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Soundwave on 24 October 2022
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DonFerrari said:
Soundwave said:

Switch was actually only officially announced as a real product (not a codename) a mere 4 months prior to launch. It wasn't even 8 months. 

The unveil was late October 2016, the system launched the first week of March 2017. That's basically four months and some change. 

Prior to that there was basically zero promotion or actual hard information on the system period, Nintendo just announced "NX" at the event they announced they would be making iOS/Android games to assure stockholders that they weren't exiting the hardware business. But there was literally no information given on the product and zero promotion, zero marketing, zero game announcements, and even zero hardware details until basically October 2016 from Nintendo themselves.

Switch basically already showed all you need is 4 months of promotion and time for retailers to prep for a major hardware launch. Could honestly probably even be less than that (3 months would likely work just as well like Switch OLED). Apple launches the biggest consumer electronic products every year like only 3-4 days before release because they don't want to slow existing iPhone sales, it's a non-issue. 

The whole "they're gonna announce Switch 2 like 18 months before launch! Right ... right guys?" thing is not gonna happen I don't think. It would accomplish nothing but slow sales of the exist Switch for months for no good reason. That type of thing is from a bygone era.

It is like when someone go to ask Sony if they are working in PS6, so early in the gen they don't say much (but they sure are) but 2 or 3 years before the launch they will say something along working on the next gen system, that isn't an announcement. The proper announcement will be something like 4-12 months before official depending on their strategy. I would expect similar from Nintendo.

Yup. It's even more useless today not only for the fact that you're just needlessly destroying sales for your existing hardware but because hardware transitions aren't what they used to be anyway. 

In the old days if your new console had old games from the previous system as key software it would be unthinkable (ie: imagine the SNES launched with ... a high res version of Super Mario Bros. 3 instead of Super Mario World or PS2 launched only had basically PSOne games for the first 2-3 years of its product cycle). 

Because cross generation releases for several years is basically now the standard normal, you don't really need to announce a new console years in advance, it is pointless. You're not ending software development for existing hardware any time soon, God of War Ragnarok launches on PS4 this month for example, 2 years after the PS5 launched, I don't think Switch-Switch successor is going to be any different either. Nintendo can just position it as an additive model for a couple of years and just keep making games that run on both systems at different display resolutions without much fuss. 

So for people saying "well you can't end the Switch product cycle now" ... well ... who says you have to. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 24 October 2022