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Is the Switch another Wii, or will their next console also be as successful or close?

Will the Switch be a temporary success like the Wii?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 28.8%
  • No

    Votes: 104 71.2%

  • Total voters
    146

KungFucius

King Snowflake
If the next Nintendo system sells half as much as the Switch will it be considered successful? What about 80%? What is the definition of success here? I expect it to sell less unless they have some games that become must haves for all. There is no way they will tank to WiiU levels.
 
With the success of the Switch, I don't see how Nintendo can ever again release a traditional console. The portable model is the way to go.
I don't believe most people play the switch as a portable console.

I think there's always space for a home model, without the undocking, the issue for them is that that realization might not be in their interest, they can't charge more for a console with less stuff unless they make it more powerful.

Switch lite goes the opposite way, and I'm unsure that's their biggest seller, perhaps because people like to play stuff on TV.
If they put Mario kart 9 on it near release, make it noticeably more powerful, fully BC, and also don’t try to shake things up too much, they have a real shot of it being very popular.
and fix the joycon drift once and for all.
 
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Impossible to tell right now since we don't know what the Switch 2 is. Even if Nintendo does everything right, there's always the possibility a large chunk of the current (more casual) userbase won't upgrade. There's also the economic situation to keep in account.
 

Mozza

Member
Nintendo created a portable hybrid to unify their development teams, fix the market decline initiated by the 3DS, and included a dock to substitute dropping out of the home console market with the ill fated Wii U, attempting to bring their entire audience together under one roof. The Switch also brought back Wii esque motion controls, and despite weaker hardware, were able to get a fair amount of downgraded but serviceable console ports its earlier years, some even from western developers though they aren't so common these days.

Nintendo's plan succeeded, people went out to buy Switches just like the Wii minus the shortages. The Switch didn't start selling at a surprise breakneck pace like the Wii, but ended up gradually outpacing it more and more, month by month, leading it to meet the 111 million sales milestone just a couple weeks ago.

But is the Switch a sign of long term success for Nintendo's hardware, or like the Wii and DS, is it just a one meta knight stand? A splash in the pan? Bottle in a lightning?

We will need a few more quarterly reports to be sure, but already it appears that Switch sales are pulling back harder and faster than anticipated. it's hard to know the trend this early since it's still selling at a high number, but in a couple more quarters we should have enough data from Nintendo's financial meetings to see if the Switch is going to pull back hard and fast like the Wii did, or if the Switch will continue to sell for a longer period of time and this is a short term pullback.

But so far, the trend is similar to what happened with the Wii in late 2010, and I'm not completely writing off that the Switch isn't just another temporary success like the Wii unless the current trend changes. When it happened with the Wii it also didn't seem like anything was going to happen, but then out of nowhere came rapid deceleration, so you never know with Nintendo consoles 100% which way they will go coming off success.
This has to be the most back handed compliment OP I have ever read on here, so basically Nintendo got lucky with the Switch, and are headed back to the Wii U days very soon, I think I have got it. ;)
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
Temporary? Lots of subtle nonsense in that post. Maybe the op should go look at the top 5 or 10 selling games systems of all time.

But hey if the switch 2 dominates you can always try to fall back on revenue 🤷‍♂️.. 😂
 

Meesh

Member
Nah.
The beautiful thing about a Nintendo box, is that it always, always compliments another.
Say what you will about Steam Deck, Xbox, or PS... but the "perfect" combo will be Switch + any one of the others according to taste.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Eh.. Out of MS, Sony, and Nintendo - Nintendo is probably the only one where that scenario actually sounds plausible.

I remember reading similar things before WiiU happened.

Hopefully we’re looking at more of DS to 3DS type situation here though.

With the Wii U, Nintendo’s Wii first party games weren’t always selling gangbusters and 3rd party support was abysmal. So the indicators were there, even though many didn’t see them

A Switch 2 will have none of these issues.
 

Robb

Gold Member
What about 80%? What is the definition of success here?
Depends on who you ask. If you ask the shareholders they’ll probably not be happy with the user base being lower.

But comparatively, if Switch ends up at around 130M lifetime, 80% would be above 100M. That should be a huge success/milestone for any manufacturer.

Even selling 50% of that (65M) would be a success, that’d still be the 12th best selling system of all time.
 

David B

An Idiot
If Nintendo doesn't go 4K with there next console, I can see some big layoffs happening or Nintendo going down like Sega and will have to make games for Sony and Microsoft consoles. They are way way far behind on graphics. They rely on cartoon graphics for there games. Sure parents will buy them for there kids as the games are enjoyable for children mostly. However if Nintendo doesn't start making some truly realistic graphical games than I don't see crap for there future at all. They need to make a new F-Zero game super realistic graphics would be great.
 
