A recent Bloomberg article has suggested that Nintendo appears to be set to end its handheld and home-console side-by-side combo, with the Switch replacing the Wii U and 3DS in the years to come.
“For more than two decades, Nintendo Co.’s twin product lines were the envy of its rivals: a home console and a handheld gaming device. But signs are emerging its new hybrid Switch may upend all of that.”
The article writer does acknowledge that Nintendo hasn’t explicitly said that it will be abandoning the two-gadget strategy, but believes that the signs are there. The article advises that the home and handheld development teams within Nintendo were merged in 2013, and they began work on the Switch the following year:
“While Nintendo hasn’t said it’s abandoning the two-gadget strategy, the signs are there. The home and handheld development teams were merged in 2013, with the company beginning work on the Switch the following year. Last quarter, Nintendo stopped reporting separate revenue for handheld and home systems. Then last month, it said a new Pokemon title for the Switch is in development, the first time a main game in the series will debut outside of a dedicated handheld system such as the Game Boy or 3DS.”
“The 3DS will hang around for a few years because of the big install base, but ultimately the goal is for the Switch to become their one and only platform for hardware,” said David Gibson, a Tokyo-based analyst at Macquarie. “It’s part of the biggest evolution to the company in three decades.”
Only time will tell if Nintendo’s ultimate goal is to phase out the Nintendo 3DS, and continue with a single console. It could even turn out that the Nintendo 3DS will continue on and be succeeded by a new Nintendo handheld console in the future, it’s too early to say at this point. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Wow, these people are slow.
Exactly. They don’t know shit.
Lets hope so.
N O S H I T S H E R L O C K
..you took the word right outta my mouth!! Lmao
Hmm…who knew?
I may be in the minority here but I for one hope this is not the case. Sure the switch is portable but it will never be as convenient or portable as the 3ds. Also the clam shell design with dual screens is damn near perfection for a dedicated handheld gaming system. However, I would be totally fine with another 3ds type handheld that somehow incorporates the joy cons as its primary control scheme. Id be on board with that.
You’re absolutely right. It’s also in a way more affordable price range.
It’s time to give up
Well, what you are saying is, besides the dual screens, just about the size and design.
A future smaller Switch version could easily solve that.
Well no shit. I could have told you that when information came out that it will be Hybrid system.
…
Lol why did it take them so long to come out with this? People have been speculating about the future of dedicated handhelds since the Switch was revealed. Why did it take Bloomberg so long?
The portable home console Switch is a jack of all trades but sadly is a master of none. I hope a future portable home console can change that if dedicated home consoles & dedicated handheld systems from Nintendo really are on their way out. I’m afraid all of that Wii money is drying up sooner than anyone expected, too, so I doubt that will sustain them for much longer if Switch doesn’t turn into another Wii success story quick.
Essentially zero of your post has any basis in reality. Nintendo’s annual profits over the last decade directly contradict the picture you paint. Do you just make things up to reflect your personal tastes in their products?
It’s an opinion based on what I know & what I see. It’s the same thing you share every time you defend Nintendo as if it’s your family member that needs saving from the big, bad bullies. Anyway, if you aren’t even gonna try to prove me wrong & just resort to attacking my comment or even call me childish like the last guy that insulted your precious Nintendo, go right ahead as it just shows how much of a fanboy I assume you to be. Not that your comment right there does anything to prove me wrong, either, & merely just attacks my comment so maybe I got all the proof I need right there.
Your move, bub.
Ridley’s post is 100% based in a reality.
He is supposed to prove this? OK, I’ll do it for him:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/216625/net-income-of-nintendo-since-2008/
If you don’t like the source vor want to see operating income vor whatever. Just look it up yourself.
No matter what kind of statistic you look at, Nintendo barely lost anything in the past years compared to what they made during the Wii years.
With this and their recent successes (Switch sales, games like pokemon go)
your comment about “Wii money drying up” is indeed baseless.
An other thing: What kind of reaction is that Ridley? You didn’t have to go the whole fanboy route…
Thank you for the link & not resorting to telling me that everything in my comment was wrong & fleeing the scene afterwards. As for the fanboy route with that guy, I’ve read enough of his comments to give me the impression that he’s just too far up Nintendo’s butt. (I’m so glad I stopped being one of those people.)
Anyway, I wonder where the hell all of that Wii money is going if it’s not going to better systems, better amiibo stock, etc. Hoarding the majority of their money is bad business.
