| JackHandy said: No, I'm not making the claim that the same gamers changed, although it's obvious there was a little of that. I'm arguing that a new generation of gamers (Gen Z) bought into Nintendo in a way that we haven't seen since the SNES. That it became cool to play Nintendo games again. I do not believe systems sell games like you do. I believe it's the other way around and always has been. |
Gen Z (age 13-28 now) only really bought into Nintendo in their 20s.
Where Wii U failed was in convincing parents to buy the system for their kids. It smelled like an extension of the Wii, not a new system. Parents were more inclined to by their kids a 3ds/2ds.
As you see from the graph, age 10 to 20 is still the most 'allergic' to Nintendo. Teenagers.
Switch was seen as cool again, thanks to marketing, pretending its a console too, and already having a great library from the WiiU to start with. Open world Zelda helped a lot as well of course (34m sales)
Momentum creates success, lack of it failure. WiiU had a terrible start, confusing marketing (TV remote !?) and sales died. Switch the opposite, started with great momentum with one of the best launch line-ups ever, but more importantly combining the mobile and console market in one, to start with a much bigger snowball rolling downhill.
Better description is Switch got gamers to buy into handhelds again like the DS, since Switch is matching DS sales. DS was on the market from 2004 to 2014, 3DS only sold half that, 3D seen as an expensive gimmick.
It's not that 2011 (3ds release) to 2017 gamers suddenly didn't like Nintendo, they didn't like the hardware. Plus parents had all bought into the Wii at the time, not jumping to get the 3ds for their kids. Wii's momentum also hurt 3ds' momentum, but mostly '3D' did.
Having the most desirable games still isn't enough to sell badly perceived / overpriced hardware. See PS3's launch. Momentum from a previous generation is no guarantee for future success.
Yet in the end, it's the familiar games that keep Nintendo in business. The WiiU still had the games, just needed a more desirable system to cash in on them. MK8 went from 8.4 million (62% attach rate) on Wii-U to over 68 million (44% attach rate) on Switch.
So indeed, games sell systems, but undesirable systems are a limiting factor.
