| RolStoppable said: I am expecting a revision similar to the New 3DS in fall 2021. There are multiple ways how a new chip can be used and upscaling resolutions is one of them. The New 3DS's performance upgrade was used by hardly any games, so even if a variant of this Jetson Xavier goes into a Switch revision, it wouldn't be a major hardware upgrade due to games only using it in limited fashion. Anyway, now we are talking revision instead of successor like before. The DS sold ~20m units during that time period, so clearly it was still going strong despite declining after its peak. It doesn't happen often that a console gets replaced when it's still selling above 10m for the year, but the DS got replaced when it still sold 20m. Not to mention that Nintendo had planned to launch the 3DS during the holiday season 2010 which makes the replacement even more premature. People don't mind hardware revisions because they don't threaten software support for the system they own. That's why Switch revisions and Switch 2 will be judged differently. People will be fine with revisions, but not an early successor. Regarding the Wii, saying that it's about key IPs isn't too different from what I've said. You inject more subjectivity to game evaluation and sales analysis, that's about it. Switch 2 launch timing and technology go hand in hand. The longer Nintendo waits, the better the chipset can be at an affordable price. The better the chipset is, the higher the likelihood for more ports of AAA third party games. With Switch's sales, Nintendo has the luxury to take their time. There aren't any disadvantages that come with waiting. The "strike the iron while it's hot" mentality is entirely misplaced in the cyclical console business. Each generation is a reset, so what matters is a coherent vision and competent execution, two things that almost always suffer when a company rushes a successor. |
Yes exactly.
Switch will obviously have more new versions than just the Lite, I don't think there is any doubt there will be a premium version of the Switch released, and probably next year. I'd expect it to have a small hardware upgrade for that "premium" experience which basically would just translate into running games a little more smoothly than original Switch and Lite. I'd guess at a better/bigger screen, more storage, possibly more battery life, and hopefully bluetooth support. Those would seem to be the main areas they could improve upon with a premium version of the Switch. Nintendo will probably release it whenever Switch sales start to slow and they are ready to drop the price of the original Switch and then offer the premium version at $300. I agree Fall 2021 is likely as there isn't really any reason to do it this year since Switch is so far having by far its best year yet, and 2022 just seems like it'd be a bit late in the life cycle to bring out the first upgraded model.
Agree totally with the idea that the longer Nintendo can keep pumping out Switch sales, and put off Switch 2, the better off they'll be for next gen because that means they can wait for a stronger chipset, and therefore get closer to being able to run downgraded (but still good!) versions of PS5/XBS third party games.
Somewhere there is a sweet spot between cost and being just strong enough to port games from the home consoles without having to significantly degrade the experience. If Switch 2 is powerful enough that third parties can do some fairly easy adjustments to next gen games to port them to Switch 2 we could finally see third party AAA games come back to Nintendo in force after almost 3 decades. The Switch is like juuuust under that sweet spot in relation to PS4/XBO, in that it can get ports but unless the developer works real hard its generally such a downgraded port that it's a shitty experience (or at least that's how it seems from what I've heard). If the Nintendo can hold out on Switch 2 an extra year, say release 2024 instead of 2023, and possibly get to that sweet spot and get same day AAA releases as the two home consoles I'd happily buy like a $350 Switch 2 as opposed to a $300 Switch 2. Also the longer they wait the more upgrades they might get from current OG Switch owners getting a new premium version for the last couple years of the Switch's life.