I guess it’s time for them to pull the plug on the 3DS system. Besides, the sales was really great and it’s not a huge failure.
IT MASTERS EERYTHING A GAMING DEVICE SHOULD MASTER
its abillitys far far far outshine any other device i fail to see how dual mm perfect 3d gyro mouse joycons with hd rumble are not matsers a pro pad with again 3d mouse gyro a touch screen a controler compatabillity and flexabillity unmached a tue portable and home system
IT CLEARLY MASTERS EVERYTHING A BOX A ND A 25 YR OLD CONTROLER CONCEPT PS4 MASTERS NOTHING AND IS ENTIRLY BUILT AROUND A CONCEPT MANY GENERATIONS OLD AND COMPLEATLY OUTDATED AND OUT OF TOUCH WOITH 2017 AND BEYOND
you need to check gaming evolution controler evolution and profits from gc xbox ps2 to today
nintendo has made billions xbxox and sony have lost billions YOU ARE A BRAINFART
Do the nurses at your psychiatric ward know you got on one of their computers?
Weve only been saying this since Nintendo kept denying the hybrid rumors lol.
Mister Kimishima says Nintendo is working on a new hardware but for now we don’t know if it is about a successor of the 3DS or something completely new. I don’t think is a new version of the Switch but maybe is the famous SCD that makes the Switch more powerful.
well i guess so if thats what he said.
Yeah but it’s strange hearing about Hardware. The Switch was out in March and Nintendo is thinking on a new hardware, but what they want to bring on the market?
– A successor of the 3DS?
– A better version of the Switch or the SCD for the Switch.
– A completely new hardware that nobody thinked about it (which can be good or bad).
I don’t think the Mini console are new piece of hardware but who knows.
Well, we have to wait and find out.
The SCD thing is really, really impractical. They’re likely working on a proper 3DS successor. I just hope they don’t go with underclocked off-the-shelf parts again.
Yeah. It’ll be called “Switch mini” or whatever and come out alongside Pokémon.
Probably but after the news of the N64
“Yeah. It’ll be called “Switch mini” or whatever and come out alongside Pokémon.”
Mike, I already explained why that isn’t happening. The Switch is already everything it’s going to be. There’s no SCD, there’s no Switch Mini. You can’t just pray things into existence. That’s not how the real world works.
@Nintendo Guy
Yea, I suppose they could be talking about the N64 mini. Though I have a feeling that when people open up the SNES Mini they’re gonna find the exact same parts as the NES Mini. If so, I can only imagine they’ll use the same parts for the N64 Mini as well. Though I guess none of that prevents them from considering it new hardware.
Yeah I came to a conclusion. They will make N64 mini.
I’m sorry for the early comment because I pressed “send”.
What I was writing is: Probably but after the news of the N64 controller I think the new hardware is the N64 mini.
New hardware could also simply mean a Switch balance board or something else in that direction.
Maybe.
I guess it’s time for them to pull the plug on the 3DS system. Besides, the sales was really great and it’s not a huge failure.
I seen this coming from a mile away, I’ve had amazing memories with the DS line of consoles, but we’ve got to move on, just reminisce on the good times and be glad we got such a wonder console line instead of looking at it in a negative light.
I need to ask. Why are people so excited about retiring the DS line? Why do people need to “move on” when the only problem with the line is that it’s specs aren’t up to date?
Because the Switch makes it outdated whether you like it or not. It’s still selling out everywhere still months after launch despite all the problems you people who can’t let go of the past continually cite. Dedicated handhelds like the 3DS are extinct bub. Best you’ll get is a Switch mini.
I’m agreeing with Mike S here, the idea of a hybrid console like the Switch has been a thing people’s been wanting for years and Nintendo delivered on that point. I’m not excited that the DS line of systems are dying, I’m still gonna remember them for the rest of my life, it’s like when the GameBoy line of consoles died, you can’t forget them, but you can move on and that’s exactly what we did. Giving the 3DS bumped up specifications isn’t gonna bring back the brand as a whole or anything, it’d just be the 3DS Pro and people would still buy the Switch to buy a game like BOTW, there’s no arguing that.
