I even say what i think the PS5 is, its an iterative successor, not fully new successor...while the PS4 was fully new to the PS3. PS5 is essentially a PS4 Pro Pro, but the thing that makes it more than just a revision is that it gets exclusive games and will eventually be the defacto platform beyond a lenghty cross-gen period. If PS4 Pro would have had exclusive games, then it would have been an iterative successor, but it didnt and was just a revision. i think the days of "fully new" are largely over for consoles as the companies realize the need to keep a sticky ecosystem. I expect Dane to be an iterative successor, not a revision or a fully new platform.
See, when you include New 3DS in the list of "iterative successors", I get incredibly confused, because it's not, it's FAR more in line with the PS4 Pro than it has in common with PS5, its tiny handful of exclusive games notwithstanding. Also, DS Lite, GBA SP and (arguably) Switch OLED are not "upgraded revisions", as they are even further removed from the likes of New 3DS and PS4 Pro, being that they are form factor revisions, as next to nothing about their internal hardware changes.
The way you've compressed down prior hardware releases is incredibly confusing. While I agree that the concept of "generations" aren't the cleanest, what you've done here just muddles an already complicated designation.
The simple (and commonly used) definition is that a "successor" is both:
- Technically capable well beyond what was previously possible on prior hardware, whether it be due to:
- major advances in computational power
- vastly altered input methods
- the advent of unprecedented additions in capability (example: built-in network functionality, internal storage, etc.)
- all of the above
- The eventual primary focus of both internal and external development in its time period
This is
typically what denotes successors for a single hardware maker (where "generations" get confusing is when they try to group hardware from multiple manufacturers into the same group, leading to oddities like Wii U and Switch being the same generation).
And using this method, PS4 Pro is not a successor, neither is Switch OLED, nor is New 3DS or Game Boy Color (though just barely, because 3rd-parties weren't on-board with abandoning the Game Boy install base for a color display alone).
Well, what I said was to invalidate your position that your list meant there is no way it’s a mid-gen refresh revision coming in the next 2 years but that it HAS to be a “full hardware successor”.
My post was meant to explain why the Switch is different, can’t use historical console trends to predict future behavior.
So it's an argument born of exceptionalism, which (like all other exceptionalism arguments) has little basis in anything substantive. At least I know what I'm working with.
I guarantee you Nintendo does not expect people who are buying an OLED switch in 2022 to consider it a dead, outdated, unsupported system in 2023.
New 3DS says hi. And that one even had (albeit very few) exclusive games, no less. And would have released in a timeframe when Nintendo already knew that Switch was in the pipeline.
Game Boy Color also says hi. So does Game Boy Advance.
The OLED Switch isn't going to self-destruct on the release of a successor. Mid-cycle/late hardware adopters are a thing,
Switch wouldn't be selling like it is currently if that wasn't the case. This argument is operating under an assumption that OLED Switch buyers aren't intimately aware that gaming hardware runs on a 5-8 year cycle, as though this games industry hardware cycle wasn't over 35 years old.
Cause Nintendo has no good reason to lean into that. Cause Nintendo doesn’t do that with hardware they consider in the same family. Cause Nintendo doesn’t want the majority of current Switch owners to feel like they need to spend $499 on the new model being announced next year in order to play Mario Kart 9 and MP4.
It behooves Nintendo to make it clear that this is a refresh of the Switch platform, not a clean break. To make people understand it’s to lengthen the lifecycle of the Switch platform, not end it.
Nintendo wants to still be able to sell a bunch of OLED Switch’s for the next 4 years. They want to still have a viable cheaper option for the Switch ecosystem for another 4-5 years.
They will advertise the new model as a way to play Switch games with some enhancements to graphics/performance. Not as “next gen Nintendo gaming”.
$499? Where in the vast universe did you pull that arbitrary number from?
Anyways... why would you think that the next hardware to be released being "in the same family" means that it will not be a successor? I think you'll need to tell me (with citations, not conjecture) why this is an impossibility.
I think we should also establish what the definition of a "clean break" is.
Lastly, why is Nintendo "behooved" to do what you suggest when, as I already mentioned, Switches aren't about to self-destruct at the impending release of a hardware successor?
Nintendo absolutely wants the OLED to be a cheaper entry/viable system for years after the new model is announced next year. Not drop off the cliff like, say, the ps4 after a ps5 launch.
Nintendo isn’t trying to move gamers as quickly as possible to 4K Switch gaming the same way Sony is trying to push people over to ps5 sooner than later.
That's for the market and Nintendo to work out, but a successor does not pre-determine that outcome. Again, Game Boy Advance says hi. So does the NES and SNES.
I don’t think there is any more antagonism to the new model being a clean break, true successor than there is to the idea of it being more of a mid-gen refresh meant to elongate the lifespan of the Switch lol
I'm not, contrary to the implication you've made here, steadfastly against the idea of a modest hardware revision; that is an equally absurd. What I think is possible (based on the plans of Nintendo's parts manufacturing partners like Nvidia) and what the market will bear is all that dictates my position. The market will bear a hardware successor, as it has many times in the past, and will be capable of existing alongside the predecessor hardware in the market, as it also has many times in the past.
