See, I wouldn’t really say that’s accurate.
In terms of handhelds, Nintendo has always dominated—at first thanks to Gunpei Yokoi’s vision, then because of Pokemon, but ultimately because I think they were so dominant after that that it became essentially impossible to topple them—after the success of the PSP, Sony had a chance to upset that domination, but they bungled it with the Vita so badly they didn’t bother trying again. Except for the original Game Boy, itself—and maybe the DS—it’s hard to attribute their handheld success to innovation or thinking outside the box with affordable tech—not that most of their handhelds didn’t do that, it’s just hard to attribute their dominance to it.
In terms of home consoles… well, Nintendo only has, what, three wins? Four if you include the Switch, but that also taps into the handheld market so it’s kinda hard to say that’s competing strictly in the same field as other home consoles. I’d honestly say the NES won out more due to good timing and monopolistic practices than due to lateral thinking with withered technology. The SNES, despite having a relatively slow CPU, was legitimately the most powerful home console on the market aside from the frigging Neo Geo AES when it came out, so that can’t really claim any success due to that classic “Nintendo” philosophy. The Wii is probably the best example of Nintendo’s lateral thinking strategy leading directly to market success with the exception of the Game Boy. Meanwhile, the N64 and the GameCube both tried to compete on power, and lost hard, it’s true, but the Wii U? I dunno, they definitely weren’t trying to compete on power that gen, and the tablet was an interesting idea using well-established technology at that point, but that flopped hard—though not as hard as the console that was overseen directly by Gunpei Yokoi himself, the Virtual Boy.
In essence, there’s a lot more going on behind Nintendo’s sales successes and failures than embracing innovation vs embracing the cutting edge, and this whole hybrid console thing they’ve got is still a pretty untested market—the only big player in it so far is the Switch. I think it’s gonna be really hard to tell how the Switch 2 is going to do based on historical trends.
The Wii U was exactly the same as previous setbacks and failures; it was ultimately iterative (the name says as much!), focused on power (move to HD), and yes, had a gimmick, but it's the poor pricing and marketing that sunk it. The video we're discussing has much to say about it.
I think it's pretty easy to base it off historical trends as we humans both irrational, but also predictable. Some things can be seen coming. Was pretty easy to see Sony bomb the PS3, Microsoft the Xbone, and Nintendo the Wii U (and somewhat the 3DS ... they made the 2DS series, eliminating the gimmick....).
The Switch 2 will likely sell less than the Switch 1, but still move tens of millions. But less, historically, would be 30%, meaning the system can still move over 100 million units and meet that criteria. That puts it near the PS1 and Wii in total sales numbers.
So whether that's a "flop," more Nintendo's call (similar to EA saying their games "fail to meet expectations"). Remember, the line must go up, so anything less is bad news from the executives perspective.
There is market competition, but it's so far niche. Emulation handhelds (Android and Linux), handheld PCs (Deck, Ally, etc.), streaming service devices (Logitech G Cloud), and phone stuffs. Lots of stuff biting into the overall market share, but again, lure of Mario is strong.
Will still sell out tomorrow, I bet. But wonder it'll look like for holiday. Gonna be the Christmas Pokemon ZA carries?
Aside, I've owned every Nintendo system except the Virtual Boy, just some later than others. I got the NES, SNES, GameCube, Wii U, and 3DS all late in their lifespan. Wonder where the Switch 2 will land.
nintendosoup.com