“…it’s like when the GameBoy line of consoles died…”
Except… when the DS line filled the GB line’s vacuum, it kept an entire games library alive, incentivized by the entire concept of a dedicated, true handheld, something which requires its own gaming needs outside a console. A hybrid like Switch basically kills that unique games library, welcoming multiplat hell into the vacuum which would open/suck when/if Nintendo ends their line of handhelds or no other hardware manufacturere steps in. W/ what amounts to basically 1 platform, it’s likely Nintendo’s own catalog will shrink, especially as games & their budgets & teams balloon. Whereas a “weaker” handheld not only reduced costs for the consumer but also devs, as well as incentivized support for that unique library. & a handheld’s “weakness” coupled w/ its popularity also garnered variant “multiplats” which could be better than their console counterparts or @ least offered more choice, sometimes serving as a nice companion to its console counterpart.
& klling that unique, handheld library is almost like how an individual game milks DLC as it seems to prevent its devs & gamers from moving on to another release. If they’re not going to release a brand new game in the franchise or entirely new IP, I’d rather just get a full sequel instead of that DLC. But that opens a whole other can of worms labeled ‘AA vs. AAA: How to be Fiscally Responsible While Delivering Great Games & More of Them.’ Or ‘Gameplay vs. Story: The Content that Defines a Medium’. Oops, get back in your can, you stupid worms.
@pother The Switch is filling in as the successor both to the Wii U and 3DS because we’re getting game series like Pokémon (which the main series had been exclusively portable until now) on the Switch, but we’re also getting games like Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, Breath of the Wild, and Pokkèn on the Switch too which also fills in the gap for home console games, it’s not killing off any franchise exclusive to 3DS or anything, the series are just moving over to the Switch.
“Because the Switch makes it outdated whether you like it or not.”
I thought specs didn’t matter, “bub”.
“Dedicated handhelds like the 3DS are extinct bub.”
Stop marketing to me.
“Best you’ll get is a Switch mini.”
That’s not happening.
“Giving the 3DS bumped up specifications isn’t gonna bring back the brand as a whole or anything, it’d just be the 3DS Pro and people would still buy the Switch to buy a game like BOTW, there’s no arguing that.”
Except a 3DS with bumped up specs COULD run BOTW just fine. Here’s a graph that charts the benchmark scores of a bunch of mobile SOCs including the TX1 used in the Switch (both at full clock speed and with scores adjusted for the Switch’s clockspeeds).
http://imgur.com/GO1Vv3E
There’s already phones that are matching the Switch’s performance when docked, so a proper 3DS successor could not only run BOTW, but run it better than the Switch in handheld mode, and it would still maintain the cheaper price range of the 3DS line. They could then sell controllers and a dock to give people the option to connect it to a TV while also selling a proper home console.
“The Switch is filling in as the successor both to the Wii U and 3DS because we’re getting game series like Pokémon (which the main series had been exclusively portable until now) on the Switch, but we’re also getting games like Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, Breath of the Wild, and Pokkèn on the Switch too which also fills in the gap for home console games, it’s not killing off any franchise exclusive to 3DS or anything, the series are just moving over to the Switch.”
The Ace Attorney series started with the DS and was made around the two screens. Other than the DS and 3DS, the only other platforms that games have come out on was iOS and Android because the two screen layout can be mimicked in a portrait mode. Same thing applies to Puzzles and Dragons and Final Fantasy: Threatrhythm. Super Mario Maker was fun to create levels in because you ALWAYS had a touch screen available to you. Art Academy would really only work in the Switch’s portable mode. Without Streetpass, Switch also won’t get Street Pass Plaza games. Brain Age was designed around two screens, one being touch. The most recent Chibi Robo game and games like it can’t come to the Switch because of it’s lack of camera. There was another puzzle game that I can’t remember where you get the solution to the problem by tilting the top screen so that it’ll will reflect on a pattern on the bottom screen. Any DS or 3DS game that even remotely uses two screens can never come to a Switch virtual console, they have to be ported and redesigned.
Now getting into hypotheticals. Sea Man never came out on a Nintendo system though Iwata did want it on the DS. With the DS, 3DS, and Wii U’s built-in mic, they would be much better fits for the game than the Switch. In fact, since the Switch doesn’t even have a headphone/mic jack on the controller, even the PS4 and XBO are better fits for such a game. I would also argue that a sequel to Pokémon Snap is a better suited to the Wii U and 3DS than the Switch.
