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Soundwave on 21 January 2017
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bunchanumbers said:
Soundwave said:

Why would anyone even want that?

Even if what you want is cheaper/smaller ... ok, the Tegra X1 can be die shrunk to be made smaller. 

There's no point in making an entirely new platform that starts from zero again ... at least this way you'd be able to play Mario Odyessy, Splatoon 2, Zelda: BotW, Dragon Quest XI, Mario Kart 8, Pokemon Stars, and a myriad of other games right from the get go. 

This is the 3DS successor. It might take a revision for some people to get a smaller version, but I've said it many times I bet once people get used to playing on a bigger 6.2 inch screen, they're not going to want to go back. Same things happens with the 3DS XL/DSi XL, some people at first said that was way too big, well it turns out it outsells the smaller model big time. 

Once people get used to the bigger display, especially when you get to this level of graphics, wanting some rinky dink smaller display isn't going to appeal to a lot of people IMO. Tablet is the form factor people like, even kids. When I have my little cousins over they fight over who gets to the play the iPad first, 3DS and Vita are relegated to the "loser". They like that big screen. 

The pocket is for the smartphone. The other pocket is for the wallet. 3DS/Vita are never going to get into either, going upmarket with a tablet like design I always felt was the only reasonable thing to do. 

Nintendo themselves said that this is a home console. If they shrink down Switch they will need to make it work with existing Switch peripherals including smaller joycons. It would be awkward or they will have to take away joycons altogether and fuse the controls to the tablet itself.

Too much hassle. Nintendo will probably make a new 3DS successor that can play Switch games on a smaller screen.

There are multiple ways to do this. You could even just take their Joycon grip design, flatten the joysticks (like the 3DS has) and make that the "bottom half" of a clamshell portable. You could make the middle portion a bit wider if you want. 

 

Slide in/out the Joycons just like you would for a normal Joycon grip. There you go, now you have a clamshell portable that can accomodate all Joycons. 

Once you can die shrink that Tegra X1 to 10nm or even 7nm ... you can fit it into basically anything. 

Making an entirely "new" 3DS system with its own architecture that has to start from a library of 0 and splits up their development teams is far more hassle.