This just my feeling now having had the system since launch, and showing it to friends and seeing how they react to it. I think Switch can bring in a "new audience" (for Nintendo), but it's not going to be the typical audience we think of when talking about Nintendo this way, in fact I think it might even surprise Nintendo (just as the PS4's success has surprised Sony in many ways). 

I think the "additive" new audience the Switch is actually going to tap into are older 28-40+ year old gamers people who typically would buy a Playstation or XBox. I'm not talking "lapsed gamers" either, I'm talking about people who can game just fine and have all their lives, they're just older now. The person who bought a Playstation at age 16 in 1996 would today be 36/37, life changes a lot in those 20 years. 

So why Switch? Because the Switch I'm finding the real draw of its design is that it works well for people who love games but don't have the fucking time to game anymore. When you are past 26/27/28, you have a full time job now, are married usually or in a commited relationship that takes up time, you have kids or kids are coming, etc. etc. etc. You have 1000 things sitting on your PVR that you promised you would watch but haven't gotten around to and another 1000 things on Netflix you've been meaning to get around to. 

You love games, but the fact is they are a time consuming and demanding hobby. Enter Switch. No it doesn't have the graphics of a PS4, buuuuut PS3/360 graphics still look decent and can still give you a decent enough game of Skyrim or Zelda or NBA2K or GTAV or MGS. It's such a flexible device that you can get in quick gaming sessions without having to revert back to the 3DS, which lets be honest feels like a toy in comparison to the Switch and doesn't allow for TV gaming (not that you'd want to anyway with that chipset). 

I can actually see Nintendo getting 15-20+ million extra gamers from this category ... what typically would be Playstation or XBox territory, but as you get older, real life sets in and you just don't have the time. This audience has a large amount of disposal income and they do love games so there's no hoops Nintendo needs to jump through, what this audience doesn't have is time. They don' have the time to play games like they did when they were 19 years old. I have a PS4 and XB1 but I just don't have time to play them. It just feels like a chore to go down to the game room, start the system up (which usually entails a firmware update of several minutes) and then settle in, and by that time my fiance is usually yelling at me to check on something. Switch on the other hand, I find little pockets of 15-20 minutes where I can play, no problem (yes even on the toilet, I'm not ashamed to say).

You add that extra userbase to what the 3DS + Wii U sold (subtracting 9 million or so for people who bought both) and you are getting pretty close to that magic 100 million number a lot of people here are obsessed with, also consider every new gen brings in a new generation of kids. 

Yeah, Nintendo's realized this.  That kind of thing was prominently featured in their initial reveal.  Playing when waiting for a plane and stuff like that.

But, when you do the math at the end, you're assuming that these people didn't buy a 3DS, and I know a lot of people who fit this category who did.  Even if they weren't going to play it all that much, it was cheap enough to be an impulse buy that they got for a few games.

If Nintendo's going to reach 100 million, that's not going to be enough.  They're going to need to either siphon off from the core PSBox audience (which would be difficult) or appeal to the mainstream as the Wii did.  

Eh, I'd say (excluding children) Nintendo's core audience is/was already older than Sony/MS's and in that 28-40 age group, I wouldn't say it's a new age group to tap into nor a new set of people for nintendo as surely the 3ds would have suited this need of not having much time too.

So I really wouldn't call this a new audience.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo succeed or fail in getting a wider audience for Switch. My main worry is having Nvidia as a business partner who have been very unreasonable in the past. If there is anything that could potentially limit the success of Switch it is a sour relationship between these 2 parties. I think the wider audience will come at a lower price point but will Nvidia allow it? I think current pricing is for real Nintendo enthusiasts and while I accept it may have appeal beyond that the end user has pretty much got to love Nintendo games currently to buy the format, you aren't buying it for third party support.

I disagree.

Time is going to be treated as a black or white subject - You do or do not have enough time to game. That's it and new consoles wont be bought. There is nothing about Nintendo Switch that obviously infers "This will increase my gaming time" vs Just making it portable/ease os use, even when theoretically being portable could result in more game time, but if you already believe you dont have time you wont investigate.

I remember reading accounts from the team who developed the PS4 who were at that infamous E3 where it was announced. They said they were quite nervous heading in until the price point of the Xbox1 was revealed, at which point they all instantly began jumping for joy and celebrating with one another as they knew they'd already won.

That price point... it's pretty damn important lol

Otherwise, I feel the group you're describing has already been with Nintendo, though more might return to them than did with the Wii U. Really, Nintendo has long done well with kids and adults; the one group they've really been lacking dating back to the transition from the Snes to the N64 are the mid/late teens and early 20's crowd. That's the one they need to win some support back from for once, and hopefully they can; unfortunately, though, Nintendo really doesn't have the kind of games that usually appeal to those types (primarily shooters/darker adventure games/cutting edge (by console standards) graphics), so they'll certainly need 3rd party support going forward.

Yeah im willing to bet thats pretty true, a lot of Nintendo fans that i know in real life and even the ones i know on the internet (from forum people to youtubers) tend to be older than me as well. (of course i dont really have any statistics but its just the perception i have).

I kind of agree. I'm 34 and while still an avid PC/PS4 gamer, I have gone exclusively to smartphones for my mobile gaming. I feel the Switch will pull me back, particularly with racing games like Fast Neo and MK, as racing games never felt good to me with smartphone controls. I still want my portable racing fix however. (Sorry though, I don't think I could bring myself to play on the toilet :P )

That ps2, PS3 and Xbox 360 group aren't going to to by Switch because of what you said. You basically described the casual gamer. The casuals play PS4. Switch will appeal to the Wii U/3ds crowd. I'm 33, with a 3 year old and a full time job. I play my PS4 here and there. I have no desire to get a switch. Just my opinion

The main problem with that is that Nintendo consoles don't have the games that interest the 30+ gamers. Nintendo has never really tried to court older gamers with the kind of games they want.