Pokémon will survive the Switch, but I’m also reminded of the franchise’s console-specific entries, whether they still have enough incentives to exist (though I guess those were already ended [I don’t count Pokken Tournament as it seems like a Fighter which happens to have Pokémon]). But what about the fate of 2D Zeldas (though maybe that’s less about a true handheld library & more about the success of Breath of the Wild)? & I guess Nintendo will still offer Fire Emblem, though I wonder if GameCube had been a hybrid, would we still have gotten both FE: PoR & GBA.
But it’s hard for me to see 3rd parties offering alternatives to their multiplats as they do/did w/ a handheld platform. Even if Nintendo’s recent consoles received healthy AAA-multiplat support, Nintendo’s handheld platforms would still likely see their own type of support w/ a game found & possible nowhere else. W/ out a true handheld platform, hat incentives does an industry obsessed w/ AAA & multiplatting have & despite both Nintendo’s handhelds & recent consoles being “weaker”, the handheld platforms still prevailed, were still able to grab devs into making games for the handheld library.
I also wonder how the 3rd-Party RPG boon, largely brought about by the handheld market, will fare when there’s 1 less platform/market in the industry. When the specs & graphical expectations have already gone up. When the costs & dev teams have already grown. When publisher/dev catalogs have already shrunk. When AAAs & multiplatting have become the norm yet are still such resource-hogs & diversity-killers.
Does the Switch have what it takes to combine 2 markets & thus 2 libraries, & w/ out dividing its own market share or stifling a game’s vision or vice versa the vision of hybridization (say w/ a handheld-only game on Switch? & dealing w/ motion controls just to bridge the gaps left by hybridization, & we all know how much 3rd-parties love accommodating different control schemes) . The way Nintendo combined the hardware dynamics of handheld & console have already shown big sacrifices were made (portability & dual-screen gaming on the handheld side, & the specs & price [particularly Pro Controller] on the console side. & I still think those sacrifices will permeate into the software side, particularly the lack of incentives to cater to the handheld library.
Even PSP & Vita had trouble getting games other than console ports, & they’re true handhelds, except maybe a bit too “powerful” & lacking enough quirks to incentivize a solid stream of games so each could build a library more their own. But Nintendo’s handhelds managed to do so, & I fail to see Switch adequately filling in the vacuum that would/will be left if a dedicated handheld market vanishes, especially when 3rd-party business models are geared toward multiplatting. & while better than nothing, Nintendo/3rd-party collaborations aren’t enough, espicially when the library starts looking the same, despite offering a different take on establish Nintendo IPs (rather have a pure 3rd-party experience like Buck Bumble, MadWorld, Red Steel 3, Prince of Persia (both 2D & 3D), No More Heroes, Viewtiful Joe, The World Ends W/ You, Trauma Center…)
No fucking way. This came totally out of nowhere! Who could’ve thought a system that can be played on the TV and on the go would replace both the Wii U AND 3DS!!!!! MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!
Ha.
This just in from Bloomberg, USA wins World War 2!
Personally I love the 3DS and handheld line. Been a part of my life since original Game Boy days.
So far Switch hasn’t impressed me, I’ll just have to see what else Ninty has in the works.
It wasn’t until late 2015 that Iwata even decided to make a New home console, and even then it wasn’t a hybrid til later on during the thought process. Know your facts people. And Nintendo said core pokemon game, which could be like Colosseum. Nintendo said they’re making a separate successor to the 3DS and that they are making new Hardware (announced after New 2DS reveal).
I don’t really like the Switch as a handheld. I don’t like the way that the Joy-Cons feel. They’re cute, but too small. And while playing Breath Of The Wild, I can’t count how many times I accidentally clicked the darn stick and caused Link to crouch (or pull out his scope) in heated battles (particularly with lynels). That never happened with the amazing Pro Controller. I can’t recommend that controller enough.
How about a smaller clamshell dessigned Switch where that bottom part is mainly buttons, battery, NFC reader and memorycard slot. And the upper past is a screen and speakers? It could be smaller and more 3DS like.
And it could still support the joycons (even if the are not attached) and be docked for TV out?
It’s not impossible at all for nintendo to do.
ANYTHING THAT IS NOT SWITCH IS A OUTDATED CONCEPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think someone “switched” out your meds with placebos.
A placebo, though not the actual cure or medicine for treating something, still has some kind of effect on a person’s body or brain. Mind over matter is an actual thing for some people, after all.
Bowler is the exception haha.
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