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What do you think Nintendo's long term plan will be?

levyjl1988

Banned
So we know that the eShop for Wii U and 3DS is shutting its doors in late March 2023 for good.

Thousands of games will be lost and inaccessible through legitimate means. We are at the Switch's halfway life cycle. I give the Switch roughly 5 more years until we get a true next-gen iteration.
In that time frame, what do you think Nintendo's long-term plan is?

Nintendo seems to be attempting to get a foothold in other markets like getting into movies with the computer-animated untitled Super Mario film.
I guess to get more worldwide attention and broader appeal is to release a movie. SEGA was highly successful with its live-action Sonic movie, perhaps maybe Nintendo will try to replicate that success and branch its IP to other genres besides film.
Disney was successful with its Marvel properties in this regard.

I believe Nintendo is cutting out direct purchases on the eShop altogether so they can resell the games again but through a subscription-based service on the Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo is rolling out legacy titles through their Nintendo Online Service. But the Wii U and 3DS has certain games where porting on switch will be made impossible due to the hardware limitations of the Switch and such features will be missing altogether.
Like how TWEWY and Phoenix Wright games were ported, maybe we will see some compromises in that regard or will be redone and resold to us at full price.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Nintendo's long-term plan? Nintendo is known to have very obtuse ideas, sometimes they pay it off. Like when Nintendo forgo live demos on stages and went to Nintendo Directs were decisions that made logical sense. Why embarrass yourself in front of a crowd with faulty mishaps like
that Skyward Sword Wii demo or why Steve Jobs was trying to conduct a live call but the reception in the space was bad. Other times we don; 't get Mario Kart 9 announcements right away instead we get a booster pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Nintendo doesn't make sense.

So what are your thoughts? Are there some methods to their madness? Does it make sense with their decisions from a business standpoint? Did they stop giving a shit about its customer base now that it has grown so big that quality has deteriorated?
In my honest opinion, Nintendo should fail. A fall from grace will perhaps knock some sense in them as when Microsoft fumbled terribly with Xbox One, they became a better company.
Wii U and 3DS were disappointing sales-wise, but they had some unique qualities that will be lost and any future hardware releases will never provide such a comparable or improved experience. I feel that it's all downhill from here.

I think Elden Ring will be GOTY over the Legend of Zelda Breathe of the Wild sequel.
 
I believe Nintendo is cutting out direct purchases on the eShop altogether so they can resell the games again but through a subscription-based service on the Nintendo Switch.
You're overthinking it.

They are doing it simply because it costs more to keep the servers up than they make off those eShops. This is the same reason Sony was going to shut down the PS3 and Vita stores.

The only difference is, Sony caved to the complaints and decided to eat the costs awhile longer. Nintendo doesn't give a flip. They know no one is going to stop supporting Nintendo based on this, so why bother doing something if it doesn't make financial sense?
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
In my opinion, if I were in charge I'd stay on course and go the road of sustaining innovations.

I know that's not what they're gonna do, but it is what they should do. There is no need for them to attempt self-disruption at this point. Unless they have something really really special lined up.
 
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We are way past the Switch's halfway point. They'll release a successor before the end of 2023.
I wish, but no.

Nintendo knows their consoles are hit and miss. They'll ride out the hits as long as possible. Ever since the SNES, they've been pretty rare.

N64 - 33 mil
GC - 22 mil
Wii - 101 mil
Wii U - 13 mil
Switch - 100+ mil and going strong
Next console - who the hell knows?

When PlayStation or Xbox release a console, you know about what to expect. With Nintendo, it always seems to be one extreme or the other.
 
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SeraphJan

Member
I think they will go for the iphone route, rolling out revision of Switch until they couldn't do it anymore, only by then they will start planning a new gen, just hope by that time they don't do something stupid and turn things 180, Nintendo had this record of whenever they try something new, its either huge success or complete flop. This is the capital for innovation.
 
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bender

What time is it?
Hopefully the next system will be iterative and backwards compatible. I think both are likely as it allows them to continue to focus development on a single platform, satisfies the market demand for a portable gaming device, and would allow them to have a huge back catalogue of titles.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Pretty obvious they're going to milk the Switch, Switch 2, Switch 3 thing as long as possible.

You can't really compare it to past console gens because this is their console and their portable, so whatever it is, it will always have a portable element.

They're not going to leave the portable space.
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
There's no way to predict what Nintendo does.

Nintendo always gets arrogant when they do well. Hopefully the next system is a flop to put them back into pretending to care about their customers.
 
Nintendo don't care bout what MS or Sony do they have proven they can sell 100 million doing their own thing i think they will milk the switch until at least 2024 than make a Switch Pro by then the switch could very well have surpass PS2 lifetime sales
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
They don’t care about the rest of the industry. Only company that can be completely carried by their first party to 100m+ sales brought to you in stunning 480p / 30 fps.

Really though I’m kinda happy theyre not rushing into a Switch succesor. More time that passes the better the tech gets. I hope they get tensor cores in the next iteration.
 

