I just think Nintendo is COMPLETELY out of touch with the western gaming culture and what we like/expect. And they may not care since they are going to (at least they think) capture the Japanese market.
I mean just look at their actual conference. Compare how different it was with these old monotonous business men in suits talking numbers with no actual hands on demos of the game during the presentation, versus stuff at E3 where it's a bunch of bro-developers dressed like hipsters thinking they are cool, playing demos of the games on stage and trying to get people hype.
They are out of the touch with reality but one major issue stems from marketing this primarily as a home console. Gamers keep saying it's a portable handheld that connects to a TV, but I've never owned a handheld and it's portability value is $0 to me. I want a traditional home console with a pro controller bundled in. Many gamers feel like I do. Since Nintendo never replaced 3DS with the Switch, and thus far never bothered releasing a traditional home console in the same generation (yet), by default the Switch is a $370 home console for me:
$300 console + $70 Pro Controller = $370 US before I have to buy a single game, add the cost of SD card/external HDD/$30 Joy-Con Charge Grip (granted, this last one I may not need for single player since I'll buy the Pro Controller).
I was able to snag the Uncharted 4 PS4 Slim bundle for $210 in December 2016. Some might say it's not fair to compare a promotional offer on PS4 + Visa Checkout deals during December 2016, but it's within a very close timeframe. This heavily influences my view on the "value" proposition of the Switch. (Switch looks just as unappealing compared to XB1 as those bundles came with even more games).
For those gamers who place little to no value on the Switch's tablet/portability aspect, I am asked to pay almost double the price of PS4/XB1 and buy into a tiny gaming library.
The online service using a smartphone app is an unnecessary hassle. It's such a rip-off imo since if I wanted to chat with friends, I would just call them from my smartphone as I have unlimited calling. Why am I paying for online gaming when I only get 2 ancient games for 1 month? This better be 1/2 the cost of PSN/XB Live. In fact, all 3 console makers are nickel and diming online gaming. I can easily afford $60-100 for online but it's a matter of principle for me. I never paid to play games online on consoles or PC, and I refuse to support this business model. $50-60 a year x 5 years = $250-300 on online alone. Anyway, since online gaming is a choice, I won't dwell on this too much other than to say if Nintendo charges $50-60 a year, they better offer modern titles and solid 3rd party Switch, games which they won't. Therefore, it doesn't appear that their online is comparable.
As to comments that MS spent $1B and still failed with the XB1, things could have been far different if XB1 launched with similar hardware to PS4 at $399 and it's marketing was focused on games, not media or entertainment. MS isn't going to make the same mistake with the next Xbox. It wasn't that Sony's PS4 did anything brilliant, but that MS attached the 'worthless' Kinect and released an underpowered XB for $499, which in turn made $399 PS4 seem like a great deal.
I have little doubt that if the next XB2 has a 4K bluRay and they make a more powerful console than PS5, Sony won't be outselling it this badly. I mean Scalebound was cancelled due to lack of XB1's horsepower. The point I am trying to make here is I feel GameCube and N64 still sold 20-30M units, it seems a lost opportunity to not have released the Switch and New Home Console concurrently. It's not too late -- Nintendo can still do it in 2019-2020. The reason Nintendo will not be able to match Sony/MS in specs is because they will never be able to negotiate similar prices for home console components. Since Nintendo abandoned its hardcore home console audience since N64/GC era, a lot of them shifted to PC/XB/PS. But Nintendo did this to themselves! Not to come close to specs of Sony/MS consoles, Nintendo would have to lose $ on the home console hardware due to small target market they themselves created.
The Switch's bonus of playing at home and not fighting for that TV did nothing for the Wii U. I suppose some may argue the Wii U was not marketed well as an all-new concept/console but an add-on the to Wii.
As astute gamers noted, handheld gaming may be popular among kids, teens, and parents of young kids, but isn't Nintendo is literally ignoring the 100M+ home console market?
We are barely more than half way into the current gen with XB1/PS4. Those consoles together could reach 130-150M install base.
By Holiday 2017, base PS4/XB1 will likely be $200, PS4 $350 and Scorpio $400. The Switch will get destroyed on value on the low-end and on cutting-edge console experience on the high-end. Lack of basic YouTube/Netflix/Hulu, browser., etc functionality and no physical movie media limits it as a media consumption device.
The value of Zelda and Mario isn't as strong as some people here claim. We don't know anything about BoTW and yet it's already hailed as a possible 2017 GOTY.
GameCube had even worse 3rd party support than N64 and it sold worse over their 4-5 years life-cycle. Yet, MS already sold > 25M XB1s in 3.5 years. Considering MS screwed up to badly with marketing and hardware and many consider their 1st parties inferior to Nintendo's, surely a traditional $299-349 home console could have garnered 20-30M sales for Nintendo.
