I was fairly active on these boards following Ninty back in 2014-2017 and I remember the general feeling of hopelessness that existed in Nintendo's circles during this time. The general consensus was that Nintendo got "lucky" with the Wii and "caught lightning in a bottle" with a gimmick but that Nintendo's home console market was still on an inevitable decline with every subsequent generation. The Wii U clearly did not go as planned for Nintendo resulting in major cuts in yearly sales forecasts, damage to investor confidence as well as Iwata taking personal responsibility for the failure with a 50% pay cut, selling of the Mariners, etc. Furthermore, it really looked like the dedicated handheld market was doomed with the smartphone gaming craze (in retrospect, this was more of a bubble, but this wasn't apparent at the time) and the 3DS sales really started to prematurely lose steam in 2015-2016 (a lot of people were predicting earlier on that it would get to 80M). All of this gave credence to the narrative that the company was majorly on the ropes prior to the launch of the Switch and that there was no clear way for them to regain a strong foothold in their traditional console markets and that they need to go third party the way that Sega did.
My question is this: was Nintendo in control when they released the Switch and showing us what they are really capable of when they try hard or was this just a wild swing for the fences that resulted in a grand slam? Was the Switch something that Nintendo carefully crafted and knew would likely go on to sell in excess of 100 Million units in its lifetime prior to release or was this a shot in the dark like the Dreamcast where it was the company's last ditch effort at the home console market with plans in mind to go third party while feigning confidence for investors?
When I first saw the reveal of the Switch I was really worried that it didn't have a gimmick or something that, in recent history, Nintendo needed for their platforms to sell well (Wii, DS, 3DS). That said, the Switch ended up being the perfect device at the perfect time. It's hard to get inside Nintendo's head about what they were thinking when they released this. I mean, the concept was so polished and modern and is very different from any of their recent hardware releases that are awkward (but sometimes in that charming Nintendo kind of way that people like). It was also impressively fast for a mobile device in 2017. The last time Nintendo tried do something with cutting edge hardware was the Gamecube which just fell flat on its face in terms of presentation and appeal. The Switch nailed both the hardware as well as the presentation in being a slick, attractive and modern piece of hardware that people actually enjoy carrying around. The Switch really harkens back to the 80's when Nintendo was seen as being on the forefront of technology and mass appeal. I just wonder if Nintendo really had confidence in themselves to be able to pull this off with the Switch. It really has been much a more revolutionary and impressive piece of hardware than the Wii (a gimmick that really came off as luck) or the DS (Nintendo just better leveraging a market that they already had control over). Was the Switch Nintendo getting off of their lazy butts for the first time in 30 years and showing us what they can do when they are serious, or was it them just desperately trying something radically different and striking paydirt in a revolutionary way?