JackHandy said:
Making a system that is--at first glance--almost indistinguishable is just as risky. Yes, I know the Switch was a smash success, but in the history of the home console market, only once has there been a scenario where a console succeeded to the levels of the Switch and was followed by an equally (or more) successful one (PS1 and PS2). All the other times, the successors either did okay (SNES), under-performed (PS3), or utterly failed altogether (Wii U). So playing it as safe as Nintendo appears to be playing it ensures nothing, honestly.  Personally, if this is what the new system is, I'm a little disappointed. I have a Switch. I didn't want another one. I want something new, fresh and exciting. But hey, you can't please everyone (and I'll likely buy it anyway). |
Every PS console is just a more powerful iteration of the console that came before and they all sold just fine. PS3 suffered from competition and pricing and still sold really well, that's all
As for Nintendo, all their iterative upgrades did fine. NES to SNES was iterative and did well, it suffered from more competition so they were not as dominant as during NES. Game Boy to GBA is similar, GBA smaller sales are only due to much shorter life cycle to favor DS release
Wii U is by no means an iteration from Wii, it's a very different console
The only iterative console that sold significantly less was DS to 3DS, mostly again for pricing point and competition with smartphones
Switch won't have competition, so you can rule competition factor out, specially in Japan where no matter what it will sell close to 30 million units. The thing to affect them is pricing, but this is yet to see
It won't sell as well as base Switch for sure, nonetheless it won't have any major problems to clear 100 million units as long they don't sell it for like 600 USD lol