If it has Pokémon it will sell. Regardless of any gimmick.

The 3DS models did sell better than the 2DS, but that's because the 2DS didn't feature the convenient clamshell design and the 3DS got its New upgrade not too long after the 2DS was launched. When Nintendo launched the 2DS XL late in the 3DS's life, this 2DS SKU was the most popular SKU among all four still existing models until the end of the 3DS's life.

The argument regarding software is that there's a wide range of customers, so even if we all here know that licensed games are often crappy, they can still be the most desired games for somebody else who doesn't play many video games. For example, not all kids' first game is a Mario one as it might just be a tie-in of their most favorite TV show or movie. This is the specific example for licensed games, but the general point was also that the 3DS got a lot less retail releases overall than the DS did. You said that the 3DS's library was arguably better than the DS's, but it actually wasn't.

Regarding the Vita, you are really just guessing without knowing much about it; this became really apparent in your follow-up responses to zorg1000. The PSP's purpose as a gaming device was to offer games comparable to PS2 quality in portable form which it could mostly deliver on by having the majority of big console IPs on it. The Vita should have been that kind of companion to the PS3, but aside from lacking four buttons that could only be poorly substituted with a touchpad on the back of a console, it lacked the majority of the games themselves. Call of Duty was not a known entity at the launch of the Vita, it was announced in June 2012 with nothing more than a logo, set to release in late 2012. In Japan, Monster Hunter was confirmed not to come to the Vita in September 2011 already, three months before the console launched over there. Leading up to the Vita's launch, there was already a trend of uncertainty established and subsequent announcements or the lack thereof kept hurting the system so much that Sony gave up on it in less than two years; their confirmation in June 2013 (only 16 months after the launch of the Vita in America and Europe) that all their American and European development teams are focused on PS4 software put the nails in the coffin.

As for Pokémon and handheld gaming taking off, I think you are mistaking this correlation with the European market seeing a major boost due to an open market across all its rich nations, because the console market as a whole benefited from this development. Much of the growth during this time period really came from Europe, because costs for consumers dropped for all kinds of things in the latter half of the 1990s, including electronics.

I doubt that Nintendo will pursue a cross-gen strategy outside of Metroid Prime 4 which they'll honor to release on Switch, just like Breath of the Wild wasn't made exclusive to Switch because it got originally announced for the Wii U. I don't think better graphics will be a major boon for most Switch gamers, rather better graphics are the icing on the cake. The real progress that most Nintendo gamers will be looking for are new features in the IPs they love, or at least such a level of refinement of existing features that it's hard to say no. If we take Animal Crossing (which I don't play and am not familiar with it), interesting new features would be things like being able to marry (either NPCs or other players online which would then duplicate the existing town for both players) or the option to open and run your own kind of shop in the town. But if the next Animal Crossing did not attempt to expand on its concept, then sure, it would become a harder sell, not just for the game itself, but also the console.

The nature of the console business is cyclical. Eventually a new console is required to keep the business going. Better graphics are just something that comes natural due to the evolution of computer chips. Strictly speaking, Nintendo could still go the GBC route with Switch, so the better hardware that is rumored for 2024 doesn't necessarily have to be a Switch successor, but just a better Switch SKU. But it's more likely that Nintendo opts for next gen, because next gen creates a lot more interest than a mid-gen upgrade. Either way, it will have been over seven years since Switch launched by then, so putting down the money for new hardware won't be an annoyance for the market. We've had enough console cycles for people to get used to how it works and Switch is a platform that has received so many good and great games that it's hard to find someone who isn't satisfied with it.

There are more new customers of course yeah but I don't think the cap has increased by enough to make a risky push for growth worth it. I'd bet that right now it's not possible for a console to reach 200m unless it has an abnormally long life cycle like the GB. A Switch successor with a normal lifespan reaching even the 180's would be so unlikely that it'd be an astounding achievement if it happened. Considering how well Sony is doing the best path is to keep the Switch brand going until there's a clear notable decline in interest in it which for sure won't be happening this decade and if Nintendo doesn't mess up might not happen for a really long time.

That's true. The main secret sauce of 3DS (the 3D) was a liability. While the platform already turned around in late 2011 with a price cut and 3D Mario and Mario Kart, Pokemon cemented 3DS as very profitable. I have to imagine Pokemon games moved over 25 million units of 3DS hardware. 

