much sense.<\/p>\n

\"SMMINECRAFT\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

And money is always<\/em> the bottom line. If there\u2019s an opportunity to access a market a company isn\u2019t hitting, principles can go out of the window very quickly \u2013 that\u2019s business. Exclusivity deals that seemed watertight<\/em> can suddenly be bent or broken completely. Think back to illustrious \u2018Capcom Five\u2019, five GameCube exclusives announced back in 2002. Of those games, only P.N.03<\/a><\/strong> remained GameCube-only; one was cancelled outright, while Killer7<\/a><\/strong>, Viewtiful Joe<\/a><\/strong> and Resident Evil 4<\/a><\/strong> hopped over to other platforms. Game director Shinji Mikami famously stated he would quit his job, or \u201ccut off his own head\u201d as the loosely-translated Japanese colloquialism goes, if the latter ever made it to another platform. Within nine months of the GameCube release, RE4 was on PlayStation 2 and with the game coming to Switch in May<\/a> this year, it\u2019s still with us even now; more to the point, so is Mikami-san.<\/p>\n

Even the most unlikely, unholy<\/em> unions can quickly come to pass. If you\u2019d asked a Sega fan at the turn of the millennium if Sonic could ever appear on a Nintendo console, they\u2019d have likely thrown a VMU at you in disgust. By December 2001, though, Sonic Adventure 2<\/a><\/strong> was on GameCube and Sonic Advance<\/a><\/strong> on Game Boy Advance. In the shortest of turnarounds, the greatest of rivals became super pals and the unthinkable was a reality.<\/p>\n

While we doubt we\u2019ll be seeing Microsoft\u2019s top-tier franchises on Switch, or vice versa, stranger things have happened and there\u2019s a lot<\/em> of exciting crossover potential in the future. Who knows \u2013 a Banjo or Master Chief amiibo might not be as crazy an idea as we thought at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

\"BANJO\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The whispers that Microsoft is preparing to launch games and services on Switch are, in some ways, too fantastical to believe; a dream-come-true for fanboys-and-girls of a certain age. The rumoured deal suggests that the company is planning not only to launch Xbox Live and Game Pass integration, but also to publish \u2018native\u2019 games (including, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}