probablyaCat

I’d bet money that the next one has backwards compatibility. Afaik Nintendo has never made a handheld that didnt get at least one generation of backwards compatibility. Gameboy had several devices with backwards compatibility. Then the GBA had DS backwards compatibility for it. DS had 3ds. I suppose the 3DS didn’t if you view it as its own thing rather than the upgrade to the DS. Also I’m ignoring the single game devices and the tiny pokemon thing.

I could see them at some point trying to separate handheld and console again just because handheld has been their safety market while they experiment with console. But I doubt now is the moment they do that. And I’m not sure how they do it. Maybe release the switch 2 then after a bit release a console that fits its own niche the way the Wii did (it was great for groups and feeling generally more physically interactive)? But what is that niche that a switch 2 doesn’t also fill? Maybe something like the vita tv device? Budget non portable model. Or maybe a console that does a better version of the GameCube 3ds combo. It has more power and its own games, but also acts as a dock that can play switch and switch 2 games if you dock one in it. I dunno.

That being said, Nintendo has no debt and a ton of cash on hand. They can fuck around and not find out for like 30 years.

I said this in another thread, but Nintendo doesn’t change shit up for no reason. People look at their consoles and go “Oh! Nintendo just tries crazy stuff and sees what hits. Then moves on to the next crazy thing.” But that’s not really what they do. Consoles were not stable at first and didn’t have regular gaming conventions. So many many companies were just trying any idea that popped into their heads. And most failed and disappeared. Nintendo just had a pile of reserve cash for failures and also tended to have a different thing at the time that was succeeding. But if you focus instead on their handhelds rather than consoles, they have been wildly consistent. GB -> GBA was all reverse compatible. That was from 1989 to 2004. So each iteration gave a decent reason to upgrade, but you also were able to continue playing your game collection you built. Then, the DS had GBA support, the 3ds had DS support. And these were all pretty successful devices.

Nintendo didn’t change much from NES to SNES, because NES was successful. Then when they had a bunch of new competition and things were obviously moving into a 3D direction, they took a swing with the N64 to some success, but not enough to keep Sony from becoming a real consistent player. GC failed so they decided to try something different instead of competing on the performance side of things. And the Wii succeeded. And they didn’t change much with the next console. However, they also didn’t change enough… like the fucking name. So people didn’t even realize it was a new console. So it failed. And then they took what succeeded (handhelds) and added it to the other thing that succeeded (Wii ideas – don’t compete on performance, compete with unique games and features). I’ll be honest. I expected the Switch to fail with its huge launch library of 1 game, but I am really glad it didn’t. I also don’t think Nintendo has a big reason to change the system too much. Add power and exclusive games to the new system but have reverse compat. People will have a reason to upgrade without feeling like they will be ditching something that they spent a lot of money on (like literally every handheld iteration they have had outside of the game and watch).

I could see them wishing they had a separate handheld and console again just for security purposes (when GC failed, they had the GBA succeeding, WiiU and 3DS, hell even the DS was moving over a million units a year during the WiiU era). But I don’t see how they justify doing it. Either turn switch into their primary handheld line and make a newer handheld that has reverse compat along with a console, but what does this console offer? I cannot see them getting into the performance game again with PS and Xbox being so far ahead in terms of hardware and games library. Give a system with maybe the power of an XBox One that can be handheld and supports 4K on the TV and 1080 in the hand and can finally run pokemon Violet at a decent fps. Make money.

You skipped a step. We aren’t there yet. It will be the Switch Pocket.

TLDR: I’d bet my pinky toe that they iterate on the switch.

I mean the reason that things didn’t change much from NES to SNES is NES was successful. But in the SNES era, they got a ton of competition and there were no typical conventions for games. Then with the N64, they were jumping into the 3d world and that required some extra changes and Nintendo had some stable competition. Gamecube started having some of the newer conventions but kind of failed (thus why not make big changes?). So the Wii took a different route and made something very different and didn’t get into the tflops race that the other consoles were doing. Wii was successful so why not iterate? Well bad advertising, naming, etc caused the WiiU to flop.

But at the same time, GB -> GBP -> GBC -> GBA all of which were backwards compatible. That is stability from 1989 to 2001. Then GBA -> DS had backwards compat, DS ->3DS same thing. And basically all of those handhelds were successful. So they combined those markets. Something more high end than a 3DS (which for people like me that didn’t have one and didn’t realize the quality of graphics on that thing, it’s kind of huge to see what the switch offered as a handheld), but still portable. Something that can play modern games, but still be mobile.

So given their history, I imagine they have to iterate on the next console. Especially since they basically combined their handheld and console into one thing. And given that they will want to get people off of the switch, they need to give them a reason. They almost certainly aren’t going to make something more powerful than a PS5 or Series X, so why would I get a stationary console that is less good and will have far less games? But give me another handheld console that can play even better games than TOTK and can maybe even play pokemon violet well… no we are talking. And honestly, people look at their console stuff out of context so often and think that Nintendo just tries crazy stuff. But really, they have just tried and failed at times, but had the money to keep on going. And also success in another area when something failed.

This worked out really poorly for them with the WiiU. I doubt they will do it again. So many people (including me) thought the WiiU was either an addon for the Wii or a connected upgrade thing. Personally, I thought it was something like the that genesis 32x thing.

I feel like gc is retro because it had weird conventions. Weird ass controller. Weird controls. Xbox had started to settle in with modern standard schemes. Especially for things like fps and tps.

So never heard of GoG huh?