There's definitely a chance of the Switch 2 being a failure. Or at least dropping off like the 3DS did after the DS. There's been reports that Nintendo is very concerned about their next console. And I can see why.

The 3DS was the natural progression of DS, yet sold half as much as the DS. The Wii U followed the same market strategy as the Wii (cheaper underpowered HW compared to the competition, with a controller gimmick to hook in casuals), yet was a complete failure. Switch 2 isn't going to have the same draw as the FIRST hybrid system as the Switch had.

It does help that they are focusing all of their SW efforts onto one system. Still, if it's just more of the same, I don't see it being as big as of a hit as the OG.
 

Dane

Member
The vast majority of Wii sales came in the first full three years during the new gameplay gimmick frenze and after that it declined in a free fall which is unusual for a successful hardware, around the same time or a bit before the quality effort third party support was dying quickly and 90% of the releases were shovelware which in turn you had people saying their consoles were dust collectors, that's why it struggled to reach the 100 million mark while early predictors in 07 had it possibly outselling PS2.

I had a look the number of good games the Wii had, it was as much as the Gamecube did, and that was a console with a 1/3 of the library overall. The Switch has a much better quality support.
 
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CobraAB

Member
No. Portable gaming is on a rise right now, actually usable, and not a random fad that lasts for awhile. This usability won't go away, at least not in the near future.

With the Wii, they didn't know what a successor should look like. With the switch 2....all they need is a more powerful switch, with a couple of upgrades and done, people will buy in droves
Maybe people will think their existing Switch’s are “good enough” and not bother. Its all about the games with Nintendo.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
I have no clue. But its probably not wise to take a success of this magnitude for granted..
 

AndrewRyan

Member
Yes the next Switch should be a home run. On the other hand, watching Nintendo over the last few years and they seem to be blinded by the stacks of money and are asleep at the wheel.

Their latest innovation is adding a second online subscription tier gives you access their older games and new mario kart tracks. That's a red flag that worries me. Not just that it's not what they should be focusing on, but now inside the company every damn person will be obsessed with nudging people up the funnel. Delighting the customer becomes a distant memory that just fades over time. Hope I'm wrong!

On the positive side the OLED switch shows they can iterate on the hardware and not f*#$ it up. Better stand, better screen, smaller bezzels, etc. The million dollar question, IMO, is why didn't they upgrade the APU? If the reason is they couldn't get supplies in high enough quantities, that gives me confidence they know what they're doing with the Switch 2. However, if they made that decision on purpose it would indicate shortsightedness and be another red flag. The Switch was finally making inroads with 3rd party publishers but the lack of power is rapidly eroding this, making the device more for exclusives only, a missed financial opportunity.

Finally, timing is critical. They don't have the handheld market to themselves anymore and the steam deck is just the first of its kind with an army of devices to follow from this year on. The longer they wait the more choices we have and the less obvious it becomes to buy the next Nintendo handheld instead of just sticking to your current Switch. If Switch 2 announces at the end of this year, available early 23 they're fine. If they wait until the end of 23 or later, It's not so certain.
 
I don't believe most people play the switch as a portable console.

I think there's always space for a home model, without the undocking, the issue for them is that that realization might not be in their interest, they can't charge more for a console with less stuff unless they make it more powerful.

Switch lite goes the opposite way, and I'm unsure that's their biggest seller, perhaps because people like to play stuff on TV.

and fix the joycon drift once and for all.

Nintendo released a slide showing that more people used it as a portable only than a console, for those who choose one.

While the Switch lite, a WORSE portable than the OG Switch, is selling well, If they had made a console only Switch model at the same time I am fairly certain it would have been failed and not gotten traction.

Plus, history has demonstrated that Nintendo has never successfully competed directly with Playstation and Xbox. They tried with N64 - failed. Gamecube - failed. Wii U failed. Not saying there weren't some absolutely stellar games but from a purely business/commercial perspective, they were abject failures.

The Wii U wasn't competing with either, it was continuing the Wii U strategy brought back the motion controls with plus, added the Gamepad, and displayed in HD with better graphics the very thing everyone always wanted them to do. The Wii is when Nintendo themselves said they weren't competing anymore in 2007, here's one of several interviews

But Iwata felt his competitors were fighting the wrong battle. Cramming more technology into consoles would only make the games more expensive, harder to use, and worst of all, less fun.

