LionBalls said:
Some of you guy's take aways are quite suprising to me. Makes me wonder how old you guys are :) I currently still own every single major nintendo console from the NES onwards (sorry VR boy, didnt fall for it). And firstly i can tell you every single console nintendo made was VERY innovative... the only conservative one was the gamecube (which i loved) which was widely derided and a pretty bad flop for them. i know that in looking back those prior consoles seem pretty basic and standard... but at the time that rounded shoulder button having SNES controller was legitimately novel, the diamond pattern buttons and the best dpad ever made.... a radical improvement... and the N64 controller is hands down the best controller ever made, never has a better left hand analog stick and trigger config come close to that .... the gamecube was a pale immitation. If nintendo has learned anything (i hope they have)... it is that innovation is their lifeblood... i would NOT expect their next console to just be "switch 2.0" ... and they have repeatedly and very vocally stated that their R&D into new and meaningfully engaging and fun ways of gaming and interacting is their core focus on bringing compelling experiences to gamers. They know they cannot go toe to toe with MS/sony in a specs war... they tried it and got destroyed. Given that they must be profitable and cant lean on other dvisions of their company like MS/Sony to weather significant losses, id say we can expect them to juice every ounce out of the switches profitabiltiy so long as its selling 10+ million units a year. That being said, id expect them to forecast that 2025 is the last year the switch will do so. Which in turn means id expect a product announcement sometime mid-to late next year with a realease in early/mid 2025. The switch is almost guraunteed to end up being the best selling console in history, but as mentioned earlier it is doing double duty... the GB line is dead - almost certainly forever, and theres a VERY strong chance that the next iterations of PS/Sony will go hybrid as well. nintendo gets a shot at being first mover before the next round of competition and every additional month they can wait gives them more time for R&D and better pricing on better components. COVID hurt MS/Sony really badly, and i dont think they have as much flexibility in getting their next gen out earlier. |
I'm 43. My first console was the Intellivision. I still remember the first time I saw the original Super Mario Bros. back around 1987.
Nintendo did do innovative things back in the day. Most of their hardware innovations were on the controller front. As you said, they set standards for gamepads that are still the norm today. They understood better than others how controllers needed to be for games to control well (or their own games, at least). Games got more complex and needed more complex controllers as a result. NES games needed more than a joystick and a single button, but nothing so obtuse as the numerical keypads common in later Gen 2 systems. 16-bit games needed more than just two buttons. 3D games needed an analog stick. But I wouldn't say those were particularly risky, just step-wise evolution, and invention borne out of necessity, not innovation for innovation's sake.
Outside of their controllers, though, their first three consoles were pretty conventional cartridge-based systems. The only real gamble Nintendo took with them was thinking that cartridges had a future for home consoles. Honestly, back in 1993-94 when the N64 first went into development, one could be excused for thinking that sticking with cartridges was a reasonably good gamble, as CDs were still pretty slow, CD-based systems & add-ons had all been flops at that point, and going with carts meant Nintendo could release a more affordable console. But as it turned out, third parties for the most part ended up preferring the far superior cost-per-megabyte ratio of discs (over ten times the data for one-tenth the cost).
If anything, the GameCube was probably their most risky console, despite your claims to the contrary. The system itself used a proprietary MiniDVD-based format, meaning that they intentionally went with a format nobody else was using. At least during the N64's development one could argue that there were uncertainties at the time regarding carts vs. discs (I remember articles in game magazines discussing the relative merits of the two). Uncertainties about the future of specific formats wasn't an excuse with the GC. They just wanted something that was harder to pirate and where they wouldn't have to pay licensing fees to the DVD Forum. In any case, it was clear from the get-go that the MiniDVD format was a dead end.
As for the GC's controller, Nintendo went with an odd gamepad that eschewed the diamond-shaped arrangement of face buttons for something a bit more abstract. It also only had three shoulder buttons, with a single Z button being on the right side in front of the right trigger. Finally, though it had the dual-stick setup introduced by Sony's Dual Analog controller in 1997, the right analog stick was just a tiny nub instead of being identical to the left stick. Sony meanwhile stuck with the same Dual Analog/Dual Shock design as the PS1 controller (Sony's controllers all bearing a clear design lineage back to the SNES controller), and MS went with a very similar layout to the DualShock with the Xbox controller, just with the D-pad and left stick switching places. It's probably telling that Nintendo went back to the familiar diamond-shaped arrangement of face buttons, had four shoulder buttons, and made the right stick identical to the left in all of their "Pro" controllers from the Wii to present, as well as on the Wii U gamepad and the Switch's Joycons (though putting the right stick on the Wii U controllers above the face buttons was an odd choice).
I already addressed Nintendo's profitability, both recent and in generations past, so I won't reiterate that here. TL;DR: They're doing fine for now, but history shows that can change really quickly, a relatively slight drop in one year turning into a massive one the following year.
Making a Switch 2 that's just a beefier next-gen Switch and not much else isn't them trying to go toe-to-toe with the PS5 and XBS. The general consensus I've seen seems to suggest it'll be about on par with the PS4 in terms of power, so just as the Switch was a generation behind the PS4 & XBO in terms of power, so too will the Switch 2 be a generation behind the PS5 & XBS.
Nintendo is in a position that they don't need to keep making radical changes every generation. It simply makes better business sense to stick with something that clearly works for them in a way no other system has for them. Even if it doesn't become the new #1 system of all time (it's still a toss-up at this point), its sales are still the envy of its competitors, and they've already set a personal best when it comes to software sales, both total and in the number of titles that have hit major milestones (first Nintendo console to sell over a billion software units, with 19 games selling over 10M copies, seven of which passed 20M). Why make a radical shift from a proven formula for no good reason, when you have nothing else to fall back on if that experiment fails?
As for MS and Sony ditching home consoles to make their own versions of the Switch, fat chance. Sony especially has no reason to do that, as the PS5, despite all the stock issues it had for most of its life to date, has still managed to be just barely behind the PS4 globally (it's actually slightly ahead of the PS4 in the U.S. as of this past May).
To get back on topic, I honestly like what Aquamarine had to say on the subject: "Nintendo's business cycle necessitates a 2024 Switch 2 launch. Switch had a good run, but its sales are now declining sufficiently enough that it can no longer be relied upon to maintain growth moving forward."
Also, a Nikkei article from a couple of months back said:
[Gaming sector analyst Hideki Yasuda from Toyo Securities] commented on the sales target for this year. "Given that recent year-on-year sales have been declining by more than 20%, the target of 15 million units ... is a bit of a stretch
"To offset the Switch's decline and get back on the growth track, many are calling on the company to introduce a new console.
One is rumored to be due out next year. "Development seems to be progressing well," a source close to Nintendo told Nikkei Asia. "But a product launch won't happen before next spring at the earliest."
I really, really doubt the Switch 2 will be a 2025 release. It's not impossible, but a 2024 release is the safest bet. Again, I believe the only way it doesn't come out next year is if it's simply not in a state to be released.
