Home Console - 2017/2018     Handheld - 2018

LIke I said 2016 is not going to happen

Handheld 2018? U honestly expect 3DS to have a 7+ year lifespan without a successor? I hope u realize DS had just over 6 years, why would 3DS be longer despite selling much worse and showing consecutive years of decline already?

You guys just do not seem to understand that the 3DS's successor is going to sell WAAAAY less. Supporting the 3DS which is selling decently due to games it has is the better option.

The handheld market shrunk by over 2/3rds this gen to last gen...... Maximizing revenue from each system is critical for it to be profitable.

3DS successor < 40 million. 

3DS successor < 30 million would not suprise me at all

How are u so sure that the next handheld will sell significantly less than 3DS? Yes, the handheld market has dropped to about 1/3 of what it was during the DS/PSP era, but then again the DS/PSP generation sold 3x more than any previous, individual handheld generation so is that really what we should consider standard? Perhaps the handheld market is returning back to normal, pre-DS/PSP levels.

If u combine Gameboy+Gameboy Color+Gameboy Advance sales from 1989-2007 (18 years) u get about 200 million, or just over 65 million per generation, which is just about what 3DS is on track to selling, add in the 15 million that Vita is set to sell, which is probably about what the competitors sold in the 4th/5th/6th generations (Atari Lynx/Game Gear/Nomad/Wonderswan/Neo-Geo Pocket/N-Gage/etc.) and u get about 80 million this generation and the average for pre-DS/PSP generations.

It is very possible that the handheld market will continue to shrink, I'm not going to deny that but at the same time their is no proof that such a trend will continue and we could simply see the handheld market revert back to its pre-DS/PSP baseline. We will just have to wait and see how things go next generation.

You might as well just hand Apple/Android 100% of your market then. Kids are going to look at the 3DS and laugh at it for be waaaaaaay outdated compared to even shitty budget $150 tablets. 

The next handheld needs to come out soon if for no other reason to hold Nintendo's gains in Japan where handhelds still sell. 

There is no handheld/console difference in my mind anyway. Nintendo can't support two distinct platforms any more, those days are over, just like the 1990s are over. The only reason it was semi-feasible as recently as the DS/Wii was Nintendo basically "cheated" with the Wii by recylcing the SD resolution GameCube chip and the DS had very primitive 3D. 

You can't have two distinct platforms supported basically by one company that HD visual fidelity of around a XBox 360 at minimum. No one can do it, not Nintendo, not Sony, and not Microsoft. 

Imagine Sony had to regularily continue to release PS3 games on top of PS4 games? Haha, that would be a total disaster. 

NX is one unified platform. Buy the console if you like to play at home. Buy the handheld is you prefer to play on the go. Buy both if you want to be able play all your games on the TV and continue playing on the go. Consumer's choice. 

But that's the other benefit of a unified platform -- you don't have to have these silly, arbitrary gaps in between hardware releases. Apple can release a new iPad and a new iPhone in the same quarter because they both share the same apps (software)/OS and similar hardware. Once the handheld NX is ready, the console one can be made ready almost immediately too, because they will share games. In a unified platform structure, Nintendo could launch both on the same day (portable and console) if they really wanted to. 

Why on earth would Nintendo, who have no other divisions to fall back on as opposed to Sony and MS, try to keep two irrelevant consoles on the market at the same time (they will both be highly irrelvant before those time windows you're proposing are up)? That's a one-way ticket to obscurity and a near surefire way to drop ouf of the hardware business completely; they simply cannot afford to do this and it would be a historically stupid move of them.

I don't want the NX to come out until 2018. I want to enjoy my WiiU for at least a few more years ...

In saying that, NX won't save Nintendo in Japan.