| Mummelmann said: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 terrible 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 convenience of 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. 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. |
Except the trend culminating for the Wii U has little bearing on the Switch given that it's a hybrid device that unifies two userbases and markets in one, your argument here also is a bit back and fourth as you admit 7th gen is an anomly yet try to use numbers from it to back your trend argument. Consumers owning both a handheld and a console is far from a headache for the Switch in fact it's a massive boost, because if PS4 and X1 owners are buying portables then it means NS is being sold to consumers of their competitors as well.
Your argument on the Wii U is as vague as one can get as you keep trying to pin Wii U's faliures on one specific thing which was never even the issue and even then your attempt to link a similar argument to Switch is even weaker because for one it's not hard for Switch to be aimed at both portable and home console gamers as it's the only portable upcoming from any platform holder and will also be the only main platform Nintedo is focused on that can be played in the house as a home console. First drop this vague notion that the Wii U's problem was who it was aimed at because that was never the problem, the problems were several intricate ones ranging from design of the platform, droughts, pricing, marketing, consumer confusion and an unsure approach. The design hampered any approach with the main feature being intutive but was limited and restricted, consumers didn't even know the platform was even out for the good part of two years and those that did didn't know if it was a new platform or an add on for the Wii because of the name and non existent marketing, platform had droughts due to resources needing to be split for it and the 3DS, pricing was not very competitive and Nintendo themselves were unsure how to handle the platform due to taking advice from others instead of doing their own thing. The last part alone is always going to cause problems because Sony had the same issue with Vita, if you don't know how to handle your system it won't take off, these were the problems with the Wii U not focusing on different userbases.
The Switch reveal and even the Tonight Show airing has already done the hard work of establishing the concept of the platform, anyone who watches either of them will know what the concept of Switch is, all that Nintendo needs to do is just push the Switch as a gaming platform with simple marketing as both portable and home gamers know what it's about already. The's no bipolar reaction to it the's only the minority groups of people in forums overthinking statements and bits of footage here and there, Nintendo have simply said Switch is a home gaming system that can be taken with you and the footage so far of the platform has conveyed that nicely, the video showed it's portable function and how it will work on the go because that's a major feature for it and the style of gaming on it is still home console like no matter where you go the's no identity issue here the unit covers both markets in its concept and design and people understand that.
You're free to wait and see all you want but that doesn't mean other people have to cease any discussion of any news that comes out.
