More platforms doesn't really mean more consumers it just means more choice for the consumers already around, what brings in more consumers are blue ocean like strategies not more platforms. Have you not been reading the posts you're replying to I've been flat out pointing out that GBA was a monopoly in other words one platform generation, I assume you didn't understand what is meant by monopoly.

3DS cost £220 at launch and was that price for 7 or so months, to put things in perspective the Wii cost £180 and the Wii U Basic cost around £250 at launch, Gamecube was £140 at launch and N64 was £240, 3DS was not only almost 100 quid more than the GBA and DS it was essentially going into console territory for pricing because the hardware wasn't the usual cheap basic approach of the GBA. After the price cut 7 months later it was being sold at a slight loss, GBA however was being sold at a decent profit despite being almost 100 quid cheaper that is what's meant by cheap hardware as they could price GBA easier. Even at 170 quid 3DS was still as pricey as the (at the time) two previous Nintendo home platforms at launch or in the case of the GC more pricey. This is a key reason why Switch is marketed as a home console in the west.

Read the third part of your post again it sums up the GBA and what I'm pointing out the second other platforms turned up it dropped off so in other words had the GBA had to deal with what the portables that came after had to it would have sold much less and at a slower pace. You know no 3DS replacement came out 4-5 years later? Because unlike GBA the 3DS is actually a platform designed for a competitive market and not a monopoly while GBA had to be put away because it would have failed to fight any competent competition.

The final part of your post makes no sense Nintendo struggle to support 2 platforms now you're arguing supporting 3 platforms is possible? Are you having a laugh here as it's almost like you're ignoring the reality of the market here where it has shown that more than one platform can't be supported effectively and has resulted in the opposite of what you're painting, that part of your post is a what if fantasy at this point because both Sony and Nintendo have shown only one platform can be properly supported. The Switch cleveryl got around the problem of abandoning one market by having a hybrid form factor to operate in both markets as one device.

More platforms can absolutely mean more consumers, or do you believe that everyone has the same tastes?

GBA had a monopoly. True.
The 3DS pretty much had a monopoly, with the exception of Japan, where, despite not having a monopoly, it still outsold the GBA. Which means that, not having a monopoly doesn't automatically mean you'll have less sales.
If it outsold GBA in Japan, why couldn't it do it in the US and Europe, where Vita was less competitive?

Why do you bring up profits and mix it with price points?
What matters is what consumers pay. And a few months after launch the big price gap became a low price cup and a year or so after, the price gap was null because of the 2DS.
So, if price was THE biggest issue, when 2DS appeared sales should have soared and they didn't.

So, Nintendo designed 3DS the compete but forgot to do it with Wii U and strangely did that with the first GB (lasted a ton of years and it's "real" competition only came out later)?
The biggest reason why 3DS hasn't been replaced is because it never had serious competition and won't have. Or do you think Nintendo would let 3DS be if Sony had a success with Vita and was planning a Vita 2?
They don't make a move because there's no need.
The second reason being that it was a life saver for Nintendo (given Wii U's bad sales) and they couldn't just start from zero at any time.

It doesn't make sense because you didn't understand me.

At first, i defended that Nintendo did want DS to be a third pillar. 
Business wise it would make sense seeing as it could make them more money - assuming it would work - by attracting a different crowd.
Then, you said that Nintendo already had 2 platforms at once. To which i replied that i was only talking about handhelds, but, given that, it would mean that they would have 3.
I ended that that idea was more of a dream than a reality.

