Sony is a different beast. They get by on hardware, third party support, and the strength of their diverse library as a whole. Right now, Nintendo doesn't have that luxury. They haven't had that in a long time.

Zelda is a fantastic game... But so was SM64.

A casual player is as good as anyone else you have your wires crossed here as the only difference between them and a core player is that they don't play everyday or as often BOTW is more casual friendly because it has a pick up and play element to it so you don't really have to keep playing it constantly to have fun from it you can simply mess around for a few hours, hardest Zelda ever doesn't mean jack because the are games out there that are far harder. BOTW in its difficulty is still a forgiving game either way you haven't debunked anything here tbh.

It would be nice to have, sure, but does the PS4 even have that? And it's on pace to sell what? More than the Wii, more than the Game Boy, more than the XBox, more than the NES. 

Maybe you can drive hardware adoption on really good execution and good appeal to the primary gamer demographics. 

I think honestly what's happened is mobile gaming has changed the industry so much, that the new definition and requirement of traditional hardware is actually different. 

My personal read is what's happening is for $50+, the modern audience they want some big screen experiences for that sticker price today. You can't get away with some cute little game for that price anymore because there's 10393938 different smartphone games that are vying for that time now too and they are giving away their entertainment value for free. 

Also I think every household have a large display HDTV has radically altered expectations too. People expect more, it's not the 80s/90s anymore where you could get by with a lot more because the average household had a 25-inch tube 480i TV. 

It's just like the movie business, a lot of people won't pay $12 for a movie ticket + $8 for popcorn/drink to go watch a ... drama or romantic comedy at the theater anymore. It's got to be a big superhero movie or something now. In the 80s/90s, this was different, you got maybe like 3 or 4 "action blockbuster" movies for the entire year, lol. 

And what exactly are you basing this on?

Fair enough. You win.

Nothing cant be compared to Wii Sports, we talking about game that sold 83m and that brought to gaming totally different audience for 1st time ever. Maybe Minecraft in some deegre but thats multiplatform game.

Difference is that Switch is also great and appealing like hardware, same couldn't be said for N64.

Americans really love their zelda. xD

N64 was very appealling hardware, it just was handicapped by the stupid cartridge decision, which for 1996 was devastating to it's chances (see my other thread on this). N64 sold amazing it's first year for example, almost as well as the Wii and PS2 in the US. With far fewer games in a smaller market. People don't realize that. 

Switch lives in era where cartridge constraints aren't nearly as deadly. 

It's like having measles today, you're not going to die from it but a few decades ago ... sayonara. 

Today you can have a 16GB cartridge, which is a good size for relatively cheap. In the N64 days even a dinky little 8MB cartridge cost like $30 for the manufacturer, lol. And there was no digital storage for things like expansion data or digital download either. 

I get the point you were trying to make, but I feel I should point that out. I feel like the N64 could've sold 100 million units itself had it not been crippled by Nintendo's baffling format decision, it had everything else going for it. 

Actually Switch does remind me a bit of the N64, only it won't be nearly as crippled as the N64 was because the format issue is not nearly as big of a deal these days. 

If Nintendo has access to cartridge tech that could store even 500MB for like $3-$4 ... N64 would've killed it that gen. 

You think Wii sports was the only game to expand the gaming audience? And exclusivity is a defining factor?

And yes, you can compare. You can compare any two things. You can compare a grizzly bear to banana pudding if you want. Comparing Super Mario to Wii Sports isn't a huge stretch.

It is a soft launch, you are misinterpreting that word. PS4 in my opinion was also a soft launch. So was 3DS. Soft launch to me is a launch where there aren't a lot of games specifically made for your actual hardware from the ground up, the OS is basically incomplete, a lot of features are being held off for the future, etc. 

Soft launch doesn't mean bad launch though. You can still execute a soft launch well (but execute being the operative word there) ... as both Sony and Nintendo have demonstrated this generation. In fact some of the most successful launches are soft launches ... PS2 in Japan for example comes to mind, that thing basically had nothing for games for like 6-7 months yet it sold like 800k in one day in Japan alone.