The Wii U and Virtual Boy aside, how do they do it? Even the 3DS people came around on. Really wild how much weird shit ('innovation'?) this company can get away with.
Nintendo's top-tier exclusives, and a constant focus on end-to-end user experience.
The PS4/Xbone (and even, to an extent, the 360/PS3) have so much jank when it comes to playing a game on them.
My experience with The Last of Us Part II basically consisted of inserting the game, waiting nearly 25 minutes for it to install, going through that entire process again, twice, because there was a smudge on the disc, then waiting another 20 mins to download a 10GB patch, only to load up the game and sit through hours upon hours of boring-as-fuck intro content before I saw a single zombie.
With Super Mario Odyssey, I put the game in, downloaded some optional 50MB patch in about 20 seconds, then started jumping around collecting coins and throwing my hat at everything.
They just "get it" in ways that Sony and Microsoft don't (or at least, haven't "got" since the original PS2/Xbox era).
I fundamentally disagree. There are some great games for the switch out there but they are absolutely hampered by Nintendo's outright refusal to provide modern features. Animal crossing was a lovely game except for the fact that it didn't support more than one island meaning either me or my girlfriend had to skip it. the "visit your friends island" experience is reminiscent of the late 90s in online gaming. Their support for peripherals has lead to this [0] being considered a reasonable solution to voice chat.
That's before you get into the whole ninetendo switch online + expansion pack.
[0] https://www.gamesradar.com/reactions-to-nintendo-switchs-ter...
Nintendo don't "get" online gaming in the way that the other two seem to. The ROM hack of Melee made by one guy famously has better online than Smash Ultimate does.
They are the only company still serving up the classic experience, though.
Heh, I actually disagree again here, but not quite as strongly. PlayStation have absolutely hit it out of the park on "classic experience" over the past few years. their remakes/remasters have been absolutely stellar (Tony hawk's Pro skater/spyro/crash bandicoot) and really hold up well in modern terms. Their single player games in the last few years (god of war, uncharted, sekiro) are nothing short of outstanding. They may not all be your cup of tea but I think it's fair you can say that about some of the Nintendo family of games too.
Xbox has a few home runs in the same category. The Ori games are absolutely incredible, and having recently come away from Metroid Dread _very_ disappointed (really poor story pacing, overly predictable plot, and horrific instadeath mechanics) I would choose ori and the blind forest/will of the wisps over the more recent Metroid games.
It's just that on the Switch, in almost all cases you just put the cartridge in the console you're in-game within seconds.
For Xbone/PS4 (and I'm assuming this is worse on the new consoles), there's a whole arduous process to go through before you can play the game. As someone who no longer has the time/energy to pour into gaming like I used to, this hour long wait before playing a game just makes the whole experience not worth it.
Contrast that to my ps4 experience and it is a world away. Takes at least a minute to get to home screen, then there's usually gigabytes of updates to download. Sometimes it might be _hours_ before I can start the game I wanted to play.
I'm not sure if the latest generation of xbox/ps have solved this. Combimed with the supply issues of the new generation consoles, I've not been too keen on getting one because my switch has sufficed
> in almost all cases you just put the cartridge in the console you're in-game within seconds.
This is true for some games on switch, however my experience is that many games suffer from extremely long loading times even compared to PS4/Xbox one. The ps5s loading times for games are orders of magnitude quicker; power on to in game in Spiderman miles Morales is less than 30 seconds. I've spent more time than that staring at single loading screens in Smash Bros, Metroid Dread and breath of the wild.
> this hour long wait before playing a game just makes the whole experience not worth it.
The hour long wait does happen occasionally, but it's not like you actually need to do anything during that time. You can do that and come back that night, and a month later the game will still be playable without updating.
Developing for a Nintendo system is not for everybody. It's like being a Mac developer only more so: you have to write software that integrates smoothly with the hardware and contributes to the grand narrative of the vendor.
In my experience, at Pokemon release events in Japan and in the United States, the majority of attendees lining up are adults, most under 30.
Planting the seed early and reaping rewards for the entire life is definitely what works for them.
Nintendo exclusives don't hurt, either. But Xbox and PS have exclusives, too.
Nintendo - Putting Play First
Contrast that with, say, Sega, who never found their footing with the Sonic franchise ever since the late 90s. Sonic games were developed by whatever developers happened to be available -- sometimes American or mixed Japanese-American teams; and the design ideas from the first few games that made them so great were lost once new hardware generations came along that couldn't use the original engine code. Sonic went a whole console generation (fifth generation, Saturn era) without a new full game in the main series, and the games featuring him after that have been a real mixed bag. (No, Adventure 2 is a mess. The controls are some of the most slippery imprecise shit in the 6th generation.)
I have both systems now, and enjoy my Switch, but I still prefer the 3DS. I hope whatever the Switch successor is goes back to adding a backwards compatibility mode.