It's amazing how sales numbers are perceived so differently between Nintendo and Sony. When Nintendo has a 19 million year, it's time to hit the panic button and call it quits on the Switch business; a successor should launch sooner rather than later. When Sony hit 19m during the PS4's fifth full calendar year (2018), there was nobody to suggest that the PS5 should launch in late 2019 at the latest.

People talk about declining profitability for Switch without bothering to look into the causes. Revenue is down by 2% in the comparable nine-month-period, profit is down 13%. What happened is that material costs have gone up (components for Switch hardware) as well as overseas operating expenses for personnel and the like. These things are not factors that Nintendo could control, they were caused by COVID-19 measures of China and the rampant inflation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. New hardware isn't going to solve these problems, because the aspects of the Switch business that Nintendo can control are largely not at fault for declining profitability.

In terms of Switch revisions, there are two major options:

1. A cost-cutting SKU, such as a TV-only Switch. Similar to Switch Lite in its approach, so features being removed in order to address the lower needs that potential customers may have. This would be a way for Nintendo to increase their average profit per hardware unit sold when looking at the whole Switch family.

2. A Switch Pro, boosting framerates and resolutions of both existing and upcoming games. Basically the sole reason why anyone argues that it's too late for a Switch Pro is an assumed too small power leap for an imminent Switch successor, but these people willfully ignore Nintendo's sales history. When has a leap in power in and of itself ever resulted in big sales for Nintendo? Not a single time. On the home console side, every generational leap in processing power has resulted in declining sales (SNES after NES, N64 after SNES, GC after N64, Wii U after Wii) while on the two occasions that had no such leap (Wii after GC, Switch after Wii U) Nintendo's sales increased tremendously. On the handheld side, nobody was ever wowed by the graphics of these small machines in the first place. That's why a Switch Pro wouldn't interfere with any next gen plans. Such an SKU would be merely an additional option for customers.

On the software side, we are six years in and there's still no Player's Choice/Nintendo Selects equivalent.

That's why it annoys me so much when people talk about the Switch business as if Nintendo had already exhausted all their options when all they've done so far is ride the high-profitability-train because all things Switch sold so well that Nintendo could afford to do so without making any efforts.

Stock price doesn't matter. I hope we aren't going to sit here and pretend that all investors now know how the business works. Nevermind that 8-10 years ago when the stock price was only a fraction of what it is now, Nintendo simply ignored all the voices that told them what to do, such as moving the Virtual Console to smartphones. There's no good reason to believe that Nintendo's board of directors will be fazed after a fiscal year with a projected operating profit of 480 billion yen.

Lastly, there's a Nintendo Direct today. Not the most interesting one of the year, because we certainly won't get to learn the full extent of 2023's lineup, but interesting nonetheless. Unlike other console manufacturers, the lion share of Nintendo's profit comes from selling games. The current fiscal year, despite the first yearly decline in software shipments, will still finish comfortably ahead of Switch's third full fiscal year.

Don't forget these titled crossing the 1 million mark are the 3rd party titled published by Nintendo, not in genral.

Like Monster Hunter Rise isn't part of it.

3.) The XBox 360 did start regularly outselling the Wii once they released Kinect, their take on the Wii concept, which must've been a magical coincidence I guess. Switch and PS4/PS5 are not directly comparable as they're very different types of hardware, one is a home console only the other is a hybrid console with a large part of the appeal being it can function as a portable device. The SNES and Genesis were both stationary home consoles that were directly comparable, to make a relevant comparison to that era, you would need to compare a stationary Nintendo console to a Sony or Microsoft one. If Nintendo released a home console with no portable component, you think they would easily put up 120+ million sales and dominate Sony? Obviously probably not. The competition in stationary consoles is much more fierce, with the Genesis, Sega for at least a few years did a tremendous job marketing it, selling it, and even against all odds pulling a Mario-competitor out of their ass in Sonic. 

People who shit on the SNES for "losing" marketshare to the Genesis don't understand how hard Sega came at them, frankly Microsoft could learn some lessons, they are too passive in competing with Sony, Sega was incredibly in your face about it. 

And then they started making dumb management decisions which killed them. Which is basically to say hardware only goes as far as good management decisions will take it, a hardware concept or spec sheet is only one part of the equation. 

4.) Are you speaking for all Nintendo shareholders now? Some wanted, some wanted that, some wanted 800 other different things. Shareholders being upset when Nintendo's business was falling off a cliff isn't shocking or surprising. Nintendo does what they want to do, but I'd also bet "reaching some arbitrary hardware number so Nintendo fanboys on the internet can have meaningless bragging rights" is not even on their list of priorities, certainly not anywhere close to stock price or shareholders. 

Their current internal focus at this stage is likely the Switch successor, that is what their management has to be most focused on because if they are not making the right decisions on that now (honestly probably before now, going back into last year if not sooner), that is the future of the company and it will impact their business massively in 1-2 years from now. 

That's not how it works. All the games that aren't listed in Nintendo's financial report by name are self-published by third parties, such as Monster Hunter Rise and Minecraft.

3. The PS3 also began to regularly outsell the Wii at the same time, but the PS3 had nothing as popular as Kinect. This has been explained to you a million times already, but you just won't admit that the Wii's release schedule from 2011 onwards was very weak for a console as highly successful as it was. There were holes in the release schedule that stretched months at times until something of note released again (first and third party combined, so I am not only talking about Nintendo games). The Wii's dry release schedule coincided with Microsoft's Kinect run, and the lack of new Wii games was the cause, not Kinect like you mistakingly believe.

