The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[Jumpin]

The_Liquid_Laser said:

Soundwave said:

Dev kits for the Switch 2 are out in Europe too, which means a new system is coming, there's no real point in even having a big debate about that, they are moving on to a new system. 

Nintendo is not "killing" anything from their POV, they will want people who would have bought a Switch to just move over and buy a Switch 2 which if its backwards compatible (it will be) IS a Switch 1 also. For them there is no delineation that way, this stuff only matters to tiny number of people arguing about it on message boards (read: it doesn't really matter). 

Sony could sell more PS4s if they wanted to, they chose not to on purpose because they're effectively forcing people to buy a PS5 instead, which is a bigger win for them because that locks that consumer into their new software ecosystem for a further 5-7 years and means they can sell all their newer and future games to that person, not just a legacy library.

A) A new system is definitely coming.  That doesn't mean it is coming next year.

B) Nintendo is not Sony.  I see a lot of people on forums making the mistake of thinking that Nintendo is just going to follow what Sony has done.  Except Nintendo is known for doing their own thing and not following Sony.  This particularly makes sense now, because Nintendo is the market leader and not Sony.

Nintendo supported the 3DS for a couple of years after the Switch released.  Expect them to do the same thing with the Switch, since this is how Nintendo behaves when they only have 2 systems to support during a console transition period.

Nintendo was, at a point, the most egregious of the console manufacturers to kill the previous Gen when the next came along. But the 3DS thing you’ve pointed out, and other things brought up by them, make it likely that they’ve changed their direction.

I think it’s both good for business and consumers alike if Switch support continues for years to come. There are people who have families and multiple Switch units in the household. It can get rather expensive if you need to upgrade everything day 1 because Switch 1 is being killed off. It’s a bad experience, and the console industry isn’t just competing against itself anymore - no matter how many righteous anti-mobile people there are in console fandom, mobile is massive competition, as is PC. Parents don’t have to worry about support being cut off from old mobile devices and PC for a very long time. A major factor for growth for Nintendo would be to make their devices always seem like the best option for families as well as older console gamers. Focusing on both is not just possible, but also beneficial.

That said, my opinion of what Nintendo should do is little indication of what they will do. I’ve been wrong about Nintendo before, they’re not even close to as predictable as Sony. And I say that as a fan of Nintendo for over 35 years, and one with only a trivial interest in Sony consoles since the Vita.