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| RolStoppable said: You can't rule out an expansion of Nintendo into more Rest of the World countries. They may have not done it yet, but they probably regret that they didn't try with Wii and DS. If you wonder about Wii U and 3DS, there's not much of a point in trying with troubled systems. |
Oh, I calculated already with such an expansion. If everything goes right, Switch could sell 15M in ROW. That is an increase to the 12M of the DS and also beats PS3 and is on a level with PSP. But as I said before: reaching into these markets is not as easy for Nintendo as it is for Sony. If Sony makes a deal with a small local retail-chain, they not only sell Playstation-products through that deal, but also smartphones, TVs, SD-cards and so on. So even with smaller retail-chains/smaller countries such an effort brings more profit. So it will probably not reach the level of the PS2: 25M. That are 10 million sales missing. It sounds not too big in comparison to 100M/150M, but it is certainly something that has to be sold at another area. DS did that.
| RolStoppable said:
As for multiple units per household, price isn't a real obstacle as Switch will not cost $300 throughout its entire life. $200 already makes it feasible and Switch will certainly get down to that price point. Remember, parents won't need to buy every child a Switch in the same year, so the expense isn't as tricky as you seem to fear. |
It is pretty clear that the price will go down. But the same was true for DS and 3DS. If starting on a higher pricepoint, do you expect the price of the Switch to dip as low as for DS? Probably not. So price will prohibit some households from buying multiple devices. How many? I can't really say, hard to know without market research. Past data from the DS is probably also pretty useless, as households may have different budgets now than they had 10 years ago.
| RolStoppable said:
Mobility can be addressed with revisions. Perhaps there will be a handheld-first Switch eventually; a clamshell design with built-in controls instead of detachable Joy-Cons. Obviously, this Switch could still be docked because offering that feature isn't going to change the costs much; if need be, both dock and controller could be sold separately, the controller would be separate anyway. A revision could look different than what I described, but I don't expect some lunacy like a handheld-only Switch. |
Maybe. If we see such designs I will appreciate it and modify my prediction. I didn't say 150M are impossible, I said it is unlikely. If Nintendo releases more mobile Switches that will increase the likelyhood. But we can't know for sure.
By the way, non detachable Joy-Cons are worse for the system as always docked/never docked models. I realized how important it is to have detachable Joy-Cons for different gameplay-options. Labo just showed another one. This is the most important feature of Switch, even above the hybrid nature.
| RolStoppable said:
As for parenting, it wouldn't take more than a simple rule that the TV can only be used for multiplayer games if multiple people want to play. But this is something where you are looking really, really hard to find a problem. |
Yeah, I don't know if that has influence. Probably not. I was on a roll with my post and added that as I could see the possibility. That probably has not much impact. Either late sales (like PS2) or multiple devices per household (as the DS) are key. I can't see really the late sales, so the only chance are multiple purchases per house. The jury is out on that still. The other stuff like ROW makes it just a little more difficult.