What brings in more consumers is market approach not more platforms as that's what caters to consumer types not having multiple platforms, Gen 3 despite only having the NES and MS moved more units than the Gen before it because the platforms had different approaches where as the gen before it had a tonne of platforms that all did the same approach and ended up crashing the market. What you're saying is flawed and untrue as you're equating two different things into one. I bring up profits because that is what's affected by price point and is what drives business approach, Nintendo are purely a gaming company so have to make profit which in turn affects the price point they go for, if tech is more pricey than what they're used to it will make pricing choices harder as they can't afford to continuously use a business model where they sell at a loss. What the consumer pays is the whole point as portables are still seen in the west as being of lower value because so the price going into console territory was a massive issue and 2DS came out 2 years later when momentum was established, what backs my point on pricing is when the price cut happened the baseline shot up, pricing was also what helped bring down the Vita as well. 3DS was pricier than they wanted because Vita was on the horizon with harware improvements over the PSP which despite getting run over did pretty well so they had to be competitive with progression, this is what competition forces, GBA had non of that.

3DS doesn't have a monpoly because even though it has demolished the Vita the latter putting up a fight in Japan has lead to it snatching a significant chunk of support from the 3DS as a whole not to mention its sales of 16m if they were 3DS units would put the platform's sales above the GBA total, GBA had no platform at all putting up a fight anywhere. Markets shift that's why sales in EU and US aren't like those in Japan, the west has become more console centric in its preference while the east is more portable centric, the's also the case of the consumer base for gaming as a whole changes overtime while the industry is changing. Portables today are seen as the same experience as their home console couterparts which they pretty much are now days so consumers tend not to double dip like they did before when the portable experiences had quite a number of differences when designs were base on pick up and play concepts, instead consumers will buy the one platform that will fill most of their needs. An example is that if half or even a third of the Wii U consumber base don't have a 3DS and were 3DS owners instead it would push the platform wel into the 70m range and likely help the platform finish LT at or above GBA numbers alone.

The 3DS hasn't been replaced because it was a competively good platform and yes Wii U was not a competitive platform either, 3DS destroyed the competition because it allowed Nintendo to be heavily competitive in fighting for consumers even with out the blue ocean consumers that's why it's not replaced and still going. This part of your post is not even very coherent in what point you're trying to make either so I'm not sure what you're even trying to say.

It doesn't make sense because it's not logical as having two portables would hamper and compete against each other, any revenue made would be drained because more resources are need for all platforms.

Disagree, to a certain extent.

If Nintendo didn't have the bounce back brought about by Pokemon Go and Switch performances, they would have had to start tapping into their funds. For a smaller company compared to their competitors, this would have left them in dangerous waters. Another massive misstep or failure to 'right the ship' would have lead to them exiting the game making business as a console developer and maybe even software. The company as whole probably would have still been able to survive with the right multi media moves so they wouldn't have to sell 'ALL' their IP but to think there was no danger of failure is foolish.

Although to put it one way, Nintendo was like a character in a show that nearly dies and looks dead, but is shown to have survived either later in the episode or in a future one.

Of course that market approach (be it strategy or even marketing) brings in more or less people, but you can't assume that everyone is bound to like your product just because you did everything right.
Every product has a sales and market potentital - which isn't infinite.
If you can add another product to the market, chances are, you'll get people, who didn't like one product, to like and buy the new product.

Gamers don't care why company A provides a product at this or that price point. They could care less.
What i showed was that the argument of a monopolistic position does not garantee better sales than another product in a non-monopolistic position, in a market.
When you see, in Japan, 3DS fighting Vita and outselling GBA, that argument can't be used.
What it means is that 3DS did a better job of gaining customers than GBA. The reverse is valid for the US and Europe.

3DS' price had nothing to do with Vita.
3DS was more expensive to produce than prior consoles and after NDS, it was only logical for Nintendo to try and up the price.
Remember that at 170$ they were already losing money.

GBA didn't have competition until 2005, but then it had to fight PSP and NDS (both did very, very well in sales).
So, if you want to add those 16m to 3DS' numbers -and you can't - than you should do the same and take sales from NDS and PSP (a console much more successful in the US and Europe, than Vita, btw.) and add it to GBA's totals. Only fair, i think.
And GBA did have competition in Japan: Wonderswan. Of course, it wasn't anywhere near relevant. But it had competition.

