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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Switch: a multi-wave console lifecycle (prediction)

 

The future of the Switch

A long life-cycle within 1 hardware revision 18 34.62%
 
A long life-cycle with ma... 28 53.85%
 
A short lifecycle then a ... 6 11.54%
 
Total:52
Soundwave on 06 May 2020
RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

There's already charts posted in this thread that show the DSi and New 3DS basically had a short boost effect on both of those products and then sales declined after that short period. You can't really argue with the data. 

The Switch was already a higher end product from day 1, whereas the 3DS and DS were really not, the main Switch actually has already had a Mariko revision as well which significantly boosts the battery life as well.

You can increase the size of the screen, but I question how much utility you get out of that. A small 3 inch screen going to 4.5 inches is a notable difference, but going from like 6.2 inches to say 7.2 inches is not going to be as notable of a feature. 6.2 inches is already a fairly large screen.  

That's not what the data shows though. The DS family peaked in the USA after the introduction of the DSi which was quite a feat considering how much the DS had already sold in the USA at that point. In Japan the DSi lifted the baseline for more than one year, so it provided the DS family with a second wind; that's impressive because DS sales were already closer to the saturation point in Japan than they were in the USA at the time of the introduction of the DSi.

Sales data for the 3DS is virtually worthless at this point. The 3DS was a troubled platform right from the start, so it had to deal with an entirely different sales trajectory than Switch. What you can conclude from 3DS sales is how revisions and price cuts can affect a troubled platform, but that doesn't provide useful data when your objective is to analyze a healthy platform like Switch. But even for the 3DS, revisions helped to prolong sales of the platform. It's just that revisions have a stronger positive effect on systems that already sold well to begin with. You can observe the same thing with PS4 Pro vs. Xbox One X; the PS4 Pro had a bigger impact on sales despite the Xbox One X being the bigger improvement over its original model.

What is "troubled" about the 3DS, it had a poor first 6 months, but after that the price was cheap and the library started to ramp up and it had 3 decent years of consistent sales. It simply collapsed hard in the back product cycle but that isn't that dissimilar to the Wii. 

I don't think we know between XBox One X vs. PS4 Pro which had a bigger percentage bump. 

DS is probably just its own beast, its way ahead of the Switch already and will increase its lead substantially over Switch in the next two years practically no matter what Nintendo does. The DS revved to a different level that goes way beyond just "well just make another Mario and do a price drop".

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 May 2020

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curl-6 on 06 May 2020
Soundwave said:

I mean the $199.99 Switch Lite is basically the option for people who can't afford to pay $300 to get into the Switch ecosystem. There's no reason to cut the price of the main model when that exists and can serve the budget portion of the market. It basically functions as a price drop. 

That's the thing though, it doesn't function the same as a price drop; if it did, almost nobody would be buying the $300 version, yet outside of instances where it's been sold out, the $300 model has consistently outsold the $200 Lite. To get the full Switch experience you still need to pay as much as you did at launch.



Otter on 07 May 2020

Supporting my belief that they're currently in their peak


"Nintendo shipped 21.03 million units of Switch hardware in FY 2019/20, up from 16.95 million last year.

Nintendo plans to ship 19 million units of Switch hardware in FY2020/21 which runs from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Indicating weaker software slate / demand."


I imagine the Switches lifespan looking more like the PS1 than the PS2. Software support is one of the main reasons. 

Last edited by Otter - on 07 May 2020

Louie on 07 May 2020
Otter said:

Supporting my belief that they're currently in their peak


"Nintendo shipped 21.03 million units of Switch hardware in FY 2019/20, up from 16.95 million last year.

Nintendo plans to ship 19 million units of Switch hardware in FY2020/21 which runs from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Indicating weaker software slate / demand."


I imagine the Switches lifespan looking more like the PS1 than the PS2. Software support is one of the main reasons. 

Don't forget that we are in the middle of the Corona crisis. It is hard for companies to give accurate forecasts right now, Nintendo does not yet know how heavily software development will be affected by the virus and how much hardware production will be affected. It's only logical to be conservative with their estimates. 

