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Comment by mpg33 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think launch sales are a good indicator to go by...

There is enough of a hardcore Nintendo fanbase to buy up initial launch supply.

Let me know of the sales in July.

I decided to check that claim, and I'd say it holds up reasonably well: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Biggest_game_system_launches I admit I'm eyeballing it there, but there isn't a great correlation between launch day/week sales and ultimate success.

Even the WiiU seems to have been at least a modest success upon launch: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/how-successful-was-th...

Still, I would definitely take a strong launch over a weak one if I had a choice. :)

Zelda at launch was a strong boost...and I suspect they will get another boost at holiday season when Super Mario Odyssey comes out. But there are a lot of months in between that are not filled in with much...

Since the console is not likely to get any 3rd party AAA games Nintendo is going to have to court nearly every indie dev + churn out as many first party titles as possible.

Also I'm hoping for a $50 price drop after Christmas...

If they fix up the browser and ship a YouTube and Netflix app I think they will also be a killer low-cost tablet. An Amazon fire hd + mario and Zelda is definitely worth $300 + cost of games.

People forget that the ps2 was many familie's DVD player. That kind of extra utility goes a long way into driving purchases imo.

yeah...it's just that a lot of people already have at least a 5" smartphone and/or tablet (tablet sales have been shrinking due to this) so I don't know how much of the tablet aspect is appealing nowadays...3 years ago it would have been a bigger deal

Nintendo should just cut the crap and market the switch as a portable. That seems to be driving demand. Any positive review or discussion I see about the switch (that isn't specifically about zelda) refers to using the device as a handheld.

I play Zelda in TV mode 90% of the time. Being able to take it with me to bed, or on the train is just icing on the cake. I'm willing to bet most people are spending the majority of their time with the Switch in TV mode as well.

Maybe, I'm going off of facebook, reddit, and news site discussion. That's definitely not a representative sample set though.

Either way, canceling the 3ds and focusing all their efforts on the switch seems like the best way to ensure this system is a success.

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