RolStoppable said:
First off, I was only addressing the 3DS in my post, not the PlayStation side of the handheld market. Secondly, I said that 3D did more damage to the 3DS than mobile which doesn't rule out mobile as a factor nor does it rule out other things that could play a role in the decline. And yes, it was the 3D that led to a high price tag and low battery life for the 3DS. This along with the initial software drought of the 3DS were the main causes for the low 3DS sales, not mobile gaming. The 3DS was seen as bad value because the tradeoff of 3D in favor of battery life wasn't worth it. Ultimately, Nintendo ended up releasing 3DS models without 3D (2DS, New 2DS XL) which speaks volumes about a handheld that contained 3D in its name as the signature feature. A generation later Switch launched without 3D at all and among the countless new Switch model rumors over the years, not a single one mentioned the return of a 3D screen. As for the handheld market on the whole, the damage that mobile gaming caused was first and foremost based on the big flawed assumption by third parties that mobile gaming could replace handheld gaming. Development resources were allocated accordingly, so mobile saw a lot more investment than handheld. This wrecked the PlayStation handheld completely because big companies that Sony could count on with the PSP (EA, Take Two, Square-Enix etc.) didn't provide the system sellers that Sony needed in light of their own lacking first party strength; and Nintendo blocked Capcom's Monster Hunter from appearing on the Vita. Nintendo had the first party, so they could sustain their business even without big third party titles. The view of the gaming industry regarding mobile has changed dramatically since 2009-2010 when decisions for the future were first made and 2015-2017 when it was clear to virtually everyone that selling games on mobile is not sustainable. But by that point it was obviously already too late to go back to the 3DS and especially the Vita. It's Switch which is reaping the benefits of the realization that handheld gaming is here to stay. Consequently, the handheld market is recovering because it's a given that there will be more than 90m Switch units sold that allow portable gaming. Taking this further, the 3DS needed to be sold at a loss by Nintendo for two years to even get to its modest lifetime total while Switch has been a profitable business right out of the gate. Of course there are Switch units that either never leave their dock or are primarily played at home, but it isn't like previous portable consoles saw the majority of their usage outside of people's own four walls. The biggest selling point of handhelds hasn't been gaming away from home, but rather the flexibility to be played whenever needed, such as when somebody else occupies the TV, playing in bed or whatever else people felt like. Last point is that the handheld market peaked at ~235m consoles sold and that won't be reached again, but said peak was very circumstantial. The video game industry believed that PlayStation would take over the handheld market just like the PS1 took over the home console market, so we got a unique situation where two handhelds got a rich software lineup which in turn boosted hardware sales, because software sells hardware - I very much doubt that this situation can be replicated, ever. It's completely unreasonable to expect Nintendo alone to sell 235m units of hardware despite Switch being very likely to end up with a software library as rich as the DS and PSP combined. Reason being that the divided software offerings of the DS and PSP resulted in multiconsole ownership whereas people will only need Switch to access all the games. In the same way, generation 7 had Nintendo sell ~255m consoles (~100m Wiis, ~155m DSes), but we can't realistically expect Switch to match that, because the previous multiconsole ownership of Wii+DS isn't necessary with Switch. However, the software total of Switch should be quite similar to Wii and DS combined (~1.8 billion games sold), with the catch being that it won't be easy to verify because of Nintendo's reporting method. Digital-only games aren't counted in Nintendo's software shipments, but it's self-explanatory that the digital business on Switch is much higher than on the Wii and DS combined. Profit-wise, Switch plays in the same league as Wii and DS combined. It's really only hardware units sold where Nintendo's decision to consolidate home console and handheld console results in a lower ceiling. In any case, it's already a given that Switch constitutes a rebound and recovery, both in the context of the handheld market (previous gen: ~92m combined) as well as Nintendo-only hardware sales (previous gen: ~90m combined). |
I do agree with you here. Maybe Gen 7 was the real outlier and the handheld market was never meant to be 235m; and yes, it is quite possible that the Switch won't be affected at all by Cloud gaming. But I think we should all keep in mind that this is an option that did not exist before in the market; And it is never a good idea to look at a new competition and just say "that's okay, it'll be alright" and keep going as if nothing happens.
I'm sure Nintendo is 100% aware of this because they already evolved by merging their two segments into one, and I'm sure they are looking at the development in the cloud market with a lot more care than some of us are doing it from here.
