Nintendo should stop making home consoles.

Honestly this is how i feel about them. They've already been established as the handheld/niche company in gaming. I get it, most people are yearning for another gamecube. But with each and every nintendo handheld doing gangbusters, and only a few nintendo home consoles selling well, it makes no sense to keep making home consoles. nintendo's console sales are over 300 million throughout 6 mainline consoles, starting from 1983 with the NES. Nintendo's handheld sales are over 400 million throughout also 6 mainline consoles, and it started in 1989 with the game boy. Financially nintendo has had like, 3 home console failures (n64, gamecube, wii u) and only 1 handheld failure (virtual boy) After the switch, they should just give up on the home console market. Not even hybrids or anything, just end it right there.

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So far the Switch is considered by all accounts I’ve seen a success, so I’ll be surprised if they switch.

Remember, the Switch Lite is essentially a portable only Switch.

Personally, I like the hybrid idea, I’ve always disliked being stuck with pure portables (obviously not possible with the DS, Wii U emulation aside), only reason I keep my GC connected to the TV is Gameboy Player.
 
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Agree with tech why lose the option of having a hybrid? Give everyone what they want, and it's been successful. So no reason to not make a Switch 2. It's not like the Switch is a less powerful handheld because it also works as a console so nothing is lost. And then there's Lite so everyone can choose.
 
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I mean, the hybrid idea has already been done before with remote play, and even farther back with the sega nomad
They could just sell the portable console with a USB to HDMI port and call it a day
Also, with the PS5 and Xbox Series x on the way, the switch's appeal of having a console quality experience on the go will die out, since the new games will probably be too graphic intensive for it. It happens every gen, Game boy Color gave NES graphics when the 64 was out, GBA gave SNES graphics when the GCN was out, DS gave n64 graphics when the Wii was out, 3ds gave GCN graphics when the Wii U was out. It just seems like the same will happen with the switch, with it giving PS3-level graphics when the ps5 and Xbox series x come out, and it'll just be seen as a handheld again.
 
But with each and every nintendo handheld doing gangbusters, and only a few nintendo home consoles selling well, it makes no sense to keep making home consoles.

There is more to it than just the number of units sold. Nintendo also gets money from licensing software for their system - eg sega makes a game on the 3ds, sells it for $40, nintendo gets ~30% of that sale. Home consoles can sell games at a higher price than handhelds and you generally see a higher ratio of games to system (aka "attach rate") for home consoles than you would for handhelds. There is more money to be made in home consoles, so nintendo is marketing their tablet as 'a home console that is portable' rather than 'a handheld that can connect to your tv'.
Also, smartphones are direct competitors to handhelds now. In the past it was either gameboy or basically nothing but now you can get an android tablet for under $50 and play cheap or freeium games on it. If you're only looking at the number of units sold, there was a huge decline between ds sales and 3ds sales (ditto for psp and vita) because of smartphones.

My personal opinion is they got lucky with the wii and making games for children on obsolete hardware isn't a viable strategy. They should either focus on making exciting hardware that can run current gen games or not bother.
 
"My personal opinion is they got lucky with the wii and making games for children on obsolete hardware isn't a viable strategy. They should either focus on making exciting hardware that can run current gen games or not bother."
That's my opinion too. It's just that with the Playstation and Xbox, it would seem hard for them to compete when their hardware isn't exactly the most obsolete thing about their consoles. UIs are too simplistic and feature locked, online is shitty and horrible, Save Sharing is a nightmare, removal of virtual console, removal of console themes, the list goes on and on. Nintendo would have to really pull out all the stops to even compete, but even if the console was able to compete with the more hardcore entries, there's still stuff like triple A doubt, Companies like activision and EA (albeit not very good) refuse to sell their mainline games onto nintendo consoles because of the target audience and hardware- even if that changed, they would still not want to try in fear of the console not selling well. Nintendo's home consoles are mostly hit and miss- sometimes they'll make something legendary and have it sell like gangbusters, or sometimes they'll just flop the moment they release. Meanwhile with playstation and XBOX, those brands have consistient sales to fall back on, alongside just being more adult oriented, which makes sense since most triple a publishers make M rated games. It just seems like nintendo's made just for handhelds.
 
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I'd love to see them publish as a 3rd party company, the joycons are just so bad. That Dragon Quest Builders 2 frame rate dropping into single digits was painful.
 
That is a good point that switch 2 will probably not be able to handle ps5/scarlett ports. Regardless they're never going handheld only.
 
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@MrCokeacola No? The Switch is a hibrid, technically, the Switch is a home console and a portable console.
 
Yeah because you can buy official traditional controllers on other handhelds and hook them up to tvs. Switch is both obviously.
 
Or they could just keep making hybrid systems since that's a lane that none of their competitors occupy. OTOH, the market for dedicated handheld/mobile devices is far more competitive than it used to be, and Nintendo surely wants to avoid head-to-head competition with Google and Apple. Gotta keep their products easily distinguishable from the pack.
 
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@Stealphie Yes. The Switch is a handheld. It does nothing really different then the Sega Nomad or PSP Go have done in the past. I don't care what buzz words Nintendo use to sell their console. If the "hybrid" feature was so important they would have kept it in the Switch Lite.
 
You can think what you want but it's still a hybrid. If it wasn't a hybrid there wouldn't be a Switch Lite that actually is handheld only.

It's almost as silly as saying "The Wii U is a portable console because of the gamepad" neither make any sense.
 
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Tech is getting better every year and the hybrid is obviously getting lots of love according to sales.
Don't understand why Nintendo should stop making consoles when they are still selling millions. Personally I'm more than fine with the graphics the Switch is able to put out and as I said in the future it's only going to get better but the human eye is not going to evolve any further lol.
We won't be able to notice if a game runs in 120fps or 2000fps. Surely now we can still distinguish the difference between a PS5 and a Switch but give it 10-20 more years and there won't be difference any more the human eye could pick up.
I for one love to play my games on the go but also love to play games like Zelda or even Pokemon on my TV. Why do you want to deprive Nintendo fans of that? Just cause it is not to your liking? That is very shortsighted..
Also you're talking about financial failures. Where is the proof of that? And keep in mind that the reason for Nintendo's strong financial savings is that they not only have their home consoles but they have countless pillars of income.
 
Yeah, a large company should stop making nearly as much money as they have. That'd be the smart thing to do.
 
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again i never said that nintendo should go third party- just focus on handhelds. The handhelds they do make already make them more money, and are less prone to failure. I'd get pissed if they went third party. Again if you did want to play these games on your TV they can bundle a uSB to HDMI port on the system. or you could buy one yourself if that isn't the case. I just feel like nintendo would be better off they just focused on making good handhelds.
 
I prefer home console. I never used portable to go anywhere. I like my life just fine. Bring it to anywhere is a waste of your life and miss a lot of good nature and an adventure. I used Switch as a home console, only. A home console suits the best. Sorry, a video game portable is a BIG THUMB DOWN.
 
lol im pretty sure a couple of hours playing mario kart on the switch isn't going to waste anyone's life.
 

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