4. I am speaking of the shareholders that asked precisely these questions about smartphones in Nintendo's Q&A sessions with investors. This is recorded history. None of them ever asked about the creation of a synergetic effect where smartphone applications will rise the awareness of Nintendo IPs and then sell the games that all remain exclusively to play on Nintendo's own hardware.

Your strawman argument ("reaching some arbitrary hardware number so Nintendo fanboys on the internet can have meaningless bragging rights") is also pretty funny, because you happen to be guy who throws out all reason whenever the topic is about more powerful Nintendo hardware, going as far as repeatedly suggesting that Nintendo should prematurely put an end to a successful platform for no other reason than your personal desire to have more powerful Nintendo hardware.

You were also all on board with the Wii U and having the Wii killed and look how that turned out: What you believed was the right business decision proved to be devastating whereas I said that Nintendo is doing it all wrong. Similarily, you made thread after thread during the Wii U era to make suggestions how Nintendo would become successful again, like collaborating with Microsoft on a console where Microsoft makes the hardware and Nintendo the software, emulating what Sony does and a myriad of other puzzling things. Ultimately, Nintendo didn't follow any of your ideas and that turned out to be the right way, even though pre-Switch launch you were convinced that Nintendo wouldn't occupy more than a niche space in the console market. That is to say that your track record on the topic of business isn't any good.

The Wii killed itself because it was foundationally rooted in fad gaming trends, the sales were already declining by 2010 and in Japan it never really was that big of a hit to begin with (PSP easily outsold it, PS3 got close after a disastrous start) I don't think Japan ever really bought the hype on the system. MS and Sony having their own motion gaming controllers by 2010 just kinda cemented it. 

You need to just get over that one already.

You shouldn't have to release monster hits for a console every 3 months in its 5th year just to keep it from drowning to death and they did get a new Zelda even in 2011. You should by that point have hundreds (thousands?) of game titles along with several evergreens. 

It faded because the people were getting bored of the concept.

And sure I'm glad the Wii died. Who the fuck would want to play Breath of the Wild or Mario 3D World on Wii's shitty hardware? Without graduating forward in hardware you'd be playing shittier versions of those games. The jump to HD gaming has been great for Nintendo's IP, so will the jump to a proper 4K console with a generational hardware leap. Why you view that as some kind of dreadful thing is just sort of laughable to me. Oh noez, you have to play better versions of games that might not even be possible on older hardware. The horror of it all.

And there it is. It's all about your personal desire to have more powerful Nintendo hardware, regardless of what it means for their business.

Yes ... and?

I'm in this to play games (go figure). Sales trends are interesting to watch, but they don't super-cede the actual games themselves for me. I'm pretty sure that is true of most posters here too. 

Anything that makes the game experience better for me as the gamer is something I'm going to want. What in the world is so crazy about that? lol. 

Would anyone want to play Mario Galaxy on the N64? Or Mario 64 on the SNES with Super FX chip? Or Breath of the Wild on the Wii? Outside of curiosity sake, no because it would be terrible. The games would have to be compromised in a negative way. Generational leaps have always been good for game experiences, they open the door to things that wouldn't be possible on previous platforms. 

There is nothing inherently wrong business wise with changing generations to better hardware either, Sony seems to manage just fine with the home console Playstations (aside from PS3 where they did make bad design decisions early on and paid the price for it), it's only a headache for Nintendo because they choose quite often with hardware transitions to make stupid decisions the market doesn't like. But that's not the fault of the hardware getting better. Stop doing stupid things and you'll have better hardware transitions, simple as that. 

Advance Wars is one of my favorite IP, I could give exactly zero fucks that it doesn't sell anywhere close to something else. I don't base what music I like on album sales or TV shows I watch based on TV ratings, following industry trends is fine, but when it gets to "well you should be cheerleading for crappier experiences for yourself because of sales figures" ... yeah no thanks. That's where the bus is headed to crazy land and I'll get off at this stop, thank you very much lol.

It's as simple as "You should want a successful Nintendo console, because a successful one will amass a huge game library."

The Switch already is a success, and frankly I've played a lot of great games on "failed consoles" too, so why should I care. The next Mario Kart is going to come either way, I'd rather play it on a 4K console. Simple as that. 

You might have a point with that if "bigger userbase" actually meant "well you get way better 3rd party games", but that isn't the case with Nintendo systems anyway, Switch can sell double what it has and it still wouldn't get a lot of software because it's still too much of a pain in the ass to port. Whereas with a Switch 2 there's a fairly reasonably possibility that games like Street Fighter VI and Resident Evil 4 Remake would be in play. 

It isn't really even the case that Nintendo some how "tries harder" on systems that sell more. They don't, they've made plenty of great games on some of their lower selling consoles. They're going to make quality games either way, so that isn't really a factor either. 

Like I'm pretty sure there is going to be a Mario Kart 9 at some point, is it really a benefit to me that I play that on Switch instead of a Switch 2? No, the version of the game on a Switch 2 would be better. 

If Nintendo chooses to make a bunch of stupid design/marketing/hardware or software/release decisions with the Switch 2 and it declines from Switch 1, that's on them. Get better at hardware transitions, get your shit together with better preparation, stop making excuses, that's all there is to hardware transitions, it's not some kind of elusive magic trick.

Then it would be fair to sum up your stance as "Wii U or Switch level sales, makes no difference in the end."

1.7 billion for the PS4 ... wowza. Gotta tip your hat to that, that's a shit ton of software. Then again I think having all the 3rd party support possible probably helps get you to that level of sales.