Nintendo to announce new console by end of fiscal year
twitter.com
twitter.com
I think people are off their rocker. The experience is still pretty magical in 2024. I get that people are tired of the old thing and want the new thing, but it's hard to imagine what stops Nintendo could pull out to make me want to pay more than the current MSRP for the existing Switch.
It's either just going to be an even beefier Switch, or something so out of left field that it's not going to cannibalize their still pretty brisk Switch sales.
This is exactly what it's going to be, though I have to ask how necessary that is.
I wonder if there's a name for this phenomenon - EA Sports Syndrome or something - where companies go from making good products every few years, to marginally changing the same product and releasing it every year.
The SNES saw a smaller version released later
The Gameboy saw Pocket, Light, Color variants.
The GameBoy Advance had a flip model and a later variant with a better lit screen.
The Wii saw a few cost reduced models that lacked GameCube and WiFi.
The Wii U was released in two different versions with less storage on the white model.
The Switch has the Switch Lite and the newer OLED Switch.
The DS line had DS, DS Lite, DSi, 3DS, 2DS, 3DS XL, New 3DS, New 2DS and I think a New 3DS XL.
Plus they have partners who release console variants like the Sharp TV with built in console, the Sharp Famicom with built in disk drive, the GameCube that plays DVDs from Panasonic.
Nintendo releases a lot of versions of its systems.
Gameboy color had games exclusive to it that wouldn't run in a gameboy, the DS/DSi/3ds were different consoles, even if few DSi exclusive games were released.
The point is that Nintendo has basically always done this.
i have a small hope backwards compatibly also comes with some optional performance improvements for those games...
And joycons that don't drift!
An announcement as late as 3/25 is gonna be rough though as current gen games start tapering off. As always the bottleneck is the launch lineup needing more time.
There have been rumours that the reason for Nintendo DCMA takedowns are to clear the emulation field for the next-gen console. The Dolphin emulator was able to emulate the Wii two years after release.
Plus the fact that Nintendo's never been shy about iterative console updates: NES > SNES, GB > GBC > GBA, DS > 3DS > New3DS. And arguably Wii > Wii U, and then the Wii U was sort of the missing link between the Wii and the Switch.
Historically they haven't been great at the marketing/positioning around those iterative updates, but maybe this time they've finally learned :P
In the end I'm just glad the Wii U's failure didn't put Nintendo off tablet-style hardware altogether. Turns out that the console market and portable market merged quite nicely :)
NintendoLand, the free game that came with it, was really good. The pitch that I got was effectively “asymmetric local multiplayer with no screen sniping”. Which is conceptually a really interesting idea that was very fun in nintendoland. But… it’s not a vision that supports a successful mainline product.
They've made more profit since the switch launched than they have since they released their first video game in the 70s. Hopefully they get the naming right with this one, unlike the WiiU.
Sorry Nintendo, I've owned every console to date but you lost me.. and my kids.
Stings even worse when you consider you'll need to buy at least two of the damn things.
Is it because the tweet here "is the source"? Regardless of how bereft of context it is?
Expect full backwards compatibility and better performance. This is going to be iterative, and not revolutionary. Shuntaro Furukawa is not Satoru Iwata, and is much more averse to risk-taking.
https://3dvisionlabs.com/2020/05/22/jetson-xavier-nx-compare...
Animal Crossing let you freely chat, but without a keyboard, it's difficult to get more than a couple short words out. Splatoon is a popular multiplayer game that greatly benefits from team communication, but all you have are "booyah!" and "over here!" and a couple other preset means to communicate to your teams.
Miiverse on the Wii U was an exception and let users post text and drawings, but it felt pretty heavily moderated, and was eventually shut down. I do miss it though, it was a great community while it lasted.
Given their target demographic I can't imagine Nintendo would put any effort into allowing general communications through their hardware.
On one hand, bizarre to silo voice chat into a completely different piece of hardware than the one you're gaming on that already has a microphone built in. On the other hand, it does make sense as a way to keep kiddos off the airwaves, since to use NSO's app you either need to have a phone or (hopefully...) get permission from a parent to use theirs. On the other other hand I'm just glad they've finally enabled any kind of voice chat at all.
And as for they system, the Switch doesn't even have a web browser (not officially at least).
That internet connectivity is limited is a feature. For parents who want to keep their kids away from the wild web, and for those who want to disconnect or have limited access. Nintendo is the only one in the mainstream doing this.