Will Nintendo ever make a traditional console again?

[zorg1000]

spurgeonryan said:

I mean, maybe the last 5 years, but as of the Wii U, Nintendo was still in the Home console business.  Sure departments change, programs, policies, etc. But that does not mean they will never change back.

Will have to see how the switch 2 does. SNES or NES 2, Wii U, etc have all struggled in the past. Hopefully they Garner the same excitement this next time as well.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes Nintendo made the decision to abandon separate hardware lines when it was actually forced upon them.

In the 90s/00s it was possible for Nintendo to support separate hardware lines but as technology advanced and development time & costs increased, this became far too difficult.

Their handheld line was never cutting edge and Wii not being a big visual upgrade over GC prolonged the inevitable but the 3DS/Wii U era saw their handheld line make the jump from 2D to 3D and their console line jump from SD to HD and they were clearly struggling to get a steady flow of games out.

The hybrid strategy allowed them to consolidate their hardware teams, software teams & audience into a single ecosystem and they can’t go back.

With that said, I wouldn’t rule out the idea of a wider variety of different form factors going forward with one of those being a small, cheap TV only version with the same hardware/software.