Edit: Nintendo's original forecast for FY 2019 was 18 million. They outdid that by 3m units. 



Otter on 07 May 2020
Louie said:
Otter said:

Supporting my belief that they're currently in their peak


"Nintendo shipped 21.03 million units of Switch hardware in FY 2019/20, up from 16.95 million last year.

Nintendo plans to ship 19 million units of Switch hardware in FY2020/21 which runs from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Indicating weaker software slate / demand."


I imagine the Switches lifespan looking more like the PS1 than the PS2. Software support is one of the main reasons. 

Don't forget that we are in the middle of the Corona crisis. It is hard for companies to give accurate forecasts right now, Nintendo does not yet know how heavily software development will be affected by the virus and how much hardware production will be affected. It's only logical to be conservative with their estimates. 

Edit: Nintendo's original forecast for FY 2019 was 18 million. They outdid that by 3m units. 

Yeah, I would assume they took that into account unless they also outdid their 18/19 forecast by a few million?

Corona seems to have given the industry a boost (for now), but I agree that its difficult to forecast because we don't know how things will develop. and whether we'll see major delays to software.



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Soundwave on 07 May 2020

From the Q/A briefing following the earnings release:



Basically indicates Nintendo sees this as the half way point of the Switch cycle, which probably indicates March 2023 is where they see a successor as of now.

Pyro as Bill on 07 May 2020
Soundwave said:
From the Q/A briefing following the earnings release:



Basically indicates Nintendo sees this as barely the half way point of the Switch cycle, which probably indicates 2025 is where they see a successor as of now.

Ftfy.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

Louie on 07 May 2020
Soundwave said:
From the Q/A briefing following the earnings release:



Basically indicates Nintendo sees this as the half way point of the Switch cycle, which probably indicates March 2023 is where they see a successor as of now.

"Barely in the middle of the Switch cycle" is the quote. Which indicates we're not even halfway through the console's lifetime, so late 2023 at the earliest. 



Soundwave on 07 May 2020

It's referencing this quote from Furukawa (president) in February

“We believe that the Nintendo Switch business is now in its fourth year and is just in the middle of its life cycle. Rather than just the next year, I think about things in terms of what to do the following year and the year after that.”

It's in the middle now, and they haven't changed that POV. He references there two more fiscal years past this one as being basically already considered, so that takes you right to ... March 2023 or 2023 broadly. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 07 May 2020

Louie on 07 May 2020
Soundwave said:

It's referencing this quote from Furukawa (president) in February

“We believe that the Nintendo Switch business is now in its fourth year and is just in the middle of its life cycle. Rather than just the next year, I think about things in terms of what to do the following year and the year after that.”

It's in the middle now, and they haven't changed that POV. He references there two more fiscal years past this one as being basically already considered, so that takes you right to ... March 2023 or 2023 broadly. 

How does that quote make you conclude Nintendo will release a Switch successor in March 2023? This sounds more like a quote meant to portray the Switch will have a long shelf life: "We're in its fourth year now and the Switch is just in the middle of its life cycle". Also from Gibbson via Twitter: "Increased ad budget: Now entering the middle of the Switch lifecycle." 

So we have three quotes:

"The Switch business is now in its fourth year and is just in the middle of its life cycle."

"Barely in the middle of the Switch cycle."

And: "Now entering the middle of the Switch lifecycle."

Nintendo is pretty clear about the fact they they think they are only at the beginning of the middle of the Switches lifecycle. And here is a quote from Furukawa from February of this year:

"By placing our main focus on the Nintendo Switch, we feel we can have a very different (longer) hardware life cycle than previous Nintendo consoles." (Source) (Edit: Might even be the same interview, as your quote is from February as well, but I couldn't find your exact quote in the Nintendolife news article and neither in the videogameschronicle translation).

Nintendo is going out of their way to make a point that the Switch is going to have a longer lifecycle than previous consoles.