4 ms·

Really? They've sold >107 million units of the Switch/Switch lite/Switch OLED so far. That makes the Switch one of the best selling consoles ever made - it bea

Really? They've sold >107 million units of the Switch/Switch lite/Switch OLED so far. 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.

iasay 4y ago
Certainly not saying it's not successful for its time. But this is about the future and the whole dedicated device model and expensive games are rapidly becoming a dead end. The tablet and phone gaming market has a lot of overlap now and people expect there to be market parity with that. 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.
- minimaul 4y ago
  I don't agree with you on these points - my experience of console/PC gaming vs phone/tablet gaming is that phone/tablet gaming experiences tend to be very shallow drop in/out experiences compared to what is available on console or PC. Even the heavily curated Apple Arcade doesn't have any good examples of this that I've seen. 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/applevepic.002-640x480.jpeg 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.
  - ThatPlayer 4y ago
    >my experience of console/PC gaming vs phone/tablet gaming is that phone/tablet gaming experiences tend to be very shallow drop in/out experiences compared to what is available on console or PC. 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.
    - minimaul 4y ago
      > 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. 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.
- 3836293648 4y ago
  No, people have been saying that since 2010. And it hasn't happened yet
- musicale 4y ago
  > The only reason the hardware sells is because it's the only way to get the software. 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.

iasay 4y ago

Certainly not saying it's not successful for its time. But this is about the future and the whole dedicated device model and expensive games are rapidly becoming a dead end. The tablet and phone gaming market has a lot of overlap now and people expect there to be market parity with that. 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.

minimaul 4y ago
I don't agree with you on these points - my experience of console/PC gaming vs phone/tablet gaming is that phone/tablet gaming experiences tend to be very shallow drop in/out experiences compared to what is available on console or PC. Even the heavily curated Apple Arcade doesn't have any good examples of this that I've seen. 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/applevepic.002-640x480.jpeg 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.
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  >my experience of console/PC gaming vs phone/tablet gaming is that phone/tablet gaming experiences tend to be very shallow drop in/out experiences compared to what is available on console or PC. 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.
  - minimaul 4y ago
    > 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. 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.
3836293648 4y ago
No, people have been saying that since 2010. And it hasn't happened yet
musicale 4y ago
> The only reason the hardware sells is because it's the only way to get the software. 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.