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Soundwave on 01 June 2017
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NintendoPie said:
Soundwave said:

Really? How many 3DS' do you think would be sold today if Nintendo had stuck with just the OG model or just OG model + XL even? There was no need to really offer anything other than those two models, yet we have 4 other hardware revision models of the 3DS in the 5 years since the XL. 

More models increase sales and keep the hardware line fresh. 

Even with the PS4 Pro which basically requires an entirely new TV (so it's not as accessible as a portable mid-gen refresh would be), we see about 20% of PS4 sales in weekly Japanese sales are PS4 Pro ... not an insiginifcant amount, and Sony makes a higher profit margin on the PS4 Pro model over the regular PS4. 

Tech sales faster than a lot of Nintendo fans here really understand. Apple offers new phones/tablets with 50-100% improvement in performance every 12-18 months ... and do you think they "give away" that performance from their profit margins out of the kindness of their hearts? Lol, fuck no. They can do that because that's how rapidly the tech is improving, they can offer continually better tech without paying more for it themselves and they pass on those improvements to their consumers which builds a consumer base conditioned to accepting more rapid hardware turnover. Which makes Apple more and more money. 

Mobile chips, in particular are a game changer, especially mainstream designs like ARM + Nvidia. Nintendo should keep a $300 model always, and just cycle in new tech every couple of years into the $300 model, it will yield them higher profit margins over time, older models can then scale down and occupy lower price points ($250, $199, $169, etc.) for those who cannot afford $300. 

Using 3DS as your counter-example doesn't help considering none of them do what Pemalite is suggesting ("8-9" screen with a 1440P AMOLED or better panel", "specs initiatlly for the Switch, I'm a hardware enthusiast") Nintendo do with the Switch's iterations. I never argued against different models, don't get upset because you assumed that, Soundwave.

The specs can vary. I've measured the Switch's total screen + wasted black bezel area ... a screen of 7.3 inches or so would be easy to accomodate for example without changing even the size of the unit. 

They could use a still cheap 1080P screen, which would maintain a very nice pixel density at that size, while also allowing for better table top play. 

With a Tegra X2 they could have the chip run at docked mode (so ARMS, Mario Kart 8, and other games could run in docked mode portably at 1080P) in "XL Plus" Switch model. 

Besides what's wrong with a larger upgrade even later on? There was a vocal minority on this very board 1 year ago crying foul at rumors of a PS4 Pro and Scorpio and I even had a professed game designer telling me a NX with dual performance modes would be impossible because it would be too hard to program.

Well where's all the outrage over the PS4 Pro? Have consumers stopped buying PS4s in rage? Nope. And all those people have by and large just shut up. Sony is scoring larger profits than ever, in part because that PS4 Pro gives them a fatter profit margin, probably a good $20-$30 more/unit, if that's about 20% of all PS4 sales ... that's a nice fat chunk of easy profit. It's not 1994 anymore, things like the 32X are not what's going to happen, it's going to be more like Apple releasing multiple phone and tablet models at multiple power options with a unified OS/dev environment ... consumers gladly accept that and understand that and we see that with the PS4 line having no problems accomodating multiple models now.