A new dedicated handheld?

[zorg1000]

PortisheadBiscuit said:

zorg1000 said:

I just dont really get what you are proposing.

You are saying they should release a budget system to fill the gap but there is no gap, 2DS is their budget system. Its $79 and has a huge catalog of low cost titles. They will just keep it on the market for young kids and price sensitive consumers until Switch can get its price & form factor small enough to replace it in a few years.

I just cant wrap my head around why Nintendo would release a $99-129 device slightly more powerful than 3DS, it just makes zero sense.

Well clearly, a newer system will increase interest in the segment. At press time 3DS/2DS hardware is moving units, however software is stagnant. A new low cost system with new software will pique interest again. I'm kinda looking at the transition from GB to GBA for comparison. They kept GBA relatively low cost with new software, some of which were ports (Super Mario Advance) and it did insanely well.

 

Not saying a new dedicated will do GBA numbers, but a smaller scale development budget with a handful of proven titles would be a low risk investment to keep a still thriving (albeit shrunken) handheld market going.

 

Again, all of this is purely hypothetical 

Making a device slightly more powerful than 3DS just doesn't make sense, if they really want to support a low cost device than they should just have a few small teams of young developers continue to make software for 3DS.

What they are doing now is offering the 2DS line as their budget friendly device that sells on its back catalog and Switch as their premium device with new blockbuster releases and thats what they should continue to do.

A device that falls somewhere in between is just redundant and would only steal sales from the other two.