Market shifts don't explain 3DS' performance being below the GBA, in the US and Europe. Not when you look at past Nintendo handhelds selling so well and consoles selling so well, at the same time.
In fact, you could say that japan's shift to handhelds (clearly taking away console sales) was very responsible for 3DS' victory over GBA.

What i tried to say was that Nintendo did not replace 3DS because it didn't have to and, to a certain extent, it would be a bad option.
With Vita having failed and Sony not releasing a new portable, why replace the 3DS?
If 3DS is making Nintendo money and Wii U not, why replace 3DS? To invest heavily in R&D and see your revenue plummet because of a newborn portable.
If Nintendo launched the NDS to fend off PSP and 3DS to fend off Vita, don't you think that if Vita was a success and Sony was ready to launch Vita 2, Nintendo would release a new portable?

It's true that having 2 portables would result into DS eating into GBA's sales, but in this case, DS was for a different market and different experience.
So it made sense to try and expand your market, whilst appealing to your "fanbase".
It would be like GBA for kids and teens and NDS for adults.
I don't disagree with the resources part. Never did.

I'm focusing on the short term because your original point was referring to Switch momentum in 2018. Personally i'm not worried about Switch momentum either long or short term. I think it will take the whole of 2018 to catch up with demand, then from 2019 onwards i see the 3ds family being discontinued, then Nintendo will go after the 3ds-centric crowd with 3ds like titles, such as Mario vs. Donkey kong, Tomodachi life etc. Lots more big hitters to come.

Many products just copy what is already popular that is the problem with that particular point you're arguing and few products go for a differing approach to what already is working hence when something does do something different a load of clones start appearing of the product hoping to get a piece of the pie. It's not more products that bring in more consumers it's approach and a single product can bring in more consumers by itself in future if an approach is adjusted, more products doesn't lead to more consumers.

Market shifts do explain that I don't think you fully understand the points being put forward to you, if portables and home consoles are beginning to offer pretty much the same experience as opposed to alternative experiences from each other and the regional markets have had a shift in consumers then it is pretty easy to understand that the western push toward home consoles would affect portable sales while the eastern push increases sales for portables as less people will double dip for the same experience and just go for the platform that caters to their main needs. Western gaming has heavily focused on high end tech a shift portables do not focus on or can't match as easily while in the east gaming has become more of a collection of subcultures integrated in the social structure with communities for games like Pokemon, Monster Hunter, Yakoi etc... An approach that portables heavily cater to. Shifts like these have an affect on hardware performance hence why PS4 despite having only the Wii U to deal with in Japan for the longest time will still sell much less than the PS2 did over the as a shift over the last decade has taken place and consoles don't perform as well over the.

you haven't really shown anything about a monopoly not guaranteeing sales not one thing in all your posts you didn't even understand what was meant by monopoly and you still don't understand the point of explaining price point to you and still fail to understand how it all ties in with not having a monopoly, you're still trying to argue 3DS is a monopoly because it beat out Vita yet the latter still sold 16m units entering into the top 20 platforms sold according to this very site, that's not a monopoly mate far from it it's a usual market leader beating the competition. Also read the post properly I said Vita's own pricing was a key cause of its own downfall.

I already do add DS and PSP numbers together when comparing portable gens, DS was an anomaly much like the PS2 and PSP came out with a new approach that forced the DS into being and caused the GBA to be dropped. Both did well for the and people often argue mobile this and that and what that gen says is that the portable market didn't shrink it passed on the blue ocean anomaly to mobile while portables have normalized as a market and will still make a gain as a whole over the GBA era.

Again Nintendo have not replaced 3DS because it was a competitive platform, it provided the grounds for them to snatch key franchises that made PSP competitive while still be able to be handled in a competitive manner, you're not even making sense here either as why would they kill off the 3DS and not the Wii U if the latter is the problem platform? NDS was a reaction to the PSP, 3DS' design was a reaction to what they expected Vita to be competitive wise so 3DS was also a reaction to PSP's success, Vita wasn't a success for Sony PSP was because it put up a fight and forced a scenario where the R&D had to respect Sony's portable line unfortunately Vita didn't do as well due to mishandling the platform the same way Nintendo mishandled the Wii U. This mistake by Sony against a competitive platform like 3DS was only ever going to end in one result.