Yeah. Systems fail for various reasons, but not being risky or innovative enough isn't one of them. You can't get any more conservative than PlayStation, which has been the dominant brand in home console gaming for most of the past 26 years since the PS1 blew up, yet their consoles have been for the most part just "better graphics boxes" for five consecutive generations.

The SNES lost market share because it had actual competition. It still won its generation, both globally and in the U.S. & Japan (the Genesis won in Europe IIRC), so not a failure, but not the dominating force the NES was.

The N64 saw further drops and lost to the the PS1 by a massive three-to-one margin worldwide because most third parties massively reduced support for Nintendo in light of Nintendo sticking with cartridges (CDs were far cheaper and had far more storage capacity, making them nearly 100 times more affordable on a cost per MB basis). Nintendo was unable to recover from this with the GameCube, and they stopped making conventional consoles after that, with the Wii being low-powered, affordable, focused on motion controls, and appealing to a wider demographic.

The Saturn lost to both the PS1 and N64 due to numerous mistakes, from a terrible software lineup (including no mainline Sonic game) to the $400 launch price, which was a lot to ask for in 1995 (most expensive system ever from a major console maker, adjusted for inflation). Despite having a good amount of success with the Genesis, Sega lost sight of what made them successful as they went into the mid 90s. The Sega CD and especially the 32x was the first warnings that they were going off course, but the Saturn was a disaster, one they never recovered from. The damage to their console brand was irreversible, and they stopped making consoles after one final attempt with the Dreamcast.

The PS3 saw Sony's market share drop significantly thanks mainly to its own massive launch price of $500 for the cheapest SKU (only slightly less than the Saturn, adjusted for inflation). It wasn't a failure per se, and it did beat the 360 in Europe and Japan (and likely worldwide, if only barely, despite the 360 far outselling in the U.S.), but it was a massive drop in sales from the PS2.

The Wii U failed largely due to a significant software drought in its early life, and perhaps more importantly terrible marketing/messaging. It seems commonly agreed upon that they failed to differentiate the system from the Wii, giving the impression that it was just a tablet accessory for the Wii. Nintendo tacitly admitted that in the advertisements they had in the 2013 holiday season, where they made it a point to state that it was an entirely new system. Having the system revolve entirely around an expensive gamepad that can't be bought separately probably didn't help things, either.

The Xbox One failed to replicate the success of the 360, allowing PlayStation to retake its dominant position, because MS made numerous mistakes ahead of the system's launch, including forced bundling of Kinect, excessive focus on its multimedia aspects rather than the games, and most notably its widely-publicized plans to restrict used games on the system and require the system be always online to function. While they pulled back on the always-online requirement and the used games policy ahead of launch and they released a Kinect-less SKU a few months after launch, the damage had already been done.

So, it seems that charging too much for a system, taking risks that don't pay off, and not having the games a system needs are the most common reasons systems lose market share or fail outright.

Nintendo playing it safe with the Switch 2 would not be a cause for concern. As long as it has a reasonable price tag, a solid games lineup during its first few months, and marketing that does a good job of selling the idea of a next-gen Switch to people, it should do fine. As I said yesterday, there's a good argument to be made that Nintendo has innovated and taken big risks largely out of necessity, not just for the hell of it. Those risks have had inconsistent payoffs. If the Switch 2 is something radically different from the Switch and it doesn't pay off, Nintendo would be in a very bad spot as they only have a single unified platform and therefore nothing else to fall back on. The Switch 2 being just a more powerful Switch is the safest route, one that's most likely to guarantee another system that sells well over 100M units.

An interesting thing is Nintendo around the end of 2022 patented a full VR setup with a 2nd player using a smartphone or TV to play as well.

https://toptierlist.net/news/gaming-news/nintendo-patent-vr-ar/

Interesting points ... one player plays using a VR headset, while a 2nd/3rd player can join in and play on their TV or smartphone, which suggests the "Switch 2" (we'll just call it that for clarity sake) can maybe stream to the TV or smartphone in this case? Maybe ala the Wii U but in reverse? This also seems to address the issue of "yeah but VR is isolating" by letting multiple people join in. 

The headset in the patent also had dual cameras + dual IR sensors (like the right Joycon has) on it (so VR + AR?).

Nintendo has made other VR patents in the past, but I think they largely related to Switch 1 Labo VR. This seems like something way beyond that. 

Affordable VR checks a lot of boxes for Nintendo ...

Does it bring something new to the game experience? Definitely. Once people try like Mario Kart or Metroid Prime 4 or Pilotwings in VR, it's clearly an experience that is different from just playing on a TV. 

