Would dongles and analog sticks that push back be enough?
A couple of nights ago, I had a dream that I was playing an alternate release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD that starred the cast of Seinfeld. There was one bit where Jerry, dressed as Link, was riding some sort of demon bird and used a hookshot to try to steal a battle axe from a burly orc woman. After Jerry got the axe back, he and the orc got feisty and started french kissing. While this re-imaging of Twilight Princess is probably too good to be true, it did get me thinking about what Nintendo might be planning for the series in the future.
Nintendo has been in the practice of releasing two, sometimes three SKUs of each Pokémon title since day one, and lately, the company has applied a variation of that tactic with a few of its other franchises. Sometimes these are simultaneous releases on the same console, like with Fire Emblem Fates. Other times they’re spread across two platforms, like with Hyrule Warriors and Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and the 3DS. Either way, the goal appears to be the same — to give consumers just enough additional content to convince them to buy two different versions of the same game.
It makes me wonder if Nintendo would try this with the upcoming Zelda title for the Wii U, which is also rumored to be coming to the NX. If each iteration shares the same engine, world, and soundtrack, but stars different versions of Link, each with its own story and a few unique weapons and areas to explore, would that be enough to get people to buy the both? If this is direction the game heads down, we can also guess that there would be some unlockable content for those who own both games, and that the NX version would look better and have some console-specific features like push-back analog sticks, thought it’s arguable that some fans wouldn’t even need all that in order to justify a double dip.
Are you one of those fans, or would it take more for you to spend full price for two the-same-but-different The Legend of Zelda games?
