They never said anything about when a successor could come to market or are bound to any rule about that because some little message board says so. 

The 3DS is still an active platform that Nintendo produces and its now more than 9 years old. You can go into any major retailer and still find a 3DS section of systems and games. Its going to probably end up with the 2nd longest or even longest product cycle in Nintendo history. Its had a longer product cycle than the Wii or DS even despite selling less and not being a huge success. 

That probably is the blue print for Switch - Switch 2, the original Switch will likely continue on for years after Switch 2. 

Just because you define a product cycle as 100% over the moment a successive console comes out doesn't mean a company views it that way. That POV doesn't even make sense, the 3DS for example basically continued to be supported as it would have anyway long after the Switch came out, how can you say that platform is non-active when its obviously still alive and kicking. 

First of all: It's pretty clear that when Nintendo says they will support the Switch for a longer period of time they do not mean it will sell 600k units per year like the 3DS right now. This is obvious, yet you try to argue it. 

Second, please provide the quote where I said a product lifecycle is over once the successor hits the market. I never said so. You missed my point: No matter how you define the product lifecycle, the Switch is going to have a longer lifecycle than the 3DS. The 3DS was replaced after 6 years on the market and was then supported for a whopping 3 years after that (= 9 years). It's exactly as you said: The 3DS was supported for an unusually long time after the release of its successor. What you are arguing right now is that the Switch will be replaced after the same time (6 years) or sooner (late 2022) but then be actively supported by Nintendo for even longer, even though in your very own post you say the 3DS is an example of unusually long support after the successor's launch.

So what you are saying right now is that you think Nintendo is going to support the Switch for at least four years plus after the release of the Switch 2 in late 2022; basically for almost as long as you think said Switch 2 should last before a successor is released? Because if the Switch 2 releases in late 2022 as you are arguing, Nintendo will have to support it for at least another 4+ years to have a significantly longer lifecycle than the 3DS. 

And (serious question, I didn't look into your posting history) aren't you also one of the people saying Nintendo consoles tend to have a shorter lifespan than Sony consoles? If so, how do these things add up? 

I don't see fragmentation as a big issue. If the developer is at all worried about fragmentation they can just release a title across all versions of the hardware. However, if its a game that can only run on the newer hardware then they choose whether it is worth it or not to release it on the new hardware only. I just don't see how this is a negative thing. 

Being supported and sold at retail into 2026/2027 is the the definition of a longer product cycle. You saying "well I don't think that counts because 600k a year isn't enough" is irrelevant, the 3DS is still here and now and still even getting new games.

Switch 2 releases in 2023 I think most likely, the OG Switch will get 2 years software support at least past that, which brings you to 2025. It will still then continue to get new games probably even 1-2 years after that and stocked like the 3DS is now. 

That is a very, very long product cycle. A system is not "replaced" just because the successor console comes out, the PS2 sold like 50 million units after the PS3 came out, if Switch is the be all end all for sales, then it should be able to do the same or at least continue selling reasonably high numbers. 

A $350 Switch 2 is going to be selling to people who already bought a Switch like 5-6 years prior at that point, its not going to be taking sales away from a $149.99 Switch Lite. 

This is not about my thoughts, it's about the fact that Nintendo clearly means it will take a long time for Switch 2 to be released. But I guess we agree to disagree on this point.

But again, no matter how you define the product lifecycle, Nintendo says the Switch will have a longer life than the 3DS. The 3DS is now 9+ years old. So the Switch will have at least a 10 year lifecycle if we count last year's 600k 3DS as "alive". 

And (see the edit in my last post) you are one of the people arguing Nintendo consoles don't sell well for a very long time. Yet, at the same time, you think the Switch will get software support until 2027 and have a 10+ year lifecycle? I mean... ok, I guess? 

Well there is if you have a plan and reasoning behind it (of which is there are plenty)

I mean the PS One relaunch in 2000 ($99) was competing 1:1 sales wise with PS2 ($299) for about a year but its natural to assume they targeted very different audiences. Sony could have kept pushing PS1 til 2002, but giving the PS2 a year head start over its competitors and entering at the beginning of the DVD era secured them a bigger future then the PS1 was ever going to have. It also meant their audiences didn't go on to invest in gamecube/xbox/Dreamcast.