It's something Nintendo has done a test run with in terms of Labo VR, really even starting with past projects like the Virtual Boy and Wii are kind of trying to be virtual reality in some respect. So in that sense it is a evolution of things Nintendo has been working on for a long time. 

Lower end VR is still a relatively open space still too. Yes there is the Meta Quest headsets, but they don't really have a killer software ecosystem like Nintendo can leverage (Nintendo could quickly get ports of the same VR titles they have but then also have the massive killer app of their own product catalog ... like Mario Kart, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, even lower end Nintendo IP like Pilotwings or F-Zero or Wave Race could really shine in VR) and a Meta Quest can't function as a Switch, whereas in this hypothetical setup a Switch 2 can do all the things of a Switch + Meta Quest as well. Meta is not a game company really, they don't have in-house slate of IP even comparable to Microsoft or Sony, let alone Nintendo, so big advantage for Nintendo there. 

Things like Sony PS5 VR2 are way too expensive, Nintendo probably has an opportunity to move in on the lower end of the market and get a lot more people to experience VR at a more affordable price, and it doesn't have to be the be-all/end-all for the system, it can be one of those things Nintendo recommends you use once in a while for shorter play bursts. 

I think *affordable* VR makes a lot of sense and checks a bunch of boxes for Nintendo. The other thing with this patent is maybe Nintendo is looking at Switch 2 being able to stream to other tablet/phone displays, imagine for example playing a game on the Switch 2, but letting a friend play the game using their smartphone as a screen and just passing them a Joycon to play. 

I mean compared to the Switch, the difference is night and day.

But compared to the WiiU... Things get a little more interesting.

CPU:
WiiU: IBM PowerPC Tri-Core @ 1240Mhz. - Dual issue, out of order pipeline. - Usually lost 1 core for OS/Sound/Networking etc'. - But core was available to Devs.
Vita: ARM A9 Quad-Core @444Mhz. - Dual-issue, partially out-of-order pipeline. - 1 Core reserved for OS.

Ram:
WiiU: 2GB Ram. - 1GB only available for games. @12.4GB/s of bandwidth.
Vita: 512MB+128MB System+Video. - @Video @3.2GB.s. - I think it lost 64-128MB of Ram for OS/Background.

GPU:
WiiU: 120 VLIW shaders (24 Pixel shader equivalent) @ 550Mhz.
Vita: 4 Pixel Shaders @200mhz.

All in all, the WiiU is likely an easy doubling over the Vita, Ram was the Vita's strong point, GPU is the weak point.

Can breath of the wild scale down that low? Possibly.
But you would *need* to drop all the fun physics, scale down the draw distances and effects, texture quality could still remain strong though.

It would be a very different experience.

I must be one of a few people who actually enjoyed the 3DS.
Which is why I have the Samus Returns New 3DS XL.

The 3D effect when implemented correctly is great in my opinion, no other console really offers this experience.

The Switch 2 doesn't need to offer anything different or unique, it just needs to offer a hardware jump to bring new experiences and ports.

No you're certainly not, since I consider the New 3DS has the best handheld by Nintendo.

Always liked playing in 3D when the games had great uses of it.

Metroid Samus Returns, Super Mario 3D Land, both Kirby mainline games, Pushmo, Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Star Fox 64 3D, etc ... They were a lot of games that made the 3D work and enhanced my playtime.

That's a really cool idea. It's very much an evolution on the Wii U concept, at least how it was done in games like Nintendo Land. VR takes you into your own little world, but this way people can kind of pop into your little world and mess with it. It also has the advantage of completely blinding the VR player to what others are doing. This was something they tried to take advantage of in Game and Wario, but it didn't quite work. 

It would be a very Nintendo like thing to take an idea that had been done in the past and kind of refine it. That's kind of what they did with the Wii U in the first place, which was kind of an evolution of the GBA/Gamecube Link cable. And, I think in this way, it's a lot clearer of a proposition to consumers. The VR headset over one player's head clearly sends the message that person is doing something different from everyone else. I could see the Smartphone add on being useful for some Jackbox party-like games. And it could also just serve as a regular VR headset as well. 

It's just a patent, so who knows if it will ever get made, and who knows if it would actually work in practice. Hard to say without seeing some kind of software. But I'm glad Nintendo is at least considering things like this. We hopefully haven't come to the end of innovation in gaming hardware.