Will the Switch 2 have some secret sauce? If so, what?

[zorg1000]

JWeinCom said:

zorg1000 said:

It seems like you’re assuming Vita did poorly because it was a straight forward successor and that seems like a very poor conclusion. A big part of PSP’s appeal was that it was pretty much the first all-in-one portable multimedia device, you could play games, watch movies, listen to music and surf the web. That was a really big deal in 2005. Fast forward to 2012 and everybody has a smartphone and/or tablet that does all of those things, it’s no longer a selling point.

On top of that, many of the top selling games on PSP like Grand Theft Auto, Monster Hunter, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear, God of War, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc did not get new additions of Vita.

If a bunch of other wildly popular hybrid devices release before Switch 2 and it doesn’t get Zelda, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, etc then yeah it will probably bomb.

We have seen with NES to SNES, GB to GBA, PS1 to PS2, PS2/XB to PS3/360 to PS4/XB1 to PS5/XSX that more powerful devices with QoL improvements can do very well. Devices that have a big drop off from their predecessors do so because of specific reasons, not because they were straight forward successors.

No, I didn't assume that at all. We have to work with the data we have. I was pretty careful with my wording to avoid that. What I said was. 

"Those kinds of sequel consoles are just not guaranteed to have the same appeal as predecessors."

I can't say why exactly the Vita failed, just that it was a pretty straight forward upgrade on the PSP, and that it didn't. The Vita had an incredibly slow start before we really saw what the software lineup would be. It had Uncharted at launch, we knew it would get COD (and not that it would suck), and Assassin's Creed, so it had some heavy hitters. Maybe if it had taken off, it would have gotten more, but on paper, things didn't seem horrible. Software is always part of it, but on the hardware side, its key feature was visuals. The hype train never got going, so it's some combination of those two things. 

I really don't think the PSP's multimedia functionality was a huge part of its appeal. Did the UMD format really take off? Did people really use it as a web browser.

We have seen that more powerful devices do well, and we've seen them fail. Which is why I said, there are no guarantees. For Nintendo in particular, we've never seen a straight successor do better than its predecessor except debatably GBA. Looking at the specifics here, you're dealing with an audience that in large parts isn't super enamored with graphics and many of whom are more casual. A lot of your best selling software is really not going to be significantly better with more improved visuals.

Do you think there are a significant amount of people who bought a Switch, played games like Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc, that may be on the fence on paying 3-400 dollars for a new machine to play the sequels? If so, what is the value proposition to them with an improved Switch? I don't think things like ray tracing in Animal Crossing are going to do it.

Ok, it had Uncharted at launch followed up by mediocre/bad installments of AC/COD 8-9 months later. And yes the multimedia functions of PSP were a big deal, I don’t know if UMD movies were a hit but I recall PSP being quite easy to add pirated movies/music  onto. A device that could do all those things in 2005-2008 was state of the art.

But that’s a really dumb argument because it can equally be applied to devices that weren’t straight forward successors, “we have never seen two consecutive generations of new concepts succeed!” And why does it have to do better than the successor? Is SNES a failure because it did worse than NES? Is GBA a failure because it did worse than GB? Are PS4/PS5 failures because they will fail to surpass PS2?

Yes, I think people who spent $300-350 for a Switch to play Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Zelda, etc. will pay $300-400 to play the next installments of those games. This isn’t a Wii or DS scenario where a large part of the audiences were buying them to play non-traditional games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Nintendogs, Brain Age, etc. I know those type of games have had success on Switch but they are not the primary sales drivers.