Nintendo was never doomed

[DélioPT]

Peach_buggy said:

DélioPT said:

No, my point was that it will be hard for Nintendo to have a year like they are having now.

You are right, part of GBA's figures came after DS launched.
But i don't see that changing my point, which was, 3DS, to reach GBA like figures will have spent more time in the market.
And the reason for that is, to me, that mobile has had an effect on the handheld gaming segment.

Not gonna question your view on 1st party support importance, just want to add that despite that, GBA ended up with a vastly superior library of games (in terms of quantity), very cheap games to make, a number of NES and SNES ports (Mario games... actually there was no original Mario game, was there).
So, 1st party titles might be more important now than before - with reason - but what console made them more money at the end of the day?
I honestly don't know, but given the amount of games and low cost productions, i would bet on GBA.

Why is so weird to think that Switch's concept will become less appealing? Didn't that happen with Wii and Kinect?
It's only natural that the concept looses "value" in comsumer's eyes, over time.

I'll still call it a home console with portability added to it.
The support being more or less, has no say on what a product is.

The pressure comes from the fact that Nintendo only has - so far - one product to carry them over.
Also, Nintendo already said they weren't working on a 3DS successor. Which means that in the coming years, Switch cannot fail.
And it's not just that, in terms of revenue - or profits - it makes a difference in having 1 or 2 products on the market. 

I do consider Switch, when compared to Wii U, a success... so far.
I believe that they still need to show they have what it takes to keep Switch significant in the coming years.

The Switch will be fine next year, the 4 big guns from this year will doubtless become "evergreen" titles next year which will carry momentum without whatever Nintendo is working on next year. Far from resting on their laurels, i'm sure there will be some big titles we don't even know about yet. The Switch can't even keep up with demand in the 4, possibly 5 biggest markets worldwide. When supply has met demand, then we'll talk and when pokemon hits, well i actually expect records to be broken. That's if they will even be able to keep up with demand again.

What we have seen for next year is, so far, very poor (Kirby, FE and Yoshi).
No doubt those games will sell well, specially FE. But, what system sellers will we have next year? It's not a new Zelda, MK9? Too soon. Smash? Probably. 2D Mario? Probably. Animal Crossing? Probably.

Nintendo always had evergreen titles. It's not something that, by itself can spell success. MK8 did amazing on a console that sold very poorly, for example.
A continuous flow of system sellers is needed to attract the Nintendo fanbase but to attract the non-Nintendo gamer.

I have no doubts Pokemon will sell a ton of Switchs, but i'm still a bit unconvinced on how many copies it can sell and how much it can do for Switch.
Of course that it's too soon to say when we don't even know what it's competition will be (from Sony and MS).

Wyrdness said:

DélioPT said:

Even if 3DS+Vita > GBA, you can't deny how long it took to reach those numbers.
Also having 2 products on the market also means that you'll attract more people, specially in this case where the libraries are significantly different.

Well, if GBA sold 15M more despite having PSP and DS as competition, it seems plausible to think it would have sold much more if the competition wasn't there - or part of it.

The question isn't just how many games are coming.
What drives HW are the big titles. And so far, Switch hasn't a whole lot. DQ11 and Tales of, to be more precise.
Not even the new MH is a main title.

It's almost like what happened with GC, where it had a good amount of titles but it failed at getting the important ones.

It's not me who doesn't see it as a 3DS successor, it's also Nintendo who doesn't even see it as such, despite having 3DS on it's last legs.
Actually, to them it's more of a 3rd pillar, to be honest.

Except that's a null and void argument because the 3DS/Vita era lasted longer and are still going in a non monopoly era than the GBA, the GBA getting to that mark faster then dying out doesn't really give it any ground as evidently it has been outsold in total portable units.

Many of the titles I mentioned are titles that drive sale that's the point, along with first party titles momentum will be maintained just fine.

It is you who doesn't see it as a successor as you're buying into marketing PR, Nintendo themselves see it as a portable and will handled as such more so than they will as a console. Marketing it as a console is for increased western appeal and to sell the platform at a higher price and sell software at higher prices, believing it's not a 3DS because of PR is like still believing the DS isn't the successor of the GBA.

How GBA reaching HW and SW levels as fast as it did when compared to 3DS or 3DS+Vita, isn't relevant?
You have two machines against one and even then they needed more time to sell as many systems as GBA.
Heck, even if you take out the 15 million consoles GBA sold after DS came out, GBA still kicks 3DS' ass easily, HW and SW wise.

There are a lot of titles that can spur sales a week, maybe two, when they come out, but that's not what we are talking about.
We are talking about those games that sell a lot of HW and can even raise the bar for HW sales for weeks and weeks; those type of games that people wait to come out before they buy the console.

Nintendo were the ones who claimed it's not a successor to both Wii U and 3DS, they even said they aren't thinking about a successor for 3DS - something they haven't said about Wii U - and when they market it as home console gaming on the go, exactly how do they see it themselves as a portable? What did they say that makes you think that? Because all signs point at them treating it like it's a home console (with portability).