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bonzobanana on 15 May 2017
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Soundwave said:
bonzobanana said:

We are still in the honeymoon period only 2 months from launch. I would definitely agree the signs are looking positive but we do need to see how the Switch sells once it has sold to it's core audience and whether it extends out towards a more casual audience. At the moment it is supply restricted. I think once we get to about 6 million consoles sold then we can see the sales pattern. 

Also this thing about predicting Switch sales is getting a bid annoying because its often not clear whether we are predicting sales of this mk1 Switch or the whole Switch platform that might run to half a dozen sku's or more going well into the future. It feels to me that the Switch mk1 is more like the DS and a revised cheaper Switch  more equivilent to DS lite will be the larger success story. So for example the 25 million above seems very high for the mk1 Switch  but very low for the Switch platform as a whole. I mean many years from now there could be a Switch filling the shoes of a the original 2DS price point, offering only original Switch portable performance with a smaller screen aimed directly at children and selling in huge numbers in multiple colours and possibly special editions.

A customised tegra processor based on a later fabrication process could be used in Switch mk2 and general improvements all round (except possibly screen size which I think may reduce slightly) could be a far better product. It's fairly obvious Nintendo were a bit uncertain about Switch success and kept R&D to minimal levels even using a standard Tegra chipset without modification with the only real innovation being the new vibration which in fact doesn't seem that important to Switch's launch success and was more a software innovation anyway using existing technology. I personally think we could see the revised model by 2018 especially if there is a significant but small slowdown in sales. 

If 3DS can sell 65 million, why can't the Switch at least do that? 

Any comparison to the Wii U is null and void because Switch is portable. 

Switch is basically the perfect form factor for Nintendo, it solves the problem of being different without them having to rely on a unreliable/fad-chasing approach. 

The system is different but in a logical way that's immediately relatable to the audience (play console games on the go, welp none of PS4/XB1/PS3/360/Wii U can do that). Gamers like it. It's fun for people to play together. But Nintendo doesn't need Wii Sports or some new fad to generate sales for it. It's portable. And it can play Nintendo's home console IPs well enough. 

It really just fits them perfectly. It's different but still traditional enough that Nintendo doesn't have to warp/change what they are as a company and start making knitting games for grandma as their main Christmas seller and pray that it takes off. 

Stock Tegra was a smart move, now they can simply upgrade with new models with higher end Tegras without fuss, if they had used some highly custom version of it, they would have problems with that because Nvidia would say "well you guys have to do the R&D on this new chip because we're not doing that for free". Nintendo could put a Tegra X2 in a Switch tomorrow and there'd be little/no problems with it. 

I'm not saying the Switch can't do 65 million my point was I expect the main success of the Switch platform to be a later, smaller cheaper version that has the bulk of sales not this mk1 version.

I would agree with the second point except I think the mk1 Switch is not ideal. I think a smaller revision that also docks possibly without removable joy-cons. That requires a purchase of the pro controller for home use and importantly has a much lower price point will prove far better at demonstrating that concept. Once it drops down to 14nm fabrication which is actually pretty cheap now and could be used easily next year the Switch can shrink in size and be much better with longer battery life. 

That was my point about the Tegra using a stock version reduced costs and therefore minimised financial risk for the initial Switch. If sales momentum is maintained then they know its worth investing in a customised chip. The stock Tegra X1 is very wasteful. It has 4 'little' arm chips that no one is using as far as I know because it's easier to throttle the frequency of the 'big' arm chips than switch over to the 'little chips' to save power. Nvidia cocked up the design so that unlike arm's own designs you can only use either the 'big' or the 'little' arms and not both together. This 'little' fabrication space might be useful for integrating other minor ic's that exist on the current Switch motherboard. If Nintendo can cut back fabrication size then  perhaps they can get more individual chips from each silicon sheet/wafer to save costs. I guess I'm saying that the first Switch is a bit unrefined and I think the revised model is going to be a huge improvement in many ways, more so that DS to DS lite. I can almost feel it in my bones that Nintendo ideally never wanted it as big as it currently is but other factors dictated the size.