Nintendo's Evolution from Gamecube to Switch (...was pre-mediated imho)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I agree a lot with what the OP is saying. Nintendo may be hard to follow by some, especially by those who don't want to follow what they are doing. But Nintendo does actually have long term strategies in mind, and they execute all of their strategies with a lot of intention.

However I have some other ideas to add to this. I think Nintendo is an incredibly talented company, probably the most talented company in the gaming industry today. They are also an incredibly arrogant company, possibly even the most arrogant company in the gaming industry today. They are talented, but they often overestimate their own talents.

When Nintendo is humbled, they end up doing some really amazing stuff that takes everyone by surprise, because they are so talented. And then people go, "Whoa all these people bought consoles just for Wii Sports, how did that happen?" And, "Whoa, Breath of the Wild is this amazing open world game. How did Nintendo have this in them?" Those Nintendo developers are talented. They have all of that in them and more. But then they get arrogant and think that anything they do will automatically be ultra successful. So they bundle Nintendoland with the Wii U and think it will be the next Wii Sports phenomenon, but instead people go, "What the hell is this shit? Where is the Nintendo I love?"

So what is their endgame? It isn't Switch. Switch is their strategy to overtake the whole gaming market, so they can follow with their true endgame. Their endgame is virtual reality.

They have never given up the idea of VR, because they are so arrogant. The Virtual Boy was their first try. Any sane company would give up VR after a flop like the Virtual Boy, but not Nintendo. So one thing about the Wii remote is that it makes the perfect controller for VR. We also have the 3DS, which was a more gradual attempt to put in the 3D visuals of VR into gaming. But the joke with the 3DS is that people buy it in spite of the 3D. Now that they are selling 2DS versions their hardware sales have increased. It should be the end of their console's lifetime, but hardware sales are going up. This is because the 3DS was overpriced. Now that they have gotten rid of the 3D and lowered the price more people want the console.

So I think the Switch is going overtake the whole gaming market. Nintendo is going to dominate like they did in the NES days (i.e. 80-90% market share most years). Then their next console will be some sort of VR debacle. Nintendo's pattern is terribleness, then greatness, then terribleness, then..., because internally their pattern is arrogance, then humility, then arrogance, then ....