You don't expand audience by having two platforms in the same field this is why DS replaced GBA as the former could already do everything the latter could do while adding its own approach, logically it makes more sense to have one platform in the field have a broad approach than split resources among two platforms. Lets put this in perspective imagine if they did have 3 platforms today, the Wii U would have been more of a disaster as portable development and resource management is now comparable to consoles and very likely one of the portables would have gone down like the Wii U as well.

Ps4 is not a risk and one of the most boring safe consoles ever.

I could swear i spoke about medium and long term before.
That aside, yes, lot of big hitters to come. My question was at what pace.

I have no idea when 3DS will go away. 2019 might just be the year.
I wouldn't automatically assume that what worked for 3DS will work the same or close, with Switch.
I say this because we know nothing on who's buying Switch. The only data i have seen is a survey from NOA on where people prefer to play Switch.

Your views of the market are not correct.
Different products, even if they share similarities, do attract more consumers.
Of, course, the bigger the difference, the more you can expect the market to increase.
Sometimes it's the name, the look, the price, etc. that puts people off regarding product A, but when that's taken care of, they will buy product B.

And in the case of handhelds, GBA was substantially different from PSP and NDS. And 3DS was substantially different from Vita.

But the west was always more about consoles than handhelds.
There's been no shift in the west, only in Japan - where sales of handhelds rose at the expense of home consoles. And i seriously doubt it has annything to do with technology. Because if it were, we would have seen Vita doing way, way better. Yet, it was outsold by old tech.
Ironically, Vita was the only console to decrease that tech gap that you talk about and it completely failed in Japan.

I said 3DS was a monopoly? You didn't understand what i wrote.
I agreed with you that GBA had a monopoly in the US, Japan and Europe. But, even with a monopoly in Japan, it did worse than 3DS (who didn't had a monopoly).
Which means that having a monopoly doesn't automatically make you the winner. So, your view that 3DS didn't do/won't do better than GBA because GBA had a monopoly simply isn't true as 3DS sales in Japan show that. You could probably used PSP's sales in Europe as proof of that.
The decline of 3DS in the US and Europe has one explanation: mobile boom around the time of DS.


I don't see how you can prove DS was a move to fight the PSP, when both were being developed at the same time and Nintendo is famously known as going their own way.

This is what you said "3DS doesn't have a monpoly because even though it has demolished the Vita the latter putting up a fight in Japan has lead to it snatching a significant chunk of support from the 3DS as a whole not to mention its sales of 16m if they were 3DS units would put the platform's sales above the GBA total"
To this i responded that you can't just add Vita's sales to 3DS without adding the sales of the competition that GBA since 2005. Namely, DS and PSP.
If you only add numbers from Vita to 3DS you'll be making an unfair comparison between 3DS and GBA. Specially when GBA had more serious competition than 3DS ever had.

Exactly what made the 3DS HW so competitive that it took games like MH away from the superior HW (Vita)?
But they did kill Wii U. And they didn't kill 3DS for several reasons (in my prior 2 posts), with the most important being that they didn't have competition.
3DS was a reaction to what Vita would be? 3DS is basically a DS with 3D screen (3D that they have been working since the GC days).
Nintendo always did their thing: be different. It never mattered what the competition did.
And, as i said above, PSP and DS were in development at the same time (they also came out to the market close to one another).

Look, i'm not disagreeing with you on splitting resources and what not.
The thing is even if GBA and DS shared similarities, they were also very different and they also catered to different markets. So, there was room for both.
Ask yourself why companies like LG, for example, have a flagship phone and then come out with spin-offs. If you were right, these companies wouldn't be launching inferior/different products of the same line. They do it because the flagship, for whatever reason can't attract everyone (market and sales potential).