Quite clear their software investment will be to drive sales for the Switch going forward. I still expect a Switch 2 in 2023 at the latest.
At the same time, hardware sales will have to meet a limit at some point. Something like the Switch actually sees more leeway with that --being both a personal console someone might want for just oneself and also good for family, friends, or party gaming, as well as upgrades being seen as more feasible based on that personal handheld aspect--, but it's definitely something that will have to be kept in mind. Software sales will likely be the driving factor, at some point, especially given the attach rate.
And I was trying not to pull this in right away, but as ever it is relevant, but I can see the eventual new hardware even pushing those same software sales. Especially without the two separate and incompatible lines of hardware, and with the likelihood of backward compatibility, it seems likely a lot of the software will continue to sell for the current Switch but then will also be selling for the new device as well. I do expect a lot of the library to overlap.
The Switch can continue its lifecycle long after the next hardware arrives.
Nintendo's talking a lot, but they're not really saying all that much. Some loosely collected thoughts on the matter:
Yup, exactly. On the hardware front, the statements don't really say much anything either way.
"Successor" is a term with a lot of baggage that means different things to different people.
I keep bringing this up to no avail, so I'm just going to sit back here and reference your wisdom.
Because this can't be repeated enough: While it is sometimes true that consoles drop dead when their successor releases, this is not a necessary component of the transition.
And Nintendo is in a different situation than it was during those times, too, where they don't have anything to fall back on if they kill off a console to supplant it with another. They had situations in the past where they continued to support hardware after the next thing released, but now not doing so would be an incredible risk. To kill off one console and then have the other utterly fail?
Again, it seems much more likely that the current Switch will continue to be supported, and that this support will also serve whatever comes next. This mitigates the risk.
There were separate rumors of ADEV that showed up well after the 4k DLSS ones started. I don't think we have any solid evidence anyone outside of Nintendo knew of ADEV before maybe June or so, when the 4k DLSS ones had already been going for around half a year at that point.
And there's this. What's suggested is a lot more incompetence than the conflation of information from two different types of sources (developers and production pipelines). It's suggesting that all the information from one type of source has been misinterpreted and not followed up upon. One is an easily understood mistake that really should have been avoided, and the other is outright incompetence. Nobody making the games would even find the OLED kit worth commenting on in such a way as to cause this confusion.
The suggestion doesn't make sense.
wait what's the actual issue then
I thought people were just making fun of bloomberg and at worst not believing them
Nope, people outright find these outlets to be malicious and out to get Nintendo. There have been accusations of information being made up for this purpose, even in reports wherein there are specific details that can't just be waved away as "plans change" (which, plans can and do, but this has received a bad rap from people using it as an excuse for stuff they did make up, and so when they legitimately do it's still taken as indication that the outlet made stuff up) -- which is why I keep pointing to the 11 developers as sources, which is absolutely either true or false and would be a big scandal if it were made up, but which I do see people indicate absolutely is a complete falsehood.
It's a thing of people not understanding how journalism works or trusting it at all.
And it snowballs from there.
These outlets have been wrong in different ways before, this is true, but this all goes far beyond that.
...
Anyhow, yeah, Switch software sales are promising, and will likely continue for some time to come, continuing the Switch's lifespan for years to come, even after new hardware releases.
Putting your games on Switch is a good idea. Give me all the games I personally desire.