RolStoppable said:
Yes, the DS did get Pokémon games throughout its life. That's why I said "almost all of the big hits were released in the first half of the console's life." Pokémon is the exception, but the other big IPs didn't see new installments later on. The point remains that the DS wasn't carried by Nintendo's IPs alone, that's why it had a prolonged peak. And if Nintendo hadn't shifted all priority to the 3DS, including a big price cut that brought the 3DS down to a price close to the DSi and DSi XL, then the DS would have easily gone beyond 160m lifetime. But when consumers face the decision of buying a DSi (XL) or a 3DS when the next gen handheld costs about the same while being fully backwards compatible, then a prospective late adopter of DS hardware is likely to become an early adopter of 3DS hardware. That's why DS sales crumbled in the fiscal year ending March 2012. |
Will Switch ever get down to as low as $99 though? I'm thinking not.
The_Liquid_Laser said:
I totally agree, and I want to add that Switch's third party support has just barely gotten going. So far the third party games we've seen have basically been ports and indies. Where are all the successors to the 3DS and Vita games? Well, games like Bravely Default 2 and Rune Factory 5 have finally been announced for a 2020 release. These 3DS devs are taking a while to make Switch games, because it is a huge leap to go from the 3DS to Switch. But the games are coming! A huge wave of 3DS successor games is coming, but we are only going to see the very beginning of it this year. Because of this, Switch sales are going to be high for a very long time. There is still a lot more life to the Switch. |
I'm still skeptical this wave of original Switch games from third parties will ever arrive. So far all the evidence seems to point to third parties being their usual short-sighted arseholoe selves and shafting a successful Nintendo platform for no good reason.