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Wyrdness on 30 November 2022
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mjk45 said:
Wyrdness said:

Mobile had been around since the Wii/DS though and established it  couldn't replace dedicated experiences in gaming it wasn't as tall an order as some people think because I and a significant amount of other people pointed out that Nintendo had a monopoly on the dedicated portable market which alone made it almost impossible to sell less than the 3DS as consumers from the 3DS and Vita equaled at the time 80m and would have to go somewhere for their dedicated portable experience, when you add WiiU numbers into the mix it becomes even more of a tall order to sell less than the 3DS as in total that's 93m units if we take into account overlap of these three platforms 3DS was really the minimum it could sell. If anything those who thought it would sell less than 3DS where being overly pessimistic with out looking at all the factors this isn't a case of hindsight in this regard.

The state of Nintendo at that time was one of decline, and that did have an impact on people perceptions like you mentioned not everyone but a lot regarding whether the move toward a hybrid model could halt that decline.

The audience for a dedicated Nintendo experience was in decline the 3Ds wasn't anywhere near the power house of the DS and as for the Wii U enough said.

mobile was growing not just in sales but importantly its technological capabilities and that saw Nintendo bringing more of its Nintendo experiences into that space those factors were exactly why we had the conversation at that time around whether or not the switch could stem the tide now it turned out that it did but that was still unknown back then.

Mobile was already huge long before the 3DS and it was clear it would never replace dedicated gaming and just exist along side it, in order for a decline to happen you'd literally have to be thinking that the entire portable market would disappear which is not fully logical the 3DS not being the powerhouse that the DS was is no different to the PS3 not being like the PS2. Fact is the monopoly on portable alone made it impossible to decline.