Originally from this thread by ZhugeEX:
One thing that I think a lot of people gloss over in regards to Nintendo is how reliant they are on self published titles to drive hardware sales. Nintendo's core business is still very much dedicated console hardware and software, with its mobile games/amiibo/other business only accounting for...
www.resetera.com
He’s continued to tweet updates on this, the % of revenue Sony makes from 3rd party sales vs 1st is more 85/15 since then.
Your fruit analogy only makes sense if the most important thing is juice, and if apples give you way more juice than oranges. You are focusing on the fruit numbers.
Nintendo isn’t “leaving money on the table”. While Sony’s overall sales revenue is more than Nintendo’s, you forget they owe ~70% of much of that back to the 3rd party companies. Nintendo keeps 100% of that 85% revenue, Sony only keeps 100% of that 15%.
For example, last holiday period, Sony had $8.45 billion in sales revenue, Nintendo only had $5.57 billion in sales revenue
However, Nintendo had a profit of $2.02 billion during that period, Sony had a profit of $767 million.
So no, Nintendo wouldn’t like to see the ratio shift, they aren’t leaving money on the table by being a primarily 1st party gaming system.
Saying that there's no money left on the table here is ridiculous. Since nothing is likely to harm Nintendo's first-party sales, 3rd-party releases can only add to their operating profit. What you're suggesting here is a zero-sum fallacy, that the addition of 3rd-party sales diminishes Nintendo's own software earnings, which is frankly the most absurd thing I've ever heard. So by keeping them in a position where they cannot possess even a fraction more earnings from 3rd-party sales is, in fact, leaving money on the table, saying their own software sales alone are "enough". And again, I must stress, Nintendo is a capitalistic enterprise, if there's a chance at more money earned without a sacrifice to the money already earned, they will take it. And I'll come back to that.
Getting the level of 3rd party support and sales that the Xbox/PlayStation have absolutely means less 1st party sales for Nintendo. Absolutely it does.
Nintendo wants the ratio it is.
This is a lot of the reason why Nintendo never really bothers to do anything to facilitate more AAA 3rd party support. They won’t change their hardware to facilitate that like Sony did/does. They won’t change the type of 1st party they output to facilitate that like Sony did/does.
Hmmmmm... let's see what Nintendo's president has to say on the matter, huh?
Current Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in 2020:
As discussed in the Financial Results Explanatory Material (page 14), other software publishers plan to release a wide variety of titles for Nintendo Switch going forward. There are many genres of games that we cannot make on our own and their providing these kinds of titles enriches the Nintendo Switch gaming experience, so we are very grateful for that. Regarding the speed of growth in unit sales, the fact is that sales of Nintendo Switch software are increasing both for Nintendo titles and titles by other software publishers, and we want Nintendo Switch to be a platform on which both can continue to sell well.
And again in 2018:
Given the strong publisher support Nintendo Switch has, I would expect the number of [3rd-party] titles on it will increase a lot more. That is what really keeps the Nintendo Switch business on the right track.
Sounds to me like 3rd-parties are considered an important part of their business model that they want to improve.
But don't take just one president's word for it.
Here's former Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima from a financial results briefing in 2017:
... we have heard that various third-party publishers have much interest in unique features of Nintendo Switch. The ability to play anytime and anywhere on Nintendo Switch will undoubtedly bring fresh appeal to games from third-party publishers. The variety of genres represented by these titles will help Nintendo reach broader audiences than we would be able to otherwise. On Nintendo Switch, we are promoting the establishment of a collaborative framework that facilitates the creation of many successful third-party titles right away.
That sounds like an awful lot of work to put in for something that they don't want to expand upon, and again re-states that Nintendo considers it a position that they should be growing on.
And last, but certainly not least,
here's Satoru Iwata, discussing the matter in relation to poor 3rd-party performance on Wii in Japan:
Using data from Media Create and NPD, he offered that DS's third to first party ratio for US and Japan combined was around 55 per cent versus approximately 45, and slightly closer to 50/50 on Wii.
Huh, a 50/50 ratio between 1st and 3rd party games in Wii, and 45/55 on DS in 2010. And, refresh my memory, but that generation was Nintendo's most profitable generation ever, was it not? Actually, let me check...
yes, and it isn't even remotely close to their current profit generation. Huh. Must be a coincidence.
/SARCASM
Moving on...
Iwata was thus adamant that matters had to change for the 3DS.
"We need to decrease the concern that only Nintendo software can sell well on Nintendo platforms and third party software cannot sell in the same volume.
"We will not make a trend similar to the one found for Wii in Japan now," he promised. "we feel a need to have closer ties with our third party developers from the beginning."
Lots of use of the word "need" there. Not "should have", not "would be nice to have". NEED. Iwata didn't want to go back to the dog days of the N64 and Gamecube. And while things have improved, I doubt that Nintendo doesn't hope for better.
So yeah... Nintendo wants to make more money on 3rd-parties, they likely aren't as satisfied with the ratio they have as you believe, and any insistence that Nintendo doesn't want to make more money off increased 3rd-party sales is part of some elaborate insular myth-building some Nintendo fans constructed that this part of the video game business was superfluous or unnecessary. And if I could work my will, I would disabuse every single person of this frankly backwards notion.
www.nintendolife.com
