Nintendo's install base shrunk from 250 million in Gen 7 to ~80 million in Gen 8

[Zod95]

the_dengle said:

Zod95 said:

Maybe because they see NS as a "mushed" concept. If NS is the successor of both the WiiU and 3DS it's just natural to sum home console + handheld sales on each generation.

PS4 was not the successor of both PS3 and PSP. Your comparison makes no sense.

As for the "Sony's stagnation" that's just false. Who did you see here calling stagnation if NS sells 250M (Wii + DS sales)?

I literally used Turkish's own words. I never referred to the 250 million so I don't know where you got that.

Bolded is inherently flawed logic. No, it is not natural to combine sales of two different platforms in this context.

The discussion is about "install base," yes? But "Nintendo install base" combining Wii U and 3DS sales is nonsense. It's as meaningless as "Sony install base" combining PS4 and Vita sales. Install base measures the size of the potential customer pool for software sales. Two distinct systems with different development processes and software libraries have no business being mushed together into one "install base" pool. Hell, the install base of a single platform is only indirectly related to its total hardware sales, since systems like the 3DS have multiple models and people often buy a second or third one. 3 console sales to the same person does not represent 3 separate customers.

Put into a simple example, Wii sold 100 million and Mario Galaxy sold over 10 million. 3DS sold 65 million and 3D Land sold over 10 million. Wii U sold 13 million and 3D World struggled to sell 5 million even with bundles. Odyssey is only one game, it didn't cost twice as much to make just because the platform is now a hybrid. The benefit is that the team who makes it can then make a second game for the same flourishing platform instead of having to support a failing platform that has no hope of producing a sales success.

But according to your sig as recently as a few weeks ago you predicted 20 million sales for the Switch over 3 years so I can see why you would bend over backwards to move those goalposts.

I got that from 2 gens before NS (Wii + DS) just like the 150M (PS2) is from 2 gens before PS4. Sure PS3 and WiiU were disappointments. But even those shouldn't be erased from comparisons.

As for the rest, so much talk and no real (on-topic) substance. Those factors apply to any console, hybrid or not. The point is, if (and only if) NS also replaces 3DS, it makes no sense to compare its sales to the previous home consoles. Summing up console + handheld might be a bit unfair (due to overlap) but to disregard handheld completely would be ultra unfair.

Regarding my sig, I still believe it will be only 20M for the simple reason that I'm not expecting NS to replace 3DS. All my reasoning in this tread has been assuming the opposite and in that sense 80M won't represent a success. If Nintendo launches a new handheld soon and NS sells 80M anyway, then I will consider it a clear success.