Your 2nd paragraph used the $80 billion MS gaming grossed as an argument for Series being a success. Xbox console and software sales have been declining since the Xbox One, and profitability is unknown. It's a failure in most relevant and known metrics.

The Xbox platform may soon disappear (merge with PC and be dwarfed by Steam). Won't matter to Microsoft much now that they're easily the biggest game software company among the "big 3". Tencent is the only platform holder that rivals them in this metric.

To add to this discussion: If Nintendo was able to “win” the PS4/XBO (or PS5/XBSX) generation coming off 13.5mil Wii Us sold, then Microsoft could’ve pulled something off. It was by no means impossible.

That's called 3DS erasure. Nintendo never made unpopular portable systems. A hybrid is more appealing than a handheld + a Nintendo home console combined. Switch was the successor to both 3DS and Wii U, which combined sold about 90 million.

And the 3DS generation was an outlier in how bad it was for Nintendo (in the gen before it, Nintendo sold 255~ million consoles). As opposed to Xbox360 being the outlier for Microsoft. A gen where Nintendo fucks up is more successful than a gen where MS does everything right (AND their direct competitor fucks up). There's just no comparison between Xbox and Nintendo.

Xbox is not winning anything without true exclusivity and a sprinkle of miracles.

It’s not “3DS erasure” as much as it is “I don’t believe 3DS is a suitable comparison.” Switch sold with $80 accessories, $60 games, and $300 hardware, whereas 3DS sold for $170 within a year a launch, with $40 games, and would eventually even have models selling for $80 by 2017. Had Nintendo sold 3DS for $300, it would’ve been a flop (as can be seen from sales prior to Fall 2011, and it is by this fact that the prices alone suggest that Switch catered to a different market). It is much more suitable to compare Switch to Wii U, which sold for similar prices and were both markets as offering home console experiences.

Portability is a huge factor for Switch's success. Wii U lacked that, and it lacked Pokemon. The PS5 is also far more expensive than PS4 on both software and hardware, but guess what? It's considered a successor. PS3 was so much more expensive than the PS2, it was a successor. Switch also had a Lite version at $200. The new price trajectory is an industry wide problem not exclusive to Nintendo.

Switch is a successor to both, and would have been a failure without the portable factor. To successfully replace the home console side of things, it needed to be more expensive and powerful than a typical Nintendo handheld. It's a hybrid that replaces both.

Agree to disagree, I suppose. The economics of a system are much more important in determining the market of a system than I think you realize. Again, the 3DS had no market when it sold for $250. A $300 price tag will shave off a tremendous portion of the portable markets; hence, it is more appropriate to say Nintendo went from 13.5mil to >153mil than it is to say 80mil to >153mil. Also, the portability isn’t what made Switch a success, but it’s library. Had Switch not launched with BotW nor Mario Odyssey, it would’ve likely done about as poorly as Wii U or GCN.

It's safe to say that the majority of Nintendo's portable players ended up upgrading to Switch in large part due to its portability. I'm not if denying the appeal of its library which obviously contributed to its success, but so did its portability and Pokemon which you keep downplaying or ignoring.

And I've already proved to you that prices don't dictate a successor with PS3 and PS5. Switch combined the appeal of both handhelds and home console to the best of its ability. It's not a perfect home console nor a perfectly "cheap handheld". But it managed to hit an exciting balance that people liked. The final product was not 100% comparable to either handhelds nor home consoles, but an appealing product that does everything more than adequately.

I think the best way to cap our discussion is if I just change the original comment: Nintendo went from 21mil GameCubes to >100mil Wiis. There is no reason Microsoft (of all companies) couldn’t pull off a similar comeback following a system which sold nearly 60mil units. IDK why you are so fixated on not comparing Switch to Wii U, but this addresses that issue.

The Wii was an outlier, but fair enough. I did mention that exclusives could givd Xbox a win (now that they have an insane collection of IP's that include Call of Duty). The Wii had a ton of exclusives.

I'm not fixated on "not comparing Switch to Wii U". I'm fixated on not comparing it to Wii U "alone". Nintendo itself has always been much more popular than Xbox ever was.

I literally stated it's the ENTIRE gaming division on numerous occasions.

If you somehow surmised that I meant "Xbox Series" has made $80 billion, then you misinterpreted my statements and took them out of their intended context, that fault lays with you.