"We decided that Nintendo was going to take another route - game expansion," says Iwata, seated on the edge of a leather chair, leaning over green tea in a three-piece suit, a strip of gray emerging along the part in his thick hair. He has an easy command of English but speaks through an interpreter. "We are not competing against Sony or Microsoft. We are battling the indifference of people who have no interest in videogames."

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/06/11/100083454/index.htm


Skyward sword HD matched the lifetime sales of the Wii release in just 2 months.

But it's also true that Skyward Sword released when the Wii was all but dead too. I think we'll see in the next two financial reports on where the software and hardware sales are heading.
 
Nintendo released a slide showing that more people used it as a portable only than a console, for those who choose one.

While the Switch lite, a WORSE portable than the OG Switch, is selling well, If they had made a console only Switch model at the same time I am fairly certain it would have been failed and not gotten traction.
Not sure that proves it would fail, specially if it was more powerful.

It makes as much sense as PS4 Pro and Xbox One X for me, they were never the best seller consoles, but had their place. I think Nintendo just doesn't want to dilute their platform and it's selling so well that they don't need to.
 
Not sure that proves it would fail, specially if it was more powerful.

It makes as much sense as PS4 Pro and Xbox One X for me, they were never the best seller consoles, but had their place. I think Nintendo just doesn't want to dilute their platform and it's selling so well that they don't need to.

Why would it be more powerful? it would be just as powerful as a docked switch, except it's console only.
 

FStubbs

Member
Huh, I said the pattern tends to be "good, bad, good, bad" if you start at the NES to snes its more out an outlier given the previous 20 years. you saying its merely a coincidence that this pattern has seemingly happened for the past 20 years?
Yeah, because I ignored critical data to form my "pattern" and used a subjective reason to do so.
If Nintendo doesn't go 4K with there next console, I can see some big layoffs happening or Nintendo going down like Sega and will have to make games for Sony and Microsoft consoles. They are way way far behind on graphics. They rely on cartoon graphics for there games. Sure parents will buy them for there kids as the games are enjoyable for children mostly. However if Nintendo doesn't start making some truly realistic graphical games than I don't see crap for there future at all. They need to make a new F-Zero game super realistic graphics would be great.
In a world with the Xbox Series S, Nintendo can get by just fine with a 1080p Switch successor.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
biggest selling nintendo home console
jurassic park water GIF
 
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Woopah

Member
Nintendo released a slide showing that more people used it as a portable only than a console, for those who choose one.

While the Switch lite, a WORSE portable than the OG Switch, is selling well, If they had made a console only Switch model at the same time I am fairly certain it would have been failed and not gotten traction.



The Wii U wasn't competing with either, it was continuing the Wii U strategy brought back the motion controls with plus, added the Gamepad, and displayed in HD with better graphics the very thing everyone always wanted them to do. The Wii is when Nintendo themselves said they weren't competing anymore in 2007, here's one of several interviews



https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/06/11/100083454/index.htm




But it's also true that Skyward Sword released when the Wii was all but dead too. I think we'll see in the next two financial reports on where the software and hardware sales are heading.
What are you expecting to see for hardware and software in the next two reports?
 

Mowcno

Member
If they follow it with a Switch 2 that's backwards compatible and just a straight upgrade they'll do just fine. If for some perplexing reason they do something different they could be in trouble.
 

Mozza

Member
There's definitely a chance of the Switch 2 being a failure. Or at least dropping off like the 3DS did after the DS. There's been reports that Nintendo is very concerned about their next console. And I can see why.

The 3DS was the natural progression of DS, yet sold half as much as the DS. The Wii U followed the same market strategy as the Wii (cheaper underpowered HW compared to the competition, with a controller gimmick to hook in casuals), yet was a complete failure. Switch 2 isn't going to have the same draw as the FIRST hybrid system as the Switch had.

It does help that they are focusing all of their SW efforts onto one system. Still, if it's just more of the same, I don't see it being as big as of a hit as the OG.
Totally different scenario though, both the DS and Wii was the first time Nintendo had courted a more casual market, and both consoles benefited from new emerging tech, the Wii with motion controls and the DS with touch, and at the time there was nothing similar in the marketplace, but as time moved on there were more tablets/smartphones our there, and those casuals had simply moved on.

The Switch is already existing within this marketplace where mobile devices are very popular, they are also competing with more powerful consoles from Sony and Microsoft, the Switch has a very strong brand and identity with consumers, so I just see Nintendo bringing out a more powerful version that will sell just as well, Nintendo have also been very wise getting into the mobile space as this again raises brand awareness, and it's no surprise both Mario Kart 8 deluxe and Animal crossing new horizons are their two best selling games, as both have popular mobile free to play variants.
 
