I don't think it's quite as cut-and-dry as this.
- The draw of a "hack free" platform varies by genre. For competitive multiplayer games, it's a big draw. For single-player and creative games, you might find a larger market in less restrictive, more moddable, platforms (eg, if you were making a Minecraft clone, would you target Switch or PC?).
- If the platform is popular enough, the level of lockdown may not affect the calculus that much.
- And, of course, it depends on how successful these measures are at preventing hacks. There's a big difference in draw between 50%, 90%, and 100% hack prevention, because of how the knowledge of cheaters affects player perception. Eg, in a competitive game, knowing cheats exist can taint the experience of being outplayed, as you wonder whether your opponent was cheating.
Overall, I'm not saying that GP's viewpoint is an invalid one, just that the tradeoffs are a little more nuanced than "more lockdown more games".
This depends a lot on your monetization strategy. If your plan is a free or low-cost game with skins for sale, having a wild west story for modding may not be at all what you want.
Another way of looking at it is that it’s a platform to which they have licensed you access ... of course under those terms it should be lease rather than outright purchase (eg like a proprietary set top box) but I guess the market hasn’t quite wised up to that yet ...
Does buying music online come with unlimited redownloads yet? Or do you still have to make a backup yourself, which is tied to a device and you'll lose anyway?
In the grand scheme of things, this is a very niche opinion.
How specifically would your use of the Switch change if Nintendo didn’t prevent downgrades in this way?
Uh, how ya figure?
Oh, do you mean in the, "Well, no consumer would ever actively think of that sense!" Because that's downright wrong, and it has been a longtime complaint of mine since childhood, which my family will be happy to attest to the degree of ear bending that results from these types of shenanigans every single time I discover them. Further, if you think that idea is niche, I'd like to point you toward the right-to-repair movement,as well as the bloody Android ecosystem as well.
The only people to whom what you refer to as a "niche" idea, are a niche into an nd of themselves; namely production companies that wish to infringe on the right of First Sale.
Get with the 21st Century. People are not satisfied with planned obsolescence, and while they'll consume things made in a user hostile way, I'll assure you, once an actor that commits to consumer friendly electronics fabrication gets traction in the space, and shows signs of the ability to collect good talent, people will flock to them.
Don't get me wrong. I like Nintendo, I just hate predatory hardware forging practices.
Because most people don't let this affect purchasing decisions when it's a product they really want.
Right-to-repair advocates are not the norm.
People buy iPads, iPhones, Pexels, Switches, whatever because they want them. If the product is desirable enough people will overlook planned obsolescence and a whole lot more, too.
Android is popular because it is inexpensive not because it's more open.
You really think a "consumer-friendly" electronics company will unseat Nintendo, Apple, etc.?
Knowing how to use something is becoming more productive than externalizing that knowledge and letting someone else distill it for you. I see a future driving in the direction of retraction and a pruning of inefficiency to back off of just shoveling more and more into wasteful wank, and getting back to building what you need and taking it from there.
Then again, most of my social circles have been make-do types, so maybe I am in a bubble. I certainly know the more cosmopolitanly inclined infrequently think about things like repurposing or fixing things. I'm praying that'll change and doing everything I can to instill a passion for knowing how thing's work, and caring about how it's made in the next generation, if only because no one ever was interested in being frank with me about all the decisions the market decided to make for me about what parts of my life I should and should not have access to.
I try to get them to pay attention to all the things people don't say, bexause that tends to be at the root of so much of the shit and wrongness in the world we're inhabiting.