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Nuvendil on 27 October 2016
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spemanig said:
Nuvendil said:

Well I think the Pro is what they want to avoid.  Playstation has got it going on, there's no stopping that.  Xbox, as a brand, is on more shaky ground and the Scorpio is a long ways away so I think they may be intentionally avoiding the Pro and getting ahead of the Scorpio.  Basically, they gotta pick one to compete with for mindshare and the Xbox brand is 1) more vulnerable and 2) the Scorpio is a long ways away.

Also, it's hard to promote something during the holidays that isn't launching during the holidays.

Wait, what?

I don't think those platforms have anything to do with it. I think it's literally just that Nintendo wants to dominate headlines all 2017, and they are starting in early January with Switch. Nintendo has set up 2017 a lot with the Switch's hardware launch, the rumored dense software line up, mobile games, Amiibo, other merch., film and television announcements, and news on their new theme park. I think Nintendo wants to get people excitedly talking about Nintendo all year round to spread brand awareness.

They've already been gaining good word of mouth this year because of things like Pokémon Go, the NES Mini, and of course now the new Nintendo Switch reveal. That's probably going to explode again because of Super Mario Run, which is going to be huge in terms of giving Nintendo momentum heading into January. I wouldn't be suprised if it was released like a week before Christmas. Having the most iconic character in video games reintroduced to pop-culture supremacy on the most ubiquitous platform in the world mere weeks before the release of the future of Nintendo in terms of hardware will be huge. Nintendo having a Switch-focused event on the heels of that momentum will be immensely valuable, especially if the news in terms of hardware is good. Especially if Nintendo hits that pricing sweet spot. Especially if the exclusive games are as hot and plentiful and densely released as we've been lead to believe. Especially if Nintendo's multiplatform support is as good as Nintendo wants us to believe.

2017 sure will be an exciting year.

I have no doubt about their plans for 2017, I've been saying that.  Just pointed that out in this thread, that the short window gives them a chance to keep hype at a fever pitch.

But there's no dobut in my mind whatsoever that the Pro and Scorpio has entered their thought processes.  For one, if their early add is anything to go buy, they are targeting your general gaming audience, not the "non-gamers" or "casuals."  So they are going to have more audience overlap with Sony and Playstation than with the Wii.  Now their targettting of that audience is indirect via refocusing on convenience rather than raw brute force, but the reality is consumers have only so much money.  So I have no doubt Nintendo has considered the fact they want to time the release to avoid being overshadowed by the PS4 and get a jump on the Scorpio since there's only so much spending the general consumer base for dedicated hardware will be doing in 2017.  This next event is their blowout.  The trailer was just about reserving some mind share so that people have it in their mind that "hey, that looks cool" so that the main event gets maximum attention.  The main event will be about fighting for dominant mindshare.  make no mistake, Nintendo doesn't want to have that ammo wasted in, say, November since it would all be fighting with PS4 et al's holiday hype machine.

I don't think that's their main reasoning for the timing - I elaborated on that here and elsewhere - but it would be foolish to think it's not a part of their logic.