Discussion As the Switch 2 release date keeps going further and further into the future; does the risk of commercial failure increase?

[Celine]

The Switch successor' only risk is if it will be perceived as boring and uninteresting by the mass market.

 

[boodream]

I think the expectation are huge for 3D Mario, since Bowser fury showed us a glimpse of the next Mario game. An seamless open world, in which you can go boot up the game and not think of loading screen, like having the thought of Mario having a platforming challenge of climbing a mountain to reach a secret Snow level, just sounds like absolute Cinema. Like the 3D Mario team are in my opinion one of the most impressive developers in the industry.

I'm wondering what the remaining line up might be.

My expectation are pretty low, when it comes to third party, despite the bigger influx of third party games expecting to come for the switch 2.

Like what makes the Switch 2 extremely unique is that this will be the first time in Nintendo history in which we'll see Nintendo handheld and console division being there at the beginning, since the 3ds got support for 3 years and also that the handheld division are more knowledgeable of console hardware.

We already know that there will be call of duty on switch 2, which is not nothing. Still on the side of Microsoft we can think of hi-fi rush and sea of thieves. I also imagine Elden Ring and red dead redemption 2 being part of the launch window.

And on the first party side, a Pokémon is already announced for 2025, we can think of Mario and Mario kart, maybe also something Zelda and the next Nintendo Direct will be very interesting because it will let us know almost definitively if things like Metroid Prime 4, or a potential new Donkey Kong are kept warm for the launch of the next console or not.

 

[Nathair]

If there's a new Donkey Kong game for the switch 2 i'll be set for live

I think that with Switch 2 our beloved gorilla will return with a new adventure.
The time is ripe for a new chapter of Donkey Kong Country. Who knows, maybe it will be part of the launch line-up.

 

[Lucifer]

I really think we need to remember how much of a bubble we operate in here. Like, your regular ma and pa aren't sitting there staring at third party releases running at sub-30 FPS thinking that a new Switch has got to come soon. It's still selling. Yeah, the hardware sales are declining, but they can't go up forever like the bean counters want and expect.

If the new Switch launches late next year with a new Mario Kart or 3D Mario or Metroid (lol) it will be fine. And if it isn't fine, it isn't because they waited too long.

Your regular ma & pa are mostly content with the Wii still (exaggerating a bit here lol). I have seen plenty of people outside of this bubble complaining about the Switch and its old hardware, people who aren't really tech savvy even.

You know what the bubble is? Still believing that your regular ma & pa are what most of the Nintendo userbase is.

Nintendo losing momentum and that having effect on third parties, or user adaptation is a very real thing. Wanting to milk everything out of the Switch could also lead to people buying a Switch this year and feeling screwed over when Switch 2 drops soon after the holidays.

 

[PixelKnight]

Your regular ma & pa are mostly content with the Wii still (exaggerating a bit here lol). I have seen plenty of people outside of this bubble complaining about the Switch and its old hardware, people who aren't really tech savvy even.

You know what the bubble is? Still believing that your regular ma & pa are what most of the Nintendo userbase is.

Nintendo losing momentum and that having effect on third parties, or user adaptation is a very real thing. Wanting to milk everything out of the Switch could also lead to people buying a Switch this year and feeling screwed over when Switch 2 drops soon after the holidays.

It seems unlikely someone buying a Switch in year 8 is also a potential early adopter that will feel hard done by when the next system drops.

There’s still a lot of people buying a Switch, and gradually dialling down support for a popular platform, and even having a few games release on it immediately before and after the successor launches, isn’t unusual, as why would they ignore a 140m strong user base they’ve built if it’s something they can support with a handful of titles while most of the development effort is working away on next year’s stuff. If you have a period of deciding no games should release on the hardware you currently sell, in order to avoid people buying the hardware you currently sell so they don’t feel bad when you release your new hardware the following year, all that does is mean a terrible year for existing customers to avoid upsetting hypothetical ones who haven’t bought a system in the last 8 years, rather than a managed decline.

I mean, how far in advance of a Switch 2 launch do you think Switch support should stop? Because I can see them still supporting Switch with smaller titles for a year or so after Switch 2 launches, on the basis that early adopters following the release zeitgeist are important but aren’t everything. I still remember Switch early adopters complaining when the 3DS still got its last few first party games after it launched.

 

[BassForever]

It seems unlikely someone buying a Switch in year 8 is also a potential early adopter that will feel hard done by when the next system drops.

