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JWeinCom on 07 January 2018
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EricHiggin said:
Intrinsic said:

I am not saying I agree with him, but I don't disagree with him either. Funny enough, for the same reasons you stated but I am just looking at them differently.

I don't agree with anyone that judges the long term performance of any new hardware based on its first year of sales. In truth, I don't even care about the first year of sales, I am talking more about how long it will take that new hardware to saturate what I personally call a dedicated fanbase.

Since we are talking about the switch, I want to believe that there are a certain number of people that would buy the switch rgardless of anything anyone says or thinks. Lets put that number at 10-15M. Less than what the WiiU sold to be fair and more than what it sold to account for people that are first time nintendo hardware buyers over this launch period.

I think before we get a real handle of how the NS long term performance is going to be we simply need more time. We need to see what its baseline is this year. How its selling when there isn't any new IP or holiday season or launch madness to drive sales. It tracking better or worse than th 3ds doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Kinda like how the PS4 tracking better than the PS2 (which mid you was the best selling console of all time) doesn't mean anything when its most likely not going to sell more than 130M lifetime when its all said and done.

This. Nin's consoles have an overall user base that is unstable in comparison to XB and PS. Switch being sold as a console puts it in that category to some degree. Since it is also a handheld, it also fits into that category as well, which has a much more stable user base for Nin. Until we see how many Wii type buyers are in the mix, as well as how many handheld buyers switch to Switch, it will be very hard to guess at overall life time sales. I don't see Switch puttering out so soon and only doing Gamecube type numbers, but I also don't see enough evidence yet for Wii type numbers either, so I'm guessing somewhere in between at the moment. Sales over the next year or two should give a strong indication whether Switch has long legs or if it slowly fizzles out. If Nin still continues with handheld and Switch, and Switch only sells say 40M or 50M life time, that's not bad at all assuming their new handheld hardware continues to sell strong like it always has. If Switch is going to be the future all in one Nin device, they should expect to at least match overall handheld sales as the price drops over time.

We should have a better idea after January's direct.  I've suspected for a while, and Kimishima's comments seem to indicate, that this past year has been more or less a soft launch main to get a solid base among their core fanbase.  This year I think they'll be doing more to get back some of the Wii/DS gamers.  I don't think they'll be going quite as far in that direction as they did before, but I definitely expect a few big titles meant to attract casual gamers.