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Faelco on 06 December 2018
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Miyamotoo said:
Faelco said:

Yes, but let's wait to see the impact of PS5 and Xbox Next on Switch sales. The sales could get lower faster than usual once it appears like "older gen".

And let's not forget than even the Wii had an intense but short life. I'm curious about how long the Switch will live before we talk about the next one. 

If PS5/XB2 are not some kind of hybrids of handhelds, I dont see they will have any bigger effect on Switch sales. Despite PS5/XB2, Switch still be hybrid/handheld and not direct competition to PS5/XB2 in any case, similar like we seeing now with PS4/XB1 compared to Switch sales.

Switch is not Wii and Nintendo is not same company from Wii period. First Switch is on first place handheld hadware that acts like handheld/home console hybrid while Wii was just home console, so Switch will similar to 3DS have multiply revisions and price point offers, while Wii had only one revision at end of Wii life. Second, Switch is Nintendo's unified platform, that means all Nintendo IPs (both home console and handheld ones) on one platform, and that means strong support. Third, Switch is becoming Nintendos only platform so they will be much more cautious with planning and supporting it compared to Wii, they itself said they planing for Switch to have longer life span than around 6 years.

 

Sure, all your arguments are valid. But in my opinion, there are still several unknown factors. Even if the new other consoles are not direct competitors, the "new thing" factor will definitely overshadow the Switch, and all the PR and articles will focus on the new gen. The image of the Switch could be damaged because it will still be considered "previous gen" (and kids, for example, might want "the new one" instead of the Switch now). And yes, it's a handheld, but let's not forget that the handheld market is shrinking more and more every year since the DS/PSP days, so we still have not idea what the size of this market is at the moment, and no idea about when it will be close to saturation. The Switch could do something awesome and make it grow again, but I wouldn't count on it too much, it would be a (good) surprise. 

 

I'm not saying "the Switch will fail", far from it (I will surely get a Switch for Christmas anyway). Just saying that the Switch is in a new position compared to the usual models, and we don't know yet the limits and how it's going to evolve with new external factors. So I'm just curious to see what will happen. Could be great, could be less great, but in any case it will be interesting to observe.