Nintendo was never doomed

[DélioPT]

StarDoor said:

DélioPT said:

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

This is utterly false. Switch sales will easily be higher next year when Nintendo can produce more units. As it stands, demand isn't even close to being met in 2017.

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.

So you admit that a console's game library determines sales. This will be important later.

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.

No, Wii and Kinect were appealing for as long as they received software support. For the Kinect, that was about two years. For Wii, that was closer to five years.

Is this indicative of a concept losing appeal?

FY3/2007: 5.84M
FY3/2008: 18.61M
FY3/2009: 25.94M
FY3/2010: 20.54M
FY3/2011: 15.08M
FY3/2012: 9.84M

Because most people would call that a typical console sales curve. Wii likely could have sold 10+ million more if Nintendo hadn't completely dropped support in 2011. It wasn't selling because if its concept, it was selling because of its games. You have been wildly inconsistent on this: You brought up the games library when talking about why the GBA sold so well, but suddenly that same advantage has nothing to do with Switch or Wii sales?

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.

Neither could 3DS fail. How is one success and one failure somehow better than one success and no failures? Now Nintendo doesn't have to offset an unsuccessful home console with a successful portable.

Revenue and profits will be much higher for Switch than it was for 3DS + Wii U, because Switch isn't sold at a loss, and its flagship games are $60. Additionally, the attach rate will be much higher because Nintendo gamers are no longer splitting their games between handhelds and home consoles. Not to mention the lower R&D costs of only producing a single hardware line.

Everything points to higher profits in the Switch era.

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.

I'm not sure why I'm even responding to you at this point, because your stances are so far removed from reality that I wonder if it's even possible to reason with you. Switch is a success "so far"? Switch as of March 2018 selling as much as Wii U sold lifetime can't just be a success on its own, but instead needs to be qualified?

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.

You just said "probably" to three of Nintendo's biggest franchises, each of which can sell over ten million copies with a single entry. Yet, somehow, Nintendo will have trouble selling Switch consoles next year?

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.

So which system-selling franchises, exactly, will not be on Switch despite being on 3DS?

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).

Do you not actually look at the sales data provided by this very website? Pokémon Gen 8, at minimum, will sell 15 million copies on Switch. PS4 and Xbox One launched in the same year as Pokémon X/Y, and that didn't slow sales of 3DS or the game, so competition is completely irrelevant.

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.

Why are you so fixated on GBA doing better than 3DS? GBA launched at $100 and at the height of the Game Boy line's (and Pokémon's) popularity. 3DS launched at $250, and basically had no compelling games until 8 months after launch, not to mention your previous statement about 3DS having a worse library. The only thing this proves is that Nintendo made a ton of mistakes with 3DS, and despite that, it will still reach 72 million. If anything, your statements would indicate that Switch will sell vastly more than 3DS.

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.

Zelda, Mario, Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Smash Bros.

Nintendo has the most valuable franchises in the entire industry. It's ridiculous to suggest that there will be any sort of shortage of games that will keep the sales baseline high.

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).

They see it as a portable because they're releasing their handheld franchises on it. Mainline Pokémon games aren't released on home consoles. Nintendo marketing it as a "home console on the go" is exactly that: Marketing. By creating this image, Nintendo can get people to accept home console prices for software and the console itself. Clearly, it's working, as the Switch is selling hardware and software much faster than 3DS during its launch period. In reality, Switch is a hybrid, or a successor to both hardware lines.

Even if sales of 2017 are met in 2018, that's not my whole point.
This year Nintendo had a fresh concept + 4 system sellers. What year, or, how many years will this happen again? 
That's why i said it will be hard to repeat.

Of course that a console's library helps determine HW sales. It's not just a question of how many games, but yes, it's a factor.

It's true that lack of support killed Wii and Kinect earlier, but when you look at how bad Wii like games sold on Wii U, you can't help think that the Wii days were over way before Wii U was on the market.
When people confused brands and still didn't want it, that's a sign.

I think you have taken my comments of GBA's SW totals as a proof of something. I only mentioned it as a comparison to 3DS. That was all.

Yes, Switch is a success so far.
Why is that so weird? Have Nintendo given indication/signs that, in terms of SW, 2018 is going to be as strong as 2017? Or that 2019 will be equally strong, for that matter?
All we know is that there are 3 games confirmed for 2018 and even if FE is a system seller like MK - which i doubt -, that's just one game.
So, why can't i doubt Nintendo's ability to, in the medium and long term, sustain Switch's current momentum?

The "probablies" were only about release dates. Nothing more.

"So which system-selling franchises, exactly, will not be on Switch despite being on 3DS?"
What i said was that you need a continuous flow of system sellers - to keep the momentum.
Also, Nintendo always had system sellers, but that didn't always meant success for Nintendo.

Fixation?
All i pointed out was that 3DS failed to beat GBA. That was it.
I gave a reason why i think 3DS couldn't do it: mobile gaming.

Again, my point about Switch is how can Nintendo, in medium and long term, keep this momentum that was built by a fresh concept + 4 system sellers.
This was a very big year for Switch and what i question is Nintendo's ability to pack the same punch in 2018, 2019, 2020 and beyond.
Of course, there are system selling games coming, but if the release dates means there will be less of them per year, won't that mean less impact? I fear so.

Now i gotta ask, what franchises, or relevant franchises, are Nintendo bringing to Switch that only appeared on handhelds, besides Pokemon?
So, if i look at recent history and look at several franchises that Nintendo brought to handheld like Smash, Pikmin, Hyrule Warriors, Mario Maker, does that mean that Nintendo stopped seeing 3DS as an handheld?

Or is it that games like Pokemon are coming to Switch because Nintendo's plans for the future only seem to include Switch?