| Wyrdness said: Sales of all formats are down from 7th gen because the 7th gen itself was an anomaly because of the premature jump to HD as well as the blue ocean explosion which brought in tonnes of new gamers into the market. Gen 8 is simply the market normalizing as the gen's performance is in line with all other gen, the evidence you're citing isn't consumers looking elsewhere it's simply the market returning to it's usual size. Why would handheld gamers want a hybrid? Because it gives them one unified library and access to the console offerings with out the need of having to go out and purchase another platform, the library output essentially increases. Your question about Nintendo games not being popular on tablets and such is odd because Pokemon Go highlighted the first party having strong effects on such devices, you ask why tech minded consumers would pick it over the competition because the competition already lack the portability feature who knows what else the platform does. The simple prospect of playing console like games such as Skyrim or even Dark Souls conveniently on the go in itself is a potential huge factor. Why would Wii U fans like the Switch? The same reason they bought any other Nintendo platform it's the only place to get the games they're after, who Switch is aimed at? Anyone who is a potential gamer in both home and portable gaming. Wii U's mistake wasn't trying to appeal to different demographics far from it, the mistake was the overall handling of the platform, if you watch DYK Gaming's video of it you realize Nintendo weren't sure on what to do with it in the run up to release. This was because Nintendo were handling the platform based on what other entities were saying they should do and not doing their usual approach of doing their own thing, this lead to wayward pricing, consumer confusion and non existent marketing all of which were on top of the struggle of them developing for two separate gaming platforms. You can already see in the Switch the is a vast improvement, all you need for a reference is watch the Wii U reveal and then watch the Switch reveal, the difference is as clear as day in the handling. Your point about the Wii is undermined because no developer back then even had talk for it, the platform's success took everyone by surprise, it's far more beneficial for developers to be on board early on to test the waters then miss thew gravy train after it has left the platform and try and catch up with it. At least if the platform doesn't take off it's far less costly to just continue on as normal then try and switch approaches to jump on a success you had no plans for. |
Yes, the 7th gen was indeed an anomaly, but that causes a problem for your bits about Switch sales potential. If one treats the 7th gen, and therein the DS and Wii, as anomalies, one has to see the whole line of consoles in succession, and it becomes clear that when the anomaly is accounted for, the trend is that Nintendo have been losing more and more users in the home console space, the culmination being the Wii U with around 15 million lifetime sales.
Furthermore, if you look at the DS's best selling games and Wii's best selling games, you'll see quite a few of Nintendo's core franchises sold really well on these platforms, so the argument that Nintendo gamers will keep on buying Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games that they can't get elsewhere isn't a valid one seeing as the sales of the same franchises on 3DS and Wii U were much, much lower. So, a large part of the consumers who bought these franchises have simply stopped buying them at all, it's not just the blue ocean strategy at work, this is about something else; gamers are willing to change their habbits and go elsewhere. Alternately; these are all of them fringe consumers (highly unlikely) who bought the titles due to the massive exposure, in which case these aren't customers to rely on at any rate, the reasoning matters little when the end result is significantly less sales overall.
If we look further into the 7th gen as an anomaly, we can conclude that the vast majority of the expanded audience has gone elsewhere, it's also easy to discern that this consumer base was by far the most beneficial to Nintendo, it is therefore not a stretch to claim that without these, their sales outlooks are looking far, far worse. The PSP is also a part of this equation; it sold pretty well, over 80 million units, the Vita is set to sell well below one quarter that amount, what happened to these customers? Are they buying PS4's and One's in droves? Hardly, the sales figures don't really reflect that anyway (but they could be, who knows). Are they simply foregoing handheld gaming in favor of home consoles and most of them were owners of both a handheld and a home gaming system? Perhaps, then the trend is clear; the portable factor, especially for "big gaming", is near to non-existant as a purchasing incentive, which causes further headache for the Switch and its (apparent) plans.
Have some or many of these handheld owners in the 7th gen been fringe consumers who are easily swayed into "lower" forms of gaming? Then mobile, tablet and social gaming is where its at and another Vita-esque game catalogue won't change those habbits easily and reclaim these consumers.
Handheld consumers want a hybrid due to shared library? The DS didn't have that, yet it sold more than any other handheld in history, the Vita had "big games", the kind we usually see on home consoles, and has sold horribly despite this, handheld gamers, or the handheld part of multiplatform gamers, seem really disinterested in home gaming on the go if this is anything to go by, so a shared library is mostly for the developers' convenience.
I never asked why Nintendo games aren't popular on tablets and phones, I specifically said "Nintendo-like games", how many runaway hits on mobile and tablets play like Mario Kart, Smash Bros, New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Galaxy or Zelda? I'd like to say zero, controls are simplified, mechanics are made to suit 10 minute bus rides and, perhaps most importantly; everything is dirt cheap.