There’s still a lot of people buying a Switch, and gradually dialling down support for a popular platform, and even having a few games release on it immediately before and after the successor launches, isn’t unusual, as why would they ignore a 140m strong user base they’ve built if it’s something they can support with a handful of titles while most of the development effort is working away on next year’s stuff. If you have a period of deciding no games should release on the hardware you currently sell, in order to avoid people buying the hardware you currently sell so they don’t feel bad when you release your new hardware the following year, all that does is mean a terrible year for existing customers to avoid upsetting hypothetical ones who haven’t bought a system in the last 8 years, rather than a managed decline.

I mean, how far in advance of a Switch 2 launch do you think Switch support should stop? Because I can see them still supporting Switch with smaller titles for a year or so after Switch 2 launches, on the basis that early adopters following the release zeitgeist are important but aren’t everything. I still remember Switch early adopters complaining when the 3DS still got its last few first party games after it launched.

The tl;dr version of this is look what happened when Sega decided to abandon the Saturn for a year to put all their eggs in the Dreamcast basket. Now yes, the Saturn was a flop outside of Japan, but a year of actually no games (not this pretend "no games" people in the gamer(tm) bubble cry about when Nintendo has had a new retail game every month) meant they had virtually no money coming in and it killed consumer trust. Continuing to feed the 140 million+ Switch owners for the next several years should still be very important to Nintendo, as much as getting the successors features/price/launch/titles right.

 

[SoldierDelta]

The tl;dr version of this is look what happened when Sega decided to abandon the Saturn for a year to put all their eggs in the Dreamcast basket. Now yes, the Saturn was a flop outside of Japan, but a year of actually no games (not this pretend "no games" people in the gamer(tm) bubble cry about when Nintendo has had a new retail game every month) meant they had virtually no money coming in and it killed consumer trust. Continuing to feed the 140 million+ Switch owners for the next several years should still be very important to Nintendo, as much as getting the successors features/price/launch/titles right.

In theory, there should still be games coming to the Switch 1 if they're still a fair bit simpler than the games that they're currently making for Switch 2. Stuff like your Wariowares, Mario sports, remasters/rereleases, eShop titles, 99 titles, hell even some of their AAA titles can probably be downported with some effort.

I don't see Nintendo outright abandoning the device immediately, but I imagine the support decreasing by a massive amount while they gradually shift their whole focus to Switch 2 as sales increase.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

It seems unlikely someone buying a Switch in year 8 is also a potential early adopter that will feel hard done by when the next system drops.

This kind of thing is, I think, very hard to tell. Absolutely there will be people new to gaming or portable gaming or Nintendo specifically who will be early adopters next time around, but have had 0 chance to show it yet because they weren't there for a 2017 launch.

 

[PixelKnight]

This kind of thing is, I think, very hard to tell. Absolutely there will be people new to gaming or portable gaming or Nintendo specifically who will be early adopters next time around, but have had 0 chance to show it yet because they weren't there for a 2017 launch.

For sure, but not in great enough numbers that they, above all others, should encourage Nintendo not to release Switch games in case those customers buy a Switch and then feel disappointed at seeing a Switch 2 launch shortly afterwards. It feels like a concern of minor impact to the timing of winding down Switch game releases.

 

[boodream]

Your regular ma & pa are mostly content with the Wii still (exaggerating a bit here lol). I have seen plenty of people outside of this bubble complaining about the Switch and its old hardware, people who aren't really tech savvy even.

You know what the bubble is? Still believing that your regular ma & pa are what most of the Nintendo userbase is.

Nintendo losing momentum and that having effect on third parties, or user adaptation is a very real thing. Wanting to milk everything out of the Switch could also lead to people buying a Switch this year and feeling screwed over when Switch 2 drops soon after the holidays.

I often read this notion of milking the cow to the last drop about switch 1 and quite honestly I do not know where it comes from or what it is supported by.

Again, it’s normal to make sure you have games for the launch. The opposite would be a mistake, as the past has already shown. It is possible to discuss the fact that games should already be ready even if reproaching a company to give time to developers seems curious. On the other hand, all this theory about a so called will of Nintendo to prolong to the maximum the expectation of the switch 2 seems not really based on anything serious.

 

[meatbag]

I often read this notion of milking the cow to the last drop about switch 1 and quite honestly I do not know where it comes from or what it is supported by.

All the talk about Nintendo having to maintain "momentum" honestly feels like rationalization for why the successor has to come sooner rather than later.

The truth is that Nintendo is currently in a very strong position as a brand, and people would absolutely flock to a Switch 2 when that becomes available for sale.