That would surprise me.
First, I think a lot of adamant Nintendo fans overvalue many of Nintendo's IP. We saw with the Wii U that Mario & Company are not going to turn a home console into a hit property on their own. Pokemon might become the exception to that but, on the other hand, casuals might have had their fill with Pokemon GO.
Second, we have to think about the baseline of the Switch regarding dedicated Nintendo fans. It's not handheld + home console by any means. Many of those handhelds and home consoles belonged to the same households and I would wager that a fair number of households owned multiple handheld units. However, we're not going to see many households with multiple Switch(es? I'm starting to hate this name).
That means, for Nintendo to reach those numbers, that they're going to have to win over new customers, something they've been failing at for awhile.
And what's going to win those new customers? As a home console, the Switch probably won't have the best graphics or the best resolution. It probably won't have the quality and quantity of third-party support enjoyed by the competitors. It will have Pokemon coming from the handheld side but, honestly, that's about the only handheld property that will make a mass market difference in the west.
On that front, I don't see it putting much of a dent in the popularity of the PS4+XO. I don't think it's going to drag many people away from those ecosystems.
As a handheld, things are somewhat better, mostly because there is no current gen competition. That flip side there is that I'm not so sure people really want a large dedicated gaming tablet. Is it going to replace the tablets people already carry around with them? Are parents going to let kids stuff it into their backpacks and take it to school with them? Decreased convenience compared to previous Nintendo handhelds is a layer of competition it will have to deal with.
Eh. That's a lot of words. I'll put it more simply:
- Nintendo is going to have trouble winning new customers.
- PS4/XO are going to be more popular for people primarily looking for a home console solution.
- As a handheld the Switch is less accessible than the DS-line and that will hurt it.
- I feel like the whole endeavor is riding on Pokemon.
Basically, I think it will do okay. Existing Nintendo fans will buy it. It has Pokemon and Zelda might rise to new heights as a franchise. I just don't see this hardware design growing the customer base by a large amount. If the Switch is going to be a "smash hit" then it's going to need several new IP that blow up big and draw in people for whom Nintendo's traditional properties don't really do much.
