Wyrdness said:
You misunderstand Nintendo's situation not having two platforms increased their income as they only need to focus on one product that caters to two parallel markets this is another reason why they can wait they also make revenue off online subscriptions something they didn't have before and makes their income less reliant on sales at this point the won't be any third pillar. A monopoly matters because that provides a good market share before any product has launched it effectively turns the market into leverage in business decisions as even if the next platform isn't as successful as Switch the chances of it selling below 70m are slim because the portable market has no other viable place to go, you're right when looking at the short term but the monopoly itself offers options that give them more freedom to not be as pressed by short term matters in order to boost the long term. |
i actually do understand your first point. that has clearly served them well this entire generation and will continue to do so. however, even with the switch still doing well, they have to release a new console sooner rather than later to stave off the decrease in sales. even if the switch went from (for instance) 20 million, then 15, then 10 - it's still decreasing. investors and the market as a whole see the decrease, be it expected from nintendo or us on a forum, as a bad thing, which will only decrease nintendo's stance among their investors.
i'm not saying switch needs to be replaced because it's doing bad. in fact, i think it's better for them to use the leverage you are mentioning in order to launch into a new console with this momentum and in order to keep their investors happy. (which is the mission statement of any publicly traded company.)
