Transition from Switch Will Be 'Significant Challenge,' Ex-Nintendo Head Says
cnet.com
cnet.com
So the "significant challenge" is to not end up like the PS2 to PS3 transition, or Xbox 1 to 360... Both of which still were very successful, just not quite as dominating as PS1 to PS2, for example.
Also, the Switch dev forums are chock full with Indie teams who need a bit of funding and a bit of support and don't want to deal with PC and piracy anymore. So I'd predict we will have amazing new Switch indie games for years to come.
In my opinion, the biggest issue for a Switch successor might be that for most great indie games, the console is already powerful enough. So there isn't any obvious hardware upgrade apart from the screen, which they already did. It's kind of the same reason why we don't upgrade our phones every 2 years anymore.
Why is this relevant if they're still on PC anyway?
If Nintendo spends money to promote your game because they know piracy isn't an issue on their platform, that's always a huge win for the developer. And support is much easier because everyone has the same standardized hardware. So the developer even gets a better profit margin out of each sale.
That's the gist of why many games start out as a time limited console-only release and then later expand to PC when the engine matures.
I've also been browsing the shop going a year or two back but the store UI doesn't do much for assessing quality, which is a bit of a shame. I don't think it sets up the market well for smaller games.
This is much less of a problem for Nintendo, their hardware is always significantly behind that of MS and Sony so they have plenty of technical headroom to grow into.
What they tend to gravitate towards is their iPads where they can play < $10 games together which are available across family sharing (Minecraft, Among Us, Roblox are popular). They connect xbox controllers to the things and use that. The iPads are also fully blown computers so they are used for just about everything else in their lives.
I don't think Nintendo have a chance against that.
That makes the Switch one of the best selling consoles ever made - it beats the Wii, the original PlayStation, the PS3, the GBA. It's edging towards the PS4 and the GB & GBC.
According to their own stats, each of those consoles has an average of ~8 games sold (excluding download only titles, so the real value is higher).
Even though it might not work for you or your family, I think that's good evidence that Nintendo have a formula that works pretty well for them - those kinds of sales figures are not indicative of a company in crisis to me.
On top of that there are a lot more Android and iOS devices out there than there are Switches.
I suspect Nintendo will inevitably end up like Sega and be a games publisher on other platforms. And there's nothing wrong with that. People like Nintendo because of the software. The only reason the hardware sells is because it's the only way to get the software.
I've not seen a Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, or even Mario Kart 8 tier experience on mobile. Given that, I don't see Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft abandoning their dedicated hardware any time soon. Sales are still strong, and there's no evidence of consumers abandoning these consoles for mobile-led gaming as yet. Maybe it'll happen, but I'm skeptical. Playing big gaming experiences on a phone display with phone controls (or worse, some kind of bolted-on-extra controls) sounds like a miserable experience to me.
You mention games like fortnite a bit in other comments, and the court documents from Epic's case show the revenue share for fortnite is not in favour of iOS or Android - it's PS4 by some margin - https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/apple...
edit: for Sega, given you raised that example - Sega had a series of missteps in the console hardware market that Nintendo don't have any real analogue for - the Mega CD, the 32X, the Saturn (outside Japan) - all of those led to losing consumer confidence. And then, the Dreamcast failed against the behemoth that was the PS2.
The closest I can come to this for Nintendo is the Wii U, which was also a pretty significant flop, but the Switch has had them bounce back in a really strong fashion.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what separates phone games and console/PC market, and it'll stay that way. Short form contact is exactly what the on-the-go audience is looking for. Smartphones in general have killed the dedicated gaming handheld market. You can see that in the final generation of dedicated handheld consoles (3DS/Vita) which sold less combined than either the Nintendo DS or the Game Boy. But not because the smartphones had better games, but just entertainment with social media, or streaming video. Vine or TikTok are built around the short video format too.
There's plenty of good ports like XCOM 2, Alien: Isolation, Divinity: Original Sin 2. But you can hardly convince someone who has the option of getting a game on PC or console to spend that same money on the same game on a phone. Meanwhile console manufacturers have exclusive games to convince people to buy their console, to join the audience of people who will say "why would I buy this game on phone when it runs better and has better controls on this?"
Meanwhile Apple and Google don't do the same investments in exclusives because very few people are picking their phones based on the games on it, because that's not the phone's primary purpose.
