Only Minecraft and Street Fighter for May? Can Switch sell well this month?

[Zod95]

zorg1000 said:

Zod95 said:

I'm very busy these days, I have very little time to answer and I focus on what I believe it's worth arguing. I don't mean to ignore any of your comments.

Battery life can be improved and revisions do appear, but it's not that simple. If it was, PSP would have sold much more than DS. A console must be born with a purpose and stay laser-focused on its niche. X360 for example had a ton of wonderful arcade downloadable games. That was not its focus. Those games could not eat market share from the Wii's casual market. Same thing with PS3's Move (which was even better than Wii Motion). Switch is a home console and will always be seen as that. How many consoles do you know that have been able to change their marketing orientation along the way?

This claim does contradict the vision you talked about: "We are thinking of ways that we will be able to continue bringing portable gaming systems out".

What do you mean by great/terrible marketing? You're referring to what?

In my opinion, the WiiU had a good concept and it was easy to understand. In just a few words: 2-screen gameplay. The droughts came when PS4 and XOne appeared. Switch has a good concept but it's not as easy to understand. I had to see its initial trailer several times to fully comprehend it. And it will have droughts, believe me. When PS5 and Xbox 4 appear, they will make the same shadow to Switch that PS4 and XOne did to WiiU.

@bolded, I have no idea how you came to that conclusion or how its relevant to the discussion.

The purpose/concept wouldnt have to change, the main goal of Switch is to consolidate their home & handheld audiences and software output onto a single unified platform. Currently they have a single device that acts as both because that is the easiest way to demonstrate the concept. Later on, once the concept of Switch is firmly established than they can release seperate devices that cater to the individual audiences.

For example,

Switch Go-5" screen, built in controls, 4-8hr battery life, $199.99

Switch TV-microconsole form factor w/Pro Controller, $199.99

These devices will still have the same branding & same software, its just giving consumers more options if they prefer one style over the other.

Great/terrible marketing as in Wii had extensive advertsing found everywhere& had an easy to understand concept while Wii U was primarily advertised on kids networks and nowhere else & the majority of people either didnt realize it existed or thought it was an expensive tablet add-on for Wii.

2 screen gameplay worked great for DS because both screens are in your line of sight simultaneously. It did not work great for Wii U because you had to constantly look from one screen to the other making it only useful for a map/inventory screen that you only had to glance at seldomly.

Wii U droughts happened instantly. It had a solid amount of launch titles but no notable 1st party titles until 9 months later and only a handful of 3rd party titles in that time frame.

It seems like you are arguing for the sake of argument because many of the things you are arguing against are undeniable facts.

Before PSP, the world only knew GBA-level graphics (can it be compared to SNES?). The handheld experience was 2 generations behind. People associated portable gaming with 2D graphics heavily pixialized. With PSP, peopel saw their PS2 experience in a handheld. That was mind-blowing. PSP's initial sales were strong but there was a problem: the console had a short battery life and the games it offered were not what the portable gaming experience used to be. People began to realize that they could have the same experience in a bigger screen and with a better controller (the home consoles). PSP had no purpose. As a result, it did not crush DS. On the contrary, DS crushed PSP. Even with all the console revisions, PSP could not turn the tide. Even with all the efforts Sony made to give PSP more casual games, the distance to DS did not stop to increase. A console must be born with a purpose.

That separate device strategy is an interesting prediction. And if that happens, I think that Nintendo has a shot to make the Switch a huge success. I just don't think that's the most probable scenario. Like the PSP was crushed between a cheaper PS2, a more evolved PS3 and a more portable DS, I think that Switch will most probably be crushed between a cheaper PS4, a more evolved PS5 and the more disseminated tablets and smartphones.

Regarding the WiiU, you make some good points but I just don't agree with the "droughts" part. It only seems that the Wii didn't have droughts because Wii Sports and Wii Play were top sellers for many months. They carried the Wii along the way. NSMB and Nintendo Land couldn't do the same for the WiiU, so people were eager for more titles (which could become the console's saviors). When you're waiting, time slows down and you begin to see droughts where you couldn't see before.

I'm not arguing for the sake of it. I actually think we're going too far and that we should agree to disagree on some points, and let the time show who's right.