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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Will Switch sales success lead to better early 'Switch 2' support?

TheMisterManGuy said:

Only if Nintendo can prove its worth at launch. The mistake Nintendo made with the 3DS and Wii U was that because their predecessors were so successful, they assumed third parties would arrive with high quality games day one, so Nintendo put no effort into launching with a killer app on those systems, instead letting third parties take care of that. When that inevitably failed, Nintendo had to scramble to keep the systems afloat in order to attract third party developers who were packing their bags. While this salvaged the 3DS somewhat, it did nothing to help the Wii U. With the Switch's successor, Nintendo needs to make sure they're taking the launch lineup just as seriously as their third party partners. The Switch is getting all this third party support, in part because Nintendo proved the worth of the platform with its own first party software, which drove a user-base big enough for third parties to consider taking it more seriously.

For the Switch 2 or whatever, Nintendo needs to make sure they have a hit on the level of BotW as early in its life as possible to ensure third party confidence in the product. Because if Nintendo's not taking this platform seriously, then why should third parties?

Nintendo thought Nintendogs + cats would carry the 3DS early on because Nintendogs sold 10+ million on the DS. 

They thought NSMBU + Nintendo Land (mini-game party compilation) would carry the Wii U, because that was in part the formula that sold the original Wii. 

What they didn't count on was that audience bailing out of the fad bubble. 

That's what happens when you bet the farm on such an audience, it's very unreliable. 



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Soundwave said:

Nintendo thought Nintendogs + cats would carry the 3DS early on because Nintendogs sold 10+ million on the DS. 

They thought NSMBU + Nintendo Land (mini-game party compilation) would carry the Wii U, because that was in part the formula that sold the original Wii. 

What they didn't count on was that audience bailing out of the fad bubble. 

That's what happens when you bet the farm on such an audience, it's very unreliable. 

That's part of the reason. But They were placing too much of their bets on third parties carrying the launches of those consoles. Nintendo hardware is entirely driven by the company's own first party software. If Nintendo isn't putting out a big release at launch, the system suffers. Sure, Nintendo didn't realize that Nintendogs and New Super Mario Bros. weren't going to wow people the second time around. But that's more due to a lack of new ideas causing audiences to leave than the audience itself. Nintendo was pretty creatively bankrupt during this period, trudging along with a greatest hits album of what worked before, rather than moving forward with fresh concepts or ideas. It took until Splatoon for them to realize that.