Nintendo's success with the Switch both a blessing and a curse?

[d21lewis]

Shadow1980 said:
If you look at the history of console sales, the release of one system from another brand has never had any impact on sales of a console from another brand, either from the same generation (for offset releases) or from a previous generation. Despite Sega claiming to do "What Nintendon't," the release of the Genesis had no effect on NES sales. The release of the PS1 had no effect on SNES sales. The release of the Dreamcast had no effect on PS1 sales, and the release of the PS2 had no effect on Dreamcast sales. The release of the 360 had no effect on PS2 sales. And the Switch had no effect on PS4 or XBO sales. There is absolutely no reason to expect the PS5 and XSX (that's the abbreviation I'm sticking to for now) to have any effect on Switch sales.

In fact, the only time a console's sales are effected by a release of another console is when its own successor debuts. While every system experiences a growth-peak-decline life cycle, the "decline" part tends to accelerate once a system is replaced by another system from the same brand. The only system that will have any obvious effect on Switch sales is the Switch's successor.

The console market is not a zero-sum game. The existence of many people who own various combinations of Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles attests to that (I personally have owned nearly every major console ever; the only ones I never owned were the Master System, TG-16, Saturn, and PS3). And the Switch offers a substantially different experience that what Sony and MS offer (as did the Wii and Wii U before it). PlayStation and Xbox are powerful, conventional home consoles focused on big-budget high-fidelity AAA games. The Switch meanwhile is a less powerful console-handheld hybrid, where you can switch between playing on your TV or playing on the go (and now it has a purely handheld SKU). As a result it gets very few third-party AAA titles (you can count the number of major third-party multiplatform titles that also came to Switch on your fingers). But that's not a problem as most people buy Nintendo consoles primarily for Nintendo games. The lack of meaningful large-scale AAA third-party support has not been and will not be a hindrance to Nintendo systems, the Switch included. Nintendo has missed out on most major third-party titles since Gen 7, but that didn't stop the Wii from being popular, it wasn't the reason the Wii U failed, and it hasn't kept the Switch from being a success.

Excellent post!!