Really impossible to tell.

Best case scenario for Nintendo is they keep it simple and call it a Switch 2 and keep it moving. If they try to enter the dedicated console market or make another highly gimmick heavy hardware upgrade again, it could severely backfire.

Nintendo is pretty much guaranteed success in the handheld space which is what i consider the switch. It’s basically the successor to the DS rather than the Wii-U
 

Boy bawang

Member
The next console will be another Switch and it will be very successful as Nintendo doesn't have any credible competition on that sector. And no, neckbeard, the steamdeck is great but it isn't a credible competitor.
 

David B

An Idiot
Switch 2? You outa your minds. Seriously. Remember Wii U? FAILURE! Everybody just thought oh it's just a little upgrade thing so literally almost no one bought it. Nintendo will think of a new name again. They always do. N64, GameCube, Wii, Switch. My idea? Nintendo 4K. Why? N64 64 bit. Nintendo 4K going into 4K. Makes sense, same idea over again.
 

Boy bawang

Member
Impossible to tell right now since we don't know what the Switch 2 is.

We have a pretty clear idea of the GPU at least, after the Nvidia hack from last march, where nvn2 was identified. Basically something that would be in the XB1/PS4 ballpark in portable mode, plus DLSS and some form of ray tracing, though I guess very basic. Docked, you're looking at 1/2 or 2/3 of a Series S, plus DLSS. Not too shabby, and not to different from what the switch was too the PS4 when it released.
 

Fitzchiv

Member
As long as Nintendo doesn't call it the Switch U it will be fine. The Wii U was a victim of bad naming convention - atrocious naming convention. In that light I'm surprised that people never attritbute bad naming convention to the Xbox One's terrible sales in addition to numerous other factors.

I hate every single console name given to the xbox post the 360 era. It's like a bunch of clowns at MS going all in on the worst names possible. Xbox One? Xbox One X? Xbox Series X? Xbox Series S? MS should fire everyone in the PR department who thought any of those names were a good idea. Xbox Durango and Xbox Scorpio were by far better names for the systems.
I actually think the Series X and Series S naming convention is a necessity given the split of range and success of the original One X. Next release they need to just go X2, S2 etc.

Personally I like a proper 'name' for a console though, none of this boring numerical increment stuff.
 
We have a pretty clear idea of the GPU at least, after the Nvidia hack from last march, where nvn2 was identified. Basically something that would be in the XB1/PS4 ballpark in portable mode, plus DLSS and some form of ray tracing, though I guess very basic. Docked, you're looking at 1/2 or 2/3 of a Series S, plus DLSS. Not too shabby, and not to different from what the switch was too the PS4 when it released.

I doubt that it will be that docked, we are looking at a successor that may not have a complete advantage over the X!/PS4 which were outdated in 2013.
 

Foilz

Banned
The switch 2 HAS to support switch games. Asking people to buy all of the Mario games for a 12th time isn't gonna go over well.
 

David B

An Idiot
The switch 2 HAS to support switch games. Asking people to buy all of the Mario games for a 12th time isn't gonna go over well.
True. But like I said Switch 2 may be a failure name just like Wii U. People will just go meh it's just an upgrade. Nintendo is key to new names after the Wii U failure.
 
As long as Nintendo doesn't call it the Switch U it will be fine. The Wii U was a victim of bad naming convention - atrocious naming convention. In that light I'm surprised that people never attritbute bad naming convention to the Xbox One's terrible sales in addition to numerous other factors.

I hate every single console name given to the xbox post the 360 era. It's like a bunch of clowns at MS going all in on the worst names possible. Xbox One? Xbox One X? Xbox Series X? Xbox Series S? MS should fire everyone in the PR department who thought any of those names were a good idea. Xbox Durango and Xbox Scorpio were by far better names for the systems.

The difference between the two is Microsoft does market research on the name first beforehand, while Nintendo keeps the name a secret, usually using a code name that sounds much cooler than the actual name, and then hope it catches on.

This is why the Wii U didn't work and the Xbox One did, while that name has several issues on its own, the average consumer remembered the name, but when you told someone about the Wii U they would look at you confused. Wii who? People believing it was just a tablet add-on didn't help with the name being accepted either, especially when Nintendo hid the console for a lot of their videos showing the Wii U off. With Microsoft, you saw the Xbox One console before anything else, even the controller, in a glass case, with a smiling little snakeoil salesmen conveniently named Don, ready to sell you a comcast subscription so you can watch NFL on your consoles, or see the fish swim in COD. I think they had a dog too.

