cell phones release annually with little or no change to hardware and people still line up indroves. If anything new hardware release could increase but this would be offset with more flexibility in games (like we see with PS4 pro and Scorpio allowing vanilla console owners access to all games just with limited performance.... like smart phones)

Yes people would never go for having to restart their games collection every 2 years, but if you guarenteed the machine would be able to play anything released over at a minimum the next 6 years people would go for it. The issue hear is the console industry loses is distiction from PC in several ways.

knowing nintendo, id bet in something a little diferent.

In 2020 a switch version using x2, but with the same size and power of regular switch. With a few changes: 1080p screen, and portable mode with the same performance as regular switch dock mode. Optionaly, the user could set to batery save mode, that would slow the clock and perform like regular switch, bt with 50% more batery life.

In such way, the development would be the same, targeting reglar and dock mode regular switch. Also regular switch could still run every game, giving a full 7 to 8 years support to the regular switch. Nintendo showed a not sucessful experience with new 3DS excusives. Is better every switch being able to run every upcoming switch game.

Let the market decide that.

I hope so.

Yeah, like 20.

If they release a Switch Mini exclusive portable to be the succesor of the 3DS it could last so much more :)

Good points actually.

So basically, the first games not compatible with the current Switch hardware would be realasing lets say in ~2025, even though the origninal models (all gen 1 switch SKUs) would keep selling for a short while longer at a very low price? Did I get that right?

I think forwards compatibility of the first Switch for many years is still important for developers and consumers if they go this way. As, it allows for more time to develop games and to have a larger install base that can buy/play your game.

Perhaps the hardware will change alot (imporving quality of life features and the like), while game devs will still target all switch owners. Much like how OG 3ds can play almost all New 3DS games.

Maybe they can keep forwards compatibility for most games through ~2026, then they fade out the oldest models year by year keeping this "generationless" gradual progression going maybe very long term through 2037 and beyond?

Then, I guess the message is consistant at least. Which I view as great news.

Long term platform support is certainly positive for Nintendo, now that they have found a much more long term viable niche (hybrid consoles) that plays very much to their own strengths and can be interated upon quite well.

I thought console generations were going to get longer with gen 7, and Sony agreed, declaring something along the lines of a 10-year life span for PS3. But the PS3 wasn't popular enough for that to happen, and the best-selling home console of that generation was, in my opinion, cut off early. Maybe this is Nintendo realizing that was a mistake and deciding to see things through rather than artificially speed up the start of the next gen.

I could see this happening... but not in the exact way they seem to be implying.

As the Switch gets older, we could see Nintendo transition from pushing it primarily as a home console to pushing it as a portable.

By making the Switch smaller in form, and possibly even going with some kind of DS like clamshell design, or maybe a model with controls built in, they can drop it to the 150-200 dollar price range, and have it serve the same role that the Game Boy and DS lines filled while creating a pure home console as well.

Who said you game collection has to reset? 

I can play my STEAM games that are 7-8 years old. 

That's the future IMO. Ecosystem, not a system. That's the 80s/90s way of doing things, it's not even smart business. 

Why expend so much energy building a userbase of consumers and then reset back to 0 where any number of things can go wrong every 5-6 years? Quite honestly if you think about, it's an insane business model, very few other businesses would ever accept that. Keep refreshing the hardware now and again, but if consumers have invested like hundreds/thousands of dollars into games in your ecosystem, they're not going to be so keen to leave that library. Which is good.