I get a bit depressed by Nintendo's go cheap approach to hardware. I often feel they could have pushed it just a little more and been much better. The difference between when Nintendo succeeds or fails can be little things, launch software, how the media portrayed the console, Nintendo's pricing, whether the gimmicks of that particular console catch the imagination of people or not. I bought a wii u from launch and didn't think it was a bad console. It had some amazing games by Nintendo and interesting controller with screen and compatibility with wii software too. It felt like a great product to me but it had it's flaws, it struggled to match the performance of 360 and PS3 which were much older and had no hard drive just a small amount of flash memory.
Basically my normal approach to Nintendo hardware is wait until there is a good catalogue of exclusive games and pricing is better. I think I went early for wii u as I was a late adopter to wii and wanted to play those wii exclusives with better quality hdmi output. The Switch was basically a console that performed around PS3 and 360 level. Yes it had better graphics and more memory but had much weaker CPU performance so it felt like a 360/PS3 console in the hand which I thought was great as loved that generation of consoles. We now have the Switch 2 that brings PS4/Xbox One performance to handheld, in some ways better and in some ways worse.
I was disappointed with the Switch 2 because of the poor display panel and low capacity battery. I also thought the pricing was far too high in Europe.
I don't think it's been confirmed that the Switch 2 has captured the casual market like the wii and original Switch did but we shall see. Now casual gamers are using their phones, using streaming services and maybe even PCs with the rise of pc gaming handhelds and other forms of PC gaming hardware. Is the Switch 2 competing more directly with streaming services? I've seen videos on youtube where people have no real gaming hardware at all, just a smart TV and using a gaming streaming service with that.
I feel the gaming industry and market has changed quite a lot and the success of Nintendo may be more about the gaming market changing rather than their decisions. I thought it was interesting that on a review of Skyrim on Switch 2 the first release of the software the input lag was much worse than modern gaming streaming services. At some point the business model of Nintendo and Sony may not work in the market and no one needs or wants a console. There may come a point where streaming services keep getting better and better hardware so games just improve month by month because the consumer doesn't actually have any hardware at home. No need to upgrade your console when you don't have one. Surely then no one will want a console that has the same performance level for 7 years or more when their streaming service is constantly upgraded?
The Switch 2 could in fact be Nintendo's last console, not because they have gone out of business but in future all they provide is a gaming streaming service. At that point they will be even more reliant on the quality of their first party games because that maybe the only product they rent use of on their streaming service. Maybe we will get pirate streaming services too as a discount option for the less honest but if that doesn't happen then there will be no piracy for new games.
I do feel the era of the home console is coming to an end but whether that is 5 years from now or 20 years is anyone's guess.