For now, Nintendo should remaster all the top 1st party Wii and Wii U games and bring it over to the Switch, and allow purchases from current Virtual Console to transfer over to the Switch. This would get a lot more Wii U owners to trade-in their consoles. Right now the Wii U is basically dead. Contrary to this, I bet a 90% chance that PS4/XB1 games will work on PS5/XB2. When those new consoles come out, waves of PS4/XB1 owners will trade-in their consoles and just carry their existing gaming library. There is little point keeping the old console as long as the new one plays all the physical games of the old one. This way, for next gen Sony/MS could easily get 4-5M consoles from trade-ins alone. It also means I am effectively "renting" those consoles and will transfer their gaming library. That makes it easier to accept the cheap $250 cost of PS4/XB1 boxes.
Nintendo doesn't get it that to shift away from niche segments, they MUST have strong 3rd party support and specs that AT LEAST are 80% as good as the slowest current gen console. 3rd parties should do as little work as possible.
I have to repeat this but we have to look at the facts and not wishful thinking:
Only 3% of Developers Making Games for Switch According to Survey
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2017/0...-games-for-switch-according-to-survey/242761/
The Switch is starting off exactly like the Wii U, except it's even more overpriced and underpowered vs. its completion, while Wii U was more powerful than PS360! Wii U had more 3rd party games at launch. Ouch.
Comparing 3DS's price of $250 to the Switch's $300 doesn't make any sense for the home console market because the $250-300 competing consoles have hundreds of discounted titles, hundreds of guaranteed 3rd party titles in 2017-2019, and a "Free" pro controller.
Sorry, but in no way shape or form does 3DS compare to PS4/XB1. Nintendo 100% knows this and it's why they priced 3DS games at $40. If you guys back the idea that the Switch is a tablet/portable console that connects to a TV, the games have to cost $40, not $60. Therefore, clearly it IS primarily a home console -- $60 priced games, $80 pro controller.
That's what happens when you fail at properly marketing the console and connecting the dots on pricing. Now I think looks like a portable with $60 games or a home console that lacks games. Neither of these is appealing for attracting new gamers into the eco-system. Furthermore, from N64 until now, Nintendo flat out stops supporting its home consoles in the last 1-2 years. The existing Sony/MS consoles still get 3rd party games for 1-2 years after a new consoles launches. That's why even if a gamer buys a PS4/XB1 in 2017, you can easily game on them in 2020-2021.
So now let's move forward: a 12-18 year-old kid wants a home console for 1st and 3rd party games. The Switch costs $370 and has almost 0 3rd party games and questionable 3rd party support down the line. The competition costs $250, comes with a free game, and has 100s+ of games. Which console is he going to want to purchase? Please don't say everyone who already wanted a PS4/XB1 has purchased one. Sony will sell another 15M+ consoles in 2017 and probably another 12-15M in 2018.
I keep telling you guys, the space-constrained cartridges of N64 started to kill off 3rd party support for Nintendo and Nintendo nailed it with mini-Discs of GC. This same issue WILL ensure most AAA 3rd party games will never come to the Switch:
Borderlands 3 and Titanfall 2 developers already voiced their views:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=224964
Nintendo is lying about wanting and having 3rd party support. They don't want it badly enough. If Nintendo wanted Western 3rd party titles as a "do or die," they would have released a traditional home console and the Switch as a 3DS successor; OR they would have sucked into up and released a 128GB console and eaten the cost.
Scary/uncertain future looms ahead from a partnership with Maxwell NV and weak ARM CPUs. It means that when PS5/XB2 launch with 6-8 core Zen and Vega/Navi/Volta GPU, the Switch will be so outdated, that even at $199, it would still be bad value. And how is Nintendo going to get back into the home console space without an x86 CPU partner?
Nintendo doomed themselves by putting all their eggs into 1 basket. Now they are going to have an expensive battery-constrained portable console, and an expensive and underpowered home console in the same product. After the first 10-15M by 2018-2019 of easy Nintendo 3DS/Wii/Wii U "fan sales," what's their game plan? By that point PS5/XB2 will be around the corner, overlapping the remaining 2-3 years of the Switch's life-cycle. Nintendo will need another wave isn't Zelda, Mario, Metroid, F-Zero, Donkey Kong, Pokémon, Pikmin, SSB around 2019-2020.
Seems to me that Nintendo raising prices on games, accessories, the console, and online is just a clear sign that they intend to squeeze a smaller customer base rather than go the opposite way of gaining the biggest customer base they can, like the glory days of NES/SNES.
Oh and Rich is pissed off too -- Nintendo did care about specs before:
https://youtu.be/RiC5EPRhOlk