Arkaign said:
I chose your reply to accumulate my responses to several posts on this theme as I think it can drill into the root issue that I'm trying to get at. What do GBA, DS, and 3DS have in common? #1 : Cheap Games. $20-$30 for most new games, with some coming in at $35-$40 initially. #2 : Cheap Systems. No handheld has ever sold well at prices north of $199 USD. Affordable to get into. #3 : Quick dev time. Games for Nintendo handhelds from the Gameboy days all the way to n3DS have been on simple hardware with low resolutions and not a lot of fancy tricks to deal with. Even the 2nd screen for DS/3DS is really just another low-resolution extension of the main screen. So, it's easy to crank out a ton of content using small teams. This is fantastic, because risk is low, and tons of content can get on the shelves and online store rapidly. #4 : NO real competition. The most credible of all time was the PSP, followed by the Game Gear. Both of these exposed a basic problem though : in handheld console competition, you want to be cheap and have plenty of games. PSP was more expensive than the Nintendo competition, and had a fraction of the games. So, if Nintendo can present the Switch as grabbing the torch of Nintendo handheld mainline gaming, AND get a mass-market handheld price (sub-$200), AND get a big flow of the kind of titles that sustained those previous hit systems, then they can sell a healthy amount of Switches. I absolutely do think they need a smaller, more sleek model to really hit the bigtime though. Switch as it is, it's a bit too bulky/cumbersome to be a pocketable/easy to deal with device. That will almost certainly happen down the line. On the flipside, if they are trying to meet higher price v price with Sony/MS and present the Switch as a home console, I just really doubt that it will work out well for them. People simply have different expectations of handheld gaming vs. home console gaming. I think that they will more than likely lower the price, get new SKUs out, and have a strong non-AAA library built up on this thing. Game pricing will be something to consider. It's absolutely fine for games like BOTW and 3D Mario to be $59 full-priced games. However, 2D marios, the kind of stuff that DS/3DS have gotten for years, those need to be $25-$40. Changing $59 for many of those kinds of games might limit the appeal of the system. Wii I covered earlier. It's timeframe, early success followed by a steep decline, launching at excellent pricing vs unestablished super expensive Gen7 competition, and the initial motion controls/fitness craze are not elements that are likely to be repeated anytime soon. WiiU was a better Wii, and it was a disaster because the market wasn't the same. |
Thanks for the nice detailed response, I'll to to cover most of your points.
1. We have already seen a decent amount of flexible pricing for Switch games. Blaster Master Zero, Little Inferno, Human Resource Machine & World of Goo are $10, Fast RMX, Snipperclips & Has Been Heroes are $20, Voez & Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove are $25, I Am Setsuna & Binding of Isaac are $40, 1-2 Switch & Super Bomberman are $50, Just Dance, Skylanders & Zelda are $60.
2. Price can and likely will come down. For example, 3DS started at $250 and the entry level sku is now $80 with a game bundled. I wouldnt be surprised to see a $200 Switch Lite by holiday 2018.
3. The primary 3rd party support for Switch appears to be small-medium sized Japanese, indie & kid/family software. These types of games do not typically require very large dev cycles, teams or budgets so this isnt much of a concern. As for 1st party support, Nintendo has unified their dev teams and no longer needs to support two distinct platforms anymore so their output should increase.
4. There is still no competition, Switch isnt competing directly with any other gaming device and isnt meant to replace your Playstation/Xbox/PC or your smartphone/tablet. Its a device meant to coexist with those devices that can potentially appeal to each of those markets.
I agree with your next few paragraphs, Nintendo needs to have a steady flow of releases, regular price drops and revisions that appeal to various markets.
As for your statement that Wii U was a better Wii, I disagree 100%. It was more like a Gamecube successor than a Wii successor.
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