Sophist

Member
I wish, but no.

Nintendo knows their consoles are hit and miss. They'll ride out the hits as long as possible. Ever since the SNES, they've been pretty rare.

N64 - 33 mil
GC - 22 mil
Wii - 101 mil
Wii U - 13 mil
Switch - 100+ mil and going strong
Next console - who the hell knows?

When PlayStation or Xbox release a console, you know about what to expect. With Nintendo, it always seems to be one extreme or the other.
Note that the Switch replaced both the wii u and the 3ds.
 

Lickety

Neo Member
I'm definitely concerned with the direction the games are going in.

At least for myself I couldn't care less about specs or graphics, especially when it comes to Nintendo. Right now, most of their games feel lifeless to me. And it's nearly impossible for me to have fun with any franchise or release that wasn't ported over from the Wii U or 3DS. I just sold my switch a few weeks ago because I hardly ever touched it, to the point where it began to collect dust.

All my needs are met with just a little custom firmware and two big ol' SD cards (one for my 3DS and Wii U). That's one of the biggest selling points of that gen for me is that I can play nearly every single Nintendo game pre-2017.
 

Hoddi

Member
You're overthinking it.

They are doing it simply because it costs more to keep the servers up than they make off those eShops. This is the same reason Sony was going to shut down the PS3 and Vita stores.

The only difference is, Sony caved to the complaints and decided to eat the costs awhile longer. Nintendo doesn't give a flip. They know no one is going to stop supporting Nintendo based on this, so why bother doing something if it doesn't make financial sense?
I don't even think server costs are the issue. They're doing it simply because they want to cut off support for these systems because there are people being paid to maintain them.

The actual cost of keeping a few servers up is so trivial that it's barely even worth mentioning. The only thing keeping hobbyists from doing so is that Nintendo would sic their lawyers on them.

Edit:

I just realized that I supported your point.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
You're asking about the long term then define you want to discuss the very short term, ie, Switch's remaining lifetime, however few more years that is. Shutting down WiiU has nothing to do with reselling anything, just as they haven't repurposed the Wii Virtual Console for newer systems, it's just not making money. Tthey had no problem selling some of the same games on Switch with WiiU still supported because WiiU was only bought by a fraction of the people interested in them (like other proof against the Nintendo fans buy anything trollonarrative), hell, it's why Switch exists. In this short term they want to grow the install base as much as possible so all software on it sells as much as possible, for existing/upcoming multi million sellers like BOTW/Odyssey/sequels but also for smaller titles like Xenoblade/Metroid and niche stuff like Advance Wars. Business as usual 🤷‍♂️

Btw, owners of the games can still download them for way longer than the store being open for new purchases/redemptions,, multiplayer will also remain online longer, Switch will probably also be dead long before any of that actually closes so obviously it has nothing to do with any of this 🤦‍♂️
 
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To continue disappointing me until I am dead.
Same but it’s the whole industry that disappoints me now and not just Nintendo.

Well MS can’t disappoint me at all after xbox one lol that was pretty much the end of xbox as far as i’m concerned and I can just play the games on PC. Sony will get to that point for me probably with ps6.

Nintendo… just wish they’d look back at some of their old game design philosophy and not chase shitty industry trends like everything needs open world and remasters out the wazoo. But again that’s just where we are at in the industry rn.
 

Kuranghi

Member
If you imagine Sony and MS are riding a quadbike and a jet ski respectively, Nintendo is effectively riding a pig, facing backwards. The pig is also covered in custard:

Think About It Reaction GIF by Identity
 
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Celcius

°Temp. member
Honestly all I want from Nintendo next gen is:

1. Nvme m.2 storage. No more sd cards.
2. Enough power for 1080p 60fps in modern 3rd party games.
3. 1080p oled screen
4. Backwards compatibility with switch games. (Maybe even with enhancements like ghost of Tsushima at 60fps on ps5 in backwards compatibility mode)
 
Thousands of games will be lost and inaccessible through legitimate means. We are at the Switch's halfway life cycle. I give the Switch roughly 5 more years until we get a true next-gen iteration.
Dude, please. Try to remember when the Switch launched, and when they put the axe to the 3DS.
 

Chukhopops

Member
- Keep leveraging their ips in more products (like Lego Mario, movies, etc);
- Never go back to making full home consoles since it’s impossible to catch up to Sony / MS;
- Maybe go into standalone VR once prices go down enough;
- Keep working with a handful of third parties for exclusive games (KT, Ubisoft, Capcom, ATLUS etc);
- Keep making the best SP games overall in the market.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
This makes people not want to buy Nintendo digital software. When's the switch store closing, 2026? (Basically they are saying 9-10 years from launch since wii u launched in 2012 and 3ds in 2011)
At least competitors make an attempt to bring forward games you have bought not only to download later, but to actually play on the new system without having to rebuy it. I have xbox 360 games I bought 15 years ago that I can download and fire up any time and it's not likely to change any time soon.
Great way to build customer trust and loyalty Nintendo.
 
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