All that backlash on forums such as this probably helped the name stick even more now that I think about it.
 
They have finally united their development resources for handheld and console. This will continue. Thus, no. They need to evolve the Switch, not reinvent it.

But this is Nintendo and who knows what's next? They could come out of left field with hardware we couldn't imagine, that's why they are the most exciting of the Big 3 when it comes to generations and innovation.
 

Mozza

Member
If the next Nintendo system sells half as much as the Switch will it be considered successful? What about 80%? What is the definition of success here? I expect it to sell less unless they have some games that become must haves for all. There is no way they will tank to WiiU levels.
People forget that even with the Wii U/3DS generation Nintendo sold around 89 million consoles, if people are expecting their next console to give a Wii U style sales performance they must be on something.
 

sachos

Member
I sure hope not. I hope they manage to make it backward compatible with Switch 1 and able to boost games like a PS5 does to a PS4 game for example. If they can manage that and brig the hardware at least close to something like a PS4 Pro then oh boy, i dont see them failing.
 

Rubytux

Neo Member
Something people dont see is that Even with the sucess of the Switch, Nintendo barely keeps the level it had in terms of sales.

Wii/DS had like 250M units sold.
WiiU/3DS dropped below the 100M.
Switch is called a sucess with 110M+ units sold.

What we have here is that the perception has changed. The contracting market due the competition to Mobile generates this kind of view.

To me, the Switch has proven itself capable to maintain the level that Nintendo had the previous generation. But compare a product level of sales with an almost a failure generation.

It doesnt sound like a sucess.
 

sinnergy

Member
My guess , Nintendo will keep making switch systems the next 20 years minimum , it’s a perfect fit for nintendos philosophy.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
Just don’t over think it Nintendo. A more powerful Switch is enough. Also don’t overthink the name again. Switch 2. That’s it. No Switch Hub or Switch IT or something stupid. It is working so keep it simple.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Something people dont see is that Even with the sucess of the Switch, Nintendo barely keeps the level it had in terms of sales.
Not sure if that’s a good way of looking at it though. Same argument could be made for Sony and despite that the PS4 generation was considered a big success for them.

PS1 - ~102M
PS2 - ~155M
PS3/PSP - ~169M
PS4/PSV- ~130M

Despite Switch not reaching 250M users it’s still as profitable as the Wii/DS combo was for Nintendo back in the day:
E0sA43sWUAIdj00


The same probably holds true for Sony since PS3 was in the red almost the entire generation.

Total users have definitely decreased overall, but they’re both doing more with less it seems.
 
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supernova8

Banned
We have a pretty clear idea of the GPU at least, after the Nvidia hack from last march, where nvn2 was identified. Basically something that would be in the XB1/PS4 ballpark in portable mode, plus DLSS and some form of ray tracing, though I guess very basic. Docked, you're looking at 1/2 or 2/3 of a Series S, plus DLSS. Not too shabby, and not to different from what the switch was too the PS4 when it released.
Not sure but I think anyone expecting beyond 1080p is going to be disappointed. I reckon we'll get 1080p60 on some games if we're lucky. Hell even BOTW cannot run at 60fps at sub 720p. 4K is absolutely not happening. Even the PS5 and Xbox Series X are not constantly hitting 4K60 unless it's either a cross-gen game or just an easy-to-render art style to begin with.
 
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Celine

Member
But so far, the trend is similar to what happened with the Wii in late 2010, and I'm not completely writing off that the Switch isn't just another temporary success like the Wii unless the current trend changes.
You don't know what you are talking about.
If you've actually looked at the trends you would have seen that NSW trends are different from the WII trends, both for hardware and software.

Software trends comparison:
Da1eEnZ.png


Hardware trends comparison:
FROKTNl.png
 
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Celine

Member
Something people dont see is that Even with the sucess of the Switch, Nintendo barely keeps the level it had in terms of sales.

Wii/DS had like 250M units sold.
WiiU/3DS dropped below the 100M.
Switch is called a sucess with 110M+ units sold.

What we have here is that the perception has changed. The contracting market due the competition to Mobile generates this kind of view.

To me, the Switch has proven itself capable to maintain the level that Nintendo had the previous generation. But compare a product level of sales with an almost a failure generation.

It doesnt sound like a sucess.
Ah! "It doesnt sound like a sucess"? really?
Switch era is going to be, by far, the most profitable console generation yet for Nintendo.

Nintendo's historical annual net income since 1981
ETUm1JQ.png
 
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