Topic: Where does Nintendo go after Switch?

I'm not so sure about that. If you had asked me ten years ago what the future of gaming was I probably would have said something along the lines of "better than 360 visuals on something small and solid state like the DSLite". Find a time machine and ask 2007 me what my PC would be like in 2017. I would have said it would barely need a fan, be SSD based, have no optical disk and an OLED screen. 3/4 ain't bad.

Tech has been moving in this direction for a while now. I'm not surprised that something like the Switch has come about I'm only surprised that we got it in 2017 and not 2027. Well that and I'm kinda surprised we got a cartridge based "home console" before we went digital only but "portable console with home console graphics" isn't surprising.

@ThanosReXXX I don't think the others got ideas from Nintendo's early announcement, thought it also openly removed a competition hurdle for them. Mostly it let the others double down on what they were doing with a sigh of relief that Nintendo was safely out of their way. But they were obviously moving to x86 for quite a while. The "Big western AAAs" which are more properly "the big PC devs" really just want to develop for PC, and moving the consoles to be little PCs makes their lives that much easier. Nintendo very clearly had NO understanding any of that was going on at all. They clearly thought that PS4/X1 would be a more powerful PPC than their own, and thus would generate easy ports and such like they were promised early on. They were too distant from the industry to understand where it was going.

Well I don't know if it was Miyamoto's original or changed story, but he did say the original idea was for a device that you could use for not just gaming but carry around with you and use it for a variety of every day tasks, and the arrival of the iPad and growth of tablets prior to launch was unexpected and reduced the appeal of the Gamepad. Maybe that's a retrofit idea, or the original idea, not sure. I do believe they thought they invented the tablet until the premium ones showed up.

The merging of the divisions however was not after the slowed initial success of the WiiU, it was pretty much the day the WiiU launched, or within a few weeks. I forget if it was December 2012 or Jan 2013 they announced that. It was well before the disastrous game drought. And they announced it with the ground breaking for the new HQ, which was clearly already in motion for a long time, probably years if it was already designed and approved for ground breaking. The merging was likely planned before we ever even knew the name of Project Cafe.

@Octane Ah... the Razer Edge, a thing only a mother could love, and if I'm correct, no detachable controllers.
If anything made by another company could remind us of how similar it is to the Switch, then the Aikun Morphus X300 is probably the closest one of them all:

@NEStalgia

And that is also not what I was saying. Actually quite the contrary. I just meant to say that them releasing the Wii U early, with old architecture and only a minor step up in power in comparison with the competition is what heavily influenced their own situation. The others would have already been busy at making their own devices regardless, so they wouldn't have been looking at Nintendo to estimate how powerful their next console had to be.

Mjeh.... okay... I guess if you look at it that way, you can make that viewpoint work, but to me it is still no tablet. The simple fact that there wasn't a tablet and this device holds all functionalities that can also be found in the original DS is more than enough proof to me. They just added more functionalities, as they always do with successors. And it is also true that Miyamoto only started talking about "we wanted to make something that was similar to a tablet" when the general audience had long since bastardized the name of the GamePad into "tablet controller". Yègh....

I'm not going to list the more than 10 reasons why it isn't a tablet, since I've already done that WAY too many times on way too many sites, but I'm pretty sure you can come up with that list all by yourself...

But maybe we oughta skip the whole tablet-or-not debate, since we're obviously not going to convince each other.

And I didn't say the divisions were merged after the Wii U's decline in sales, I said the process was sped up, which it factually was. The fact that we didn't know the name of Project Cafe means nothing in that respect, since that idea was more than likely already being worked on during the release of the Wii, just like it is with every new console of all three companies.

@Bass_X0 You say that, but people have predicting a hybrid from Nintendo since before the Wii. Wasn't there a mock up created called the Fusion by some fans?

@FragRed Yes there was, and it was actually quite a nice design:

This one from an artist on DeviantArt wasn't too shabby either:

@FragRed Found another one from the same artist, maybe not as nice as the first one:

It would be cool if the Switch became the controller for the next home console and kept it relevant. Switch owners (and there looks to be a lot of em building up) would simply buy a box of chips. No need for a controller. It could also bring back a touch screen for UI. (Deus Ex was genius).

I'm not sure where Nintendo can go after the Switch. It feels like one of those situations where they've boxed themselves into a corner. Whatever the Switch's successor is, I think they will keep the hybrid approach, I can't imagine them going back to the traditional box console. It would feel like a step backwards imo.

I think they would just make a switch with small updates like ps4 and ps4 pro

@JaxonH

You made a great point. I think virtually everyone who posted on this thread agreed Nintendo should do iterative updates, but the flaw in the logic (I thought) was that Nintendo never released an iterative version of the Wii, which was successful. But you hit the nail on the head as to why they didn't do that, as well as how the handheld line is iterative and so Switch would likely be as well if it is successful (which it likely will be).

To be fair though, the DS was far bigger of an innovation from Game Boy Advance than just the dual screens. The DS introduced the concept of a touch screen for gaming and was many people's first experiences with a touch screen on an entertainment product. They also added a microphone, which was gimmicky admittedly but still was an innovation. But I agree that the DS was the biggest innovation by far in Nintendo's handheld line.

@shadow-wolf
Yes, dual touch screens. I forgot to mention the touch part.

@ThanosReXXX
I think you'll find that those mockups were made during the few months between the Project Cafe leaks and the Wii U reveal. There's a lot of fairly unimaginative copying of the Wii in those images combined with the dude just putting a screen in the display.

I think most people pre-Wii U and pre-Cafe were predicting something along the lines of a lower spec and more power efficient version of the XBOne with HTC Vive level motion controls. Of course some people were hoping for a high spec PC with a Nintendo logo on the side and traditional controls. Those people are always floating around. But I don't remember many people talking about screens in the controller until the Cafe leaks.

