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RolStoppable said:
shikamaru317 said:

Your post raises a few questions:

3. Nintendo wrecked the Wii by moving on far too soon in hopes of getting more AAA third party games. Before the Wii U launched, AAA third party publishers already withheld ~75% of upcoming games that were scheduled to release on the PS3 and 360. What makes you confident that Nintendo will be stupid enough to repeat the same mistake?

Wrecked the Wii? The Wii was being "wrecked" from the minute it was posting 5m yearly declines (2009). This was long before the Wii U was eating development resources (2011), the Wii's decline cannot be blame on Wii U. 

Nintendo's focus should be on keeping their core userbase that made Switch a success in 2017 happy and invested in their echosystem. Whether third parties arrive or not will be largely be dismissable if they succeed with this core userbase. The Wii U failed fundementally at exciting even this core audience and arrived when all of the Wii's momentum was already dead. I find it strange that people are using that failed transition to insist that Nintendo should wait until interest in their product is at a signifcant low before making moves to introduce  their next. There are clear changes in technology and the modern gaming landscape which would make make Switch 2 (arriving 2022) a completely different beast to any other Nintendo system transition, its all down to what they want to achieve. Software shouldn't an issue at all. Not for a new platform and not for people who decide to stick with Switch 1 for longer.

Quick question. Do you think its better to get returning users to reinvest in a upgraded SKU (like a Switch Pro) which will only be a profit center for an additonal 2 or so years. Why not have them invest in a platform which benefit Nintendo for another 5 years and completely reinvigorates software sales and interest in services long term?

Keeping in mind holiday 2022 is 5years & 7months after the Switch's original launch.


The Wii died because Nintendo stopped making any games for it. Tell me how many games for the Wii came between 2010 and 2013? They won't have that problem with the switch.

A lot.

2010 was a much healthier software cycle with more key releases then 2009 but still we saw 5m decline, which was in line with what we saw the year before. We could argue that 2010 had a weak Q1, but so did 2009 and actually 2008 (Wii's peak) Q4 didn't have a big release, 2009/2010 holiday releases performed better in this regards. We know that systems go through cycles in interest and that interest in the Wii was driven by specific experiences which later lost their appeal. Wii Fit U was released in 2013, no one cared and it didn't help Wii U. The idea that the Wii would have continued to sell amazingly until 2013 with a slightly beefier or well rounded release schedule feels very far fetched imo and ignorant to what made the Wii a success to begin with (especially compared to the Gamecube). Wii could of course had a healthier end life. Maybe it could be looking at 110m sales as oppose to 100m by now, but the problem wasn't that 2012 was too early to release a new system. The problem was simply that the new system -Wii U- was not compelling. Nintendo tried to have something for the Wii audience (Nintendo Land & NSMU) but it proved that they don't have that much power over the interests of this market and their USP wasn't strong enough. Meanwhile their core market was not excited by NSMBU or a mini game collection either.

jonathanalis said:
Nintendo is swimming alone in its blue ocean. has no reason to rush.
For now, is to observe the market. The success (or failure) of xcloud, observe the prices for an SSD, new architectures for mobile, smaller transistors, or even newer technologies that even ps5 and series x do not have.
I can see happening anytime between 23 and 25.
My vote went to 24 launch, using 22/23 technology.

I think the opposite regarding this, but I don't consider it "rushing" as opposed to a calculated decision to introduce new devices which keep audience invested within the echo system for a long term. The blue ocean market is not an easily predictable market, they certainly did not make the Switch a success from day one and their interest in 2 years is not gauranteed. Without Corona we have no idea what the Switch's current sales would look like (obviously it would be good, but how good?), so I don't think that a system cycle should be centered around them as an audience, nor around sales seen in the peak of a pandemic. This current market returning to Nintendo next generation is not something we can predict.  If there was a Switch 2, and the original Switch is still receiving games and is cheaper, what is the harm? The blue ocean market who only care about collecting a handful of games for the platform isn't going to suddenly vanish. I'd say its actually quite the opposite, generally consumers look for a steady influx of refreshments around brands and products to keep them excited and interested in them. A Switch successor arriving sooner than later will actually contribute towards the BlueOcean maintaining interesting in Nintendo & dedicated gaming machines even if they don't choose to transition until 2025.

Last edited by Otter - on 29 June 2020