The same goes for the typical PS and Xbox games, gaming like this just isn't a factor in the mobile sector and the Switch is highly unlikely to change this. Games like Fallout or Skyrim on a 6 inch, 720 display with tiny attached controllers or even flailing motion controllers, on the go? No, just no, these are immersive titles that play sight and sound and player driven narratives that affect the whole experience in total, they were never made to be mobile or tablet games at all. But, hey, Bethesda like milk as much as any other developer, it seems.
One could make a case for Zelda games on handhelds, but the handheld versions are quite simplified and Zelda setting, narrative, visual style and overall feel was always easier to translate to smaller formats, and dedicated handhelds are a pretty big step up from mobile and tablet gaming.
Tech minded consumers will not want "big gaming" on a tiny 6 inch, 720p screen with tiny controllers, on the go. For them, the portable factor is probably the least relevant bit of gaming, these are people who have large, expensive TV's, sound systems and who generally spend more money than most on their hobbies. These are probably the shoe-in consumers for the PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio, if they're gonna play console games. In other words; consider them a non-factor for the Swicth. The prospect of playing games like Skyrim and Dark Souls on the go is likely to be the worst idea the Switch has right now, big immersive AAA titles do not translate well to small displays with limited control options and poor sound, the 720p resolution in portable mode won't help either. I personally think this type of game will tank hard, or simply be played at home, which makes is very likely to be played on another platform to begin with.
Why would Wii U fans buy the Switch, because it's the only place to play Nintendo games, but as we already established; plenty of gamers seem fine with foregoing Nintendo games since the 7th gen, anomaly or not. Not to mention the smaller and smaller numbers since the NES disproving this line of reasoning easily, again discounting the anomaly you and I both agree on, the Wii U is the ultimate proof that this is backwards thinking. This idea that Nintendo fans will stick by their side through thick and thin is already showing cracks, a lot of Nintendo fans are really angry and feel like Nintendo have tumbled downhill for many years now, not giving what was promised and generally half-assing even their own concepts. They are also losing customers due to their insistence on staying behind on practically anything tech related as well as online features and gaming and digital distribution. Favoring cartridges or SD cards over bigger internal storage that gives the possiblity for more digital games? That's not terribly clever for the handheld bit, and buying your own storage for storing digital games is hardly fair, and won't be very well received in a market where both 500 and 1000GB of storage is becoming the norm. The seeming focus on the tablet bit could end up hampering the capabilities of the home gaming bit, with these things in mind, among others.
So they're aiming for both home console gamers and handheld gamers, like the Wii U aimed for core and casual gamers with their tablet controller. So one device is trying to cater to two or more different demographics, that's exactly what the Wii U tried and failed to accomplish.
The Switch seems more poised than the Wii U in almost every way though, but it has identity issues already. Nintendo insist on calling it a home gaming system, yet the teaser had heavy focus on portable elements, these portable scenarios were either poorly depicted or downright ridiculous (playing NBA multiplayer on an actual basketball court with several tiny screens and tiny controllers in hand), waving your arms around with motion controller Skyrim on an airplane, wearing cheap headphones and staring into a 6 inch display. They refuse to call it a hybrid and have not yet confirmed that it's the successor to both the Wii U and 3DS. So, it's a home gaming system with majority focus on portable aspects, yet it's not a hybrid or a handheld console, it didn't show a speck of online play or other features and chose instead to show young, hip proffessionals playing handheld games in completely ludicrous settings, no longer aiming at families or children (mostly ignoring "casuals", as it were). They seem almost to be aiming at the PS and Xbox crowd and believe they can lure them out into the sun with a handheld option for regular, home console gaming.
The Switch reveal is bipolar, it shows a home gaming system that is barely meant for home gaming, that's a slight marketing challenge from the beginning. But, yes, overall, the presentation is better than the Wii U, by a fair margin at that. The Wii U's main problem was the Gamepad, it sent signals that they wanted tablet gamers to join in, it had poor resolution, awkward button layout, poor battery time and couldn't even be bought separately so more than one gamer per console could use one, instead making them use Pro controllers or Wii-motes. So the local multiplayer machine that touted its controller as the second coming never actually allowed actual, local multiplayer with more than one person using said controller... They aimed at me and you and they aimed at kids playing their phones and tablets in bed or on the bus, and it failed in spectacular fashion.
As for the Wii's lack of support; that's a fair point, it was never expected to take off the way it did, but there should at least be some basis for support for the successor after a runaway hit and sweet words were spoken of the Wii U by developers, much like we're hearing about the Switch right now.
My one, overarching point in these bloated posts is simple; let's wait and see what actually happens and not go crazy over a list of names, some rumors and some fairly paltry fare from a couple of major studios for now. It's too early to tell. I for one, hope the Switch gets good support and sells a decent amount, even should I end up not getting one myself, I'm not fond of the idea of Nintendo leaving the consoles space as a hardware manufacturer, for several reasons.
I find it strange that several users are seemingly trying to appeal to my reason, when I see it as highly unreasonable to be this excited over rumors and a mostly worthless list of names and logos that tell us absolutely nothing about the actual level of support this platform will end up having.