I remember I was more interested in what they'd do for storage. I thought that we'd eventually move to cartridges again and it would be nice if the "Wii HD" did it. But I realised this was a bit of a dream. I concluded that 2011/2012 was about 5 years too early for cartridges to return. And that by the time cartridges could return for home consoles people would be downloading most of their games anyways. That by 2020 the next-next gen systems would be on the horizon and they'd probably be built into your TV.

@skywake I'm not really sure what you're trying to tell me, as if you think that I didn't know where these mock-ups come from or when they were made.

I just answered @FragRed's question about there being a rumor about Nintendo Fusion, and the first of those three pictures was the one that was used the most on various sites every time the Fusion was mentioned in an article, that's all. And the Fusion rumor was well after the release of the Wii U, in 2014, so it wasn't a Project Cafe/Wii U-related rumor, but a "Nintendo NX" rumor...

As for those floaters you mentioned: they aren't even considered or taken serious by me. There's always a bunch of clueless people (especially on the internet) that have unrealistic views or demands, and even if a system or game comes out and gets really positive reviews, then they'll STILL find something to nag and complain about. They're the kind of people that this planet could do very well without, but unfortunately they do exist and plague us anyway, so best to ignore them: it's a total waste of your precious time and energy to get annoyed or worried about it.

Interesting look into the future, though. I can agree with it to some extent and you might even not be too far off, although personally, I hope that consoles will last in some shape or form until I say my final goodby to this planet. Which, hopefully, is still a healthy number of decades away. I'm almost 47 now, and a bit too set in my ways to go digital and/or cloud-based only, so cartridges are very welcome as far as I am concerned...

@ThanosReXXX If you don't tag me, I don't know you responded to me

As for the tablet thing, we're actually on the same side, I don't believe it's a tablet either. But I do believe Nintendo thought it was before iPad redefined tablet to the public, (i.e. they realized it wasn't before they released it, but the tablet concept is what they were trying to produce while it was in R&D before the tablet concept was really a mass market thing, and they were too far along in R&D to really reverse that thinking.) I mean it's pure Nintendo to believe they'd invented the idea of a browser and video player you could carry around the room with you at an affordable price

@SuperLuigiTime I don't think of it as being boxed into a corner so much as actually progressing the idea of a video game console on a hardware level, rather than just a power increase, for the first time since 1989 People like TV consoles. People like handheld consoles. Why cant you have a TV console you can handhold? Only took 28 years....

@skywake I was so excited for Cafe during that time.....I basically imagined it would be a Switch....and it kind of was....kind of wasnt, but it was a magical dream that finally came true

@ThanosReXXX IMO, the idea that games keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, while the AppStore specifically restricts the max size of content tells me that "digital cloud only" for big content is still a corporate pipe dream. That and Microsoft getting thrown out of E3 more or less for the mere statement that physical would exist but be locked by digital licensing, in a world where we're told every 3 days physical will go away and everything will be digital, tells me the console clientele has a long, healthy life of physical releases ahead

Plus did you see the ESA docs that went waaaaaay out of their way to paint digital as 75+% of the market (because their member companies wish it to be so) by showing charts that include mobile apps, DLC, and PC sales (which no longer has physical options most of the time) as individual digital sales, to compare to 25% physical sales? That's some serious reaching to show a stat that shows what you want it to show. Given what they included think about it in a different light: Around 25% of sales are retail sales of physical console games, out of a pie that includes all PC, DLC, and APP STORE GAME sales. Narrow it to consoles only, and exclude DLC and that's a pretty impressive amount of physical sales I'd bet.

Interesting topic, but yeah, I doubt Nintendo knows either.
They were most probably thinking whether Video Game Console Hardware is even worth it in the long run, and ultimately came to the conclusion that portability is King, and they have a huge lead and rep in that category, so they gambled I believe correctly with the sleek Switch. They made the only economically and technologically choice that made sense.

If Switch is successful as it appears, then I think most likely we will see a Next Gen Switch/Switch 2/Switch Pro/Switch X or something that will be more powerful and even cooler. I think that is the direction, and while happy about this console, I'm also saddened if it means the end of the 3D of the New 3DS and the end of Second screens (DS/3DS/Wii U) forever, but that's life.

Call me a broken record, but I still think it's inevitable, if the Switch is successful, that someone manufactures a similar product that includes telephony. If Switch does really well, it probably won't be Nintendo, but if Switch only does moderately, then Nintendo may fancy the idea of teaming up with Apple/Google/Samsung/Other.

If Nintendo can manufacture the Switch, then one of the mobile big boys can produce a phone with similar/better gaming performance and get away with charging more for it.

@ThanosReXXX Ha Ha Lol it was a joke. It wasn't so much about the good old days, but you rambling on like Grandpa Simpson.

@ThanosReXXX
Well the first post was along the lines of "Nintendo is unpredictable", the second post was "people have been predicting a hybrid since before the Wii?". Then you posted images in response. Now I don't remember whether or not people were talking about "fusion" before Wii U or not. I just assumed you guys thought those pictures were an example of someone getting it right before we knew about Wii U.

But as I said, go to that guy's page that's in the watermark. Well maybe don't because you'll have to wade through precisely what you'd expect to find on deviantart. But if you do scroll through it? You'll find that those mockups were posted in 2011. If sites used it in 2015/16 when talking about NX theories? Then they were just using someone's Wii U mockup.

That said, I still think the Switch itself was somewhat predictable. It's just that image wasn't a very good example of someone predicting things. But truth be told the Switch is essentially the same idea as the PSVita just with a more modern SoC, HDMI-Out and no home console alternative.