If Ninetndo's expectation is that a systems lifespan ends at the release of a new console, then its looking like a Switch 2 in late 2023 is the earliest they'll do but that doesn't have to be the case at all. (and Nintendo have always combined genius with being quite slow) 

PS1 sold 30m after the PS2's launch and that was without any major cross generation support from developers (which Nintendo could easily do and I actually think cross gen of a title like BOTW2 will increase its software sales significantly without incurring much cost). Subsequently sony had FY02 where they shipped 30m units of combined PS2/PS1 hardware. There's every chance that Switch + any of its revisions never ship more than 20m in any fiscal year again (this fy year steady/ next year decline).

There are windows of opportunity that come and go, or become harder to access over time. This is the only reason why anyone would say a Switch 2 should come sooner than later. Nintendo doesn't operate in Vacuum, nor do they have to settle for the profits they're currently seeing. They could easily absorb notable hardware, Software, services/subscriptions sales from playstation 5 and Series X with a new platform, all whilst tackling their blue ocean market  with the current Switch. Wait too long and people will be forced to opt into competitor platforms and their ecoystsems (majority Switch owners have multiple consoles). Once that happens they will never invest in a Switch 2 the same, the ceiling will be lowered (even if its still massively high)

The technology will be here in 2 years if Nintendo wanted to try this more ambitious route, I don't actually expect they will do anything of the sort lol

Switch doesn't directly compete with PS/Xbox though; if the Switch 2 audience wants those systems they'll get them in addition to rather than instead of a Switch 2, so there is no need for Nintendo to rush out a successor to try to compete.

Also I think you're overlooking something; the whole point of the Switch was that Nintendo can focus on just one platform instead of being spread thin over two. Running Switch and Switch 2 concurrently would defeat the whole purpose of this unification and put them back where they were in 2011-2016.

There really is no development separation between Switch 1 and 2 though, that's kind of the beauty of sticking with Nvidia and using mobile components. 

There is no Switch 1 game you can make that won't be on Switch 2, those will just be then cross platform titles available for both. It'll be easy enough to make the game run at higher resolution on the better hardware, just as PC games do. 

If you're making like a Kirby platformer on Switch 1 in 2024 ... there's no reason to not have that game run on the Switch 2 at 1080p/4K as well. It would be a title for both systems. That dynamic has never really occurred widely on Nintendo systems ever before, but the Switch will be able to do it. 

So your development resources really aren't split. 

Cross-gen development between hardware of very different power levels isn't that simple though, unless you take the lowest common denominator approach of only boosting resolution, and in that scenario Switch 1 and 2 would cannibalize each other as the cheaper older system would be too viable a cheap alternative with many of the same games.

Yes it is that simple for lower end projects like a 2D Kirby or something. 

PC developers make games for like 10 different profiles with no fuss, virtually all modern games are designed to scale to different hardware and wildly so ... look at games like Monster Hunter World and Resident Evil 2 Remake are able to run on hardware as low as GPD Win which is weaker than a Switch with no developer optimization. 

The lower rung games would be the ones that play on the new Switch. Switch 2 can have specific games that only run on it, but the point is the Switch 1 games will all run on Switch 2. This wasn't doable on the 3DS ... games like Metroid II Remake were 3DS only because it's a completely different architecture. But lets say in 2024, Nintendo decides to do a Super Metroid remake on Switch ... hell yes that will be able to run on Switch and likely enhanced to higher resolution without a fuss. That will be a difference for sure. 

It's more like making a game for PS4 and PS4 Pro in that sense. FF7 Remake runs just fine on the PS4 Pro, it just runs the game at a higher resolution, it's not as if they had to rebuild a second version of the game to have it run on PS4 Pro.

Switch 2 owners in its first 1-2 years are predominantly going to come from existing Switch 1 owners who were early adopters to that system (buyers in 2017, 2018). There's not going to be that much overlap between a $350 system and a $200/$149.99 Lite version. The people who buy a system in year 6/7 are completely different from early console adopters, they're not buying a system for $300-$350 no matter what.