The Switch is not another Wii U!

[zorg1000]

A_C_E said:

zorg1000 said:

Price, size & battery life are reasons why Switch likely won't be a replacement for 3DS.........but what happens in 1.5-2 years when Nintendo releases a Switch Lite that is cheaper, smaller & has a longer battery life?

In my opinion, that is when Switch will become the 3DS successor.

True, Nintendo could do that. But don't you think Nintendo is also planning on releasing a dedicated handheld system to replace the 3DS isntead of relying on a home console that would cut Nintendo's product line in half? I mean they could sell a home console AND a dedicated handheld or just combine them both and take away a revenue source. I don't think that's likely, but I could be wrong.

No, they have made it clear that they can not effectively support two seperate hardware lines at once and this problem will continue to grow as their devices become more powerful and require larger development teams, times and costs.

Back in 2014, Iwata talked about this and said that going forward they want to create a single, unified platform similar to iOS or Android, where all or most software can be shared across various form factors.

Also, in the last few years they merged the handheld & consoles divisions of software & hardware so there is no longer a handheld software team and a console software team, there is now simply just a software team. Same for the hardware side of things.

I strongly believe going forward Switch will be the only hardware line they support and they will offer different form factors.

Nintendo Switch-tablet style, hybrid device

Switch Lite-smaller, cheaper, portable only device

Switch TV-cheaper, microconsole, TV only device

That's just an example of what we could see and would essentially be the equivelent of Nintendo's versions of iPad, iPod & Apple TV.