What paid off for Nintendo was a willingness to bet on games and take risks on changing up their strategy.
Other gaming experiences, ironically, lack the playfulness of the Switch. The design language and marketing has been on point.
They are 7 years deep though and the suspected new console will have big shoes to fill. How can they farm revenue while not offending their current customers?
Oh for the days of nintendium. I got upset playing Sonic Advance 2 when I was little and overhand-hurled my GBA down an entire flight of stairs onto tile, ran down, picked it up then ran to the next door to throw it down the basement stairs to a concrete floor.
I was suddenly overcome with regret and ran to check my precious device. One small (4mm) stress fracture that did not change the surface of the plastic.
I don't know what our household's problem is then. We've had nothing but problems with joycon connections across three devices. Repeatedly one of the two controllers would fail to pair with the switches despite being physically docked. I've got to the point where I told my girls I'm not trying to help fix it anymore and they should play games on one of the many other options they have. Mostly they play games on PC now.