I think that's fair - with a second contributing factor that the 3DS and Vita were more expensive compared to their predecessors - the DS was $150 at launch. The 3DS was $249.99 at launch, with a subsequent drop to $170 a few months later because the sales were dire.
And the Vita at least in the UK suffered from literally no marketing - the 3DS had adverts on TV. People knew about it, even if they didn't have one. The Vita was anonymous in the marketplace - you only knew about it if you were really looking for it.
(And I wouldn't mind trying Card of Darkness, Grindstone, or Sneaky Sasquatch either...)
The hardware definitely makes a huge difference:
1. Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Splatoon, etc. are very similar to their Wii U counterparts, but the Wii U was a failure.
2. Hybrid gaming existed before the Switch (Super Game Boy, PSP 2000, PSVita/TV, iPhone/iPad...) but Nintendo executed it perfectly.
If you like Mario Kart, it's a fantastic game that you can play for years. It's also accessible enough that basically everyone can play it.
> My kids quickly lost interest in their Switches when they saw Mario Kart prices and to play each other they would have to buy three copies.
That's a big advantage of the regular Switch vs. Switch Lite: 4-way local multiplayer in docked mode.
We are already having fun with Minecraft (java), but I see my son sometime pulled into long stretches of of "free" motorcross games (or worse, he lets some car drive some track to get coins) on some shabby website.
I tend to encourage my kids to do something in the real world when this happens. They still paint, draw and read and it's a welcome diversion after a few minutes away.
Wow that's good advice I'm going to apply on myself! Thanks
They could play on one console attached to a TV?
But yes for all three to play at the same time on separate consoles would get pricey.
And couch co-op is my favourite way to play games, still.
Switch Lite has a 5.5 inch screen, definitely not a fun way to do split screen.
The post I replied to seemed to say that split screen in general was not great. I'm just contending that's a matter of taste!
Lets throw this on the table: I actually played Fortnite on my iPad the other day via XBox Live streaming. It was perfectly playable, with an XBox controller streaming to my TV. And I didn't have to buy a Switch, PS4 or any up front cost on games at all.
Also, unlike phones iPads are not general purpose devices that everyone has just around and if they have them, they may be tied up with other duties.
Also, game quality is abysmal (if a lot less pricy). It’s just not a good fit.
That might change, it might change slowly, I don’t know – but currently I don’t see general purpose devices as much of a threat for consoles. Reason for change? Reason for putting focus on things general purpose devices don’t do well? Sure. But no existential threat.
Nintendo games are of very good quality. They have a ton of IP, the attach rates of their games are unmatched in the other consoles as well. If they keep doing what they are doing they’ll be fine.
Also Homeworld Mobile.
The switch is a fantastic device. It's only failure is that it's getting just a little long in the tooth.
Such a funny way to describe a 130+ year old company.
They kept getting more and more user hostile, and sometimes quite literally!
I own a switch and like the system, but still think PS Vita was far superior.
Broken joycons, forcing new purchases of pairs only, so many failed I myself am part of the class action lawsuit against them over it.
Suing and sending 'investigators' after enulation developers.
Stealing fan-patches and translations and selling them on their store.
Reselling games some of us have purchased numerous times, only to find the 'remakes' are just shitty emulated ports. And again they would download fan-fixed roms and use those.
After D2 I am done. They didn't bother to give any way to use M/KB, the multiplayer is virtually non-existent, as is chat (typed, voice is non-existent). No mouse or use of stick-controled aiming such as in twin stick shooters breaks sorceress teleport, Enigma teleport, etc.
I paid $60, which was bad enough for a shitty re-skin of a decades old game that could run on a graphing calculator, but I chose the wrong system to purchase it on.
Nintendo is the definition of user hostile now, to the point of losing lifelong customers.
They and Disney are in the same boat. They had the balls to think their shitty entertainment businesses had been around so long they were too big to fail and didn't need their customers.
Well, maybe they don't need us, but they sure as shit need our money.
Talk about next-level hand-waving.
I agree on the hardware quality side - the joycons and the pro controller d-pad have been big issues for the Switch.
RIP.
It runs on a modified version of the 3DS software (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_softwar...).
In my opinion Switch has good balance of personality and usefulness. You can play it at home, you can play it handheld, you can share a joycon with a friend, it got games like ARMS and LABO kits, all that seems like a lot of character to me.
But then again, me and my friends always buy cartridges so that we can trade finished games. So maybe someone at Nintendo did the math and decided that a global CDN isn't worth it.