PS4 VS Switch lifetime sales, which console will sell the most?

[PAOerfulone]

VideoGameAccountant said:

A few things. First, no, Iwata was a terrible business strategist. The reason the Wii and the DS were successful was specifically because he followed two business books "Blue Ocean Strategy" and "The Innovator's Dilemma". The minute he stopped following them, Nintendo crashed and Nintneod posted some of their worst earnings in the company's history. He almost killed the handheld line with the 3DS and Nintendo had to cut the price by $80 just to save it. Even then, after 7 years it still sold less than what the GBA did in 4. That's to say nothing of the Wii U. These are both Iwata era consoles.  Any business decision he made was a disaster. He killed the Wii and DS off prematurely, lost all of their western development except Retro (something Yamauchi saw as important), and created the structure of the Pokemon Company which has lost the company billions in potential profit.  

Still doesn't change the fact that the Wii (100 million units sold, best selling Nintendo console) and DS (154 million units sold and 2nd best selling video game system ever) was, by far, the most profitable period in Nintendo's history, under his watch. Even if it was followed by their worst earnings in history, it barely put a dent into their overall savings and earnings they gained from the prior generation. And it only lasted for around 3 fiscal years before they were making profits again. Now they've made back all the money they lost and THEN some.

And the 3DS struggling to reach the GBA's levels of has a lot more to do with circumstances that were beyond Iwata and Nintendo's control. The rise of the smart phone/mobile game market that exploded in the early 2010s evaporated the handheld market incredibly. We went from ~235 million DS and PSP units to just ~92 million 3DS and Vita units. A whopping 143 million units *snaps fingers* gone, just like that. And even if the 3DS got off to a bad start, it eventually became profitable and did respectably well.  And as for the Pokemon Company. Created the structure of the Pokemon Company which lost the company billions in potential profits? Dude, you're seriously going to ignore or forget about Pokemon GO? He was one of the key people behind that. Which has led to Game Freak and the Pokemon Company making the most money they have made since the late 90s when Pokemon was on top of the world. 

And I can't help but notice you didn't address Liquid's point about the Switch. That's Iwata. He served as the head developer up until he died. It was his last project, basically. https://kotaku.com/satoru-iwata-put-lots-of-thought-into-the-nintendo-swit-1792378208

And look at what the Switch is doing now. 

So, he's got 4 home runs, (Wii, DS, Switch, and Pokemon GO), a single (3DS), and one strikeout (Wii U). I'm not sure how familiar you are with baseball, but that's a 5 for 6 night, with 4 HR's and batting .833. You know how many baseball players would kill to have a night like that? 

To call him a terrible business strategist is just completely absurd and straight up delusional. The facts and the history just proves you wrong. He had one failure, one "meh" average project, and four winners under his belt. The fact of the matter is, Nintendo was/is in a much bigger and better position during & post-Iwata than they were pre-Iwata.

Last edited by PAOerfulone - on 09 December 2019