Topic: Will there ever be a true successor to 3DS?

Before people say it, the Switch really is not. Switch seems to be what Nintendo was planning the Wii U to be at the time but the technology was either too expensive or simply not ready. The Lite is the successor to the Vita, I do not care if it came from Nintendo and not Sony, the DNA of the Switch family is clearly very different compared to what the 3DS offered. It is what Nintendo wanted Wii U to be and what Sony tried to make the Vita.

That is not what the 3DS was. It lacks the functionality, DNA and soul of the system. It has some older 3DS games like Monster Hunter and Resident Evil and has the developers on board but they seem to be going for very different things compared to what they tried with 3DS. It is just sad that the family of systems which started Nintendo's journey into the "revolution over evolution" may never truly evolve just because Switch became the Vita that Sony promised both power and capability wise.

Anybody else think so? Is there any chance Nintendo would ever try to integrate the DS line going forward or is it like the Wii whereby Nintendo drops it and only ever references it's existence every now and again? Unlike the Wii brand which confused to the point of no retrun, the DS brand still has a lot to offer I think.

I don't think this is right at all. The Wii U was more like an attempted home console adaptation of the DS line, using two screens simultaneously instead of one. The Switch really is nothing like it.

I definitely would consider the Switch to be the 3DS's successor at this point, in the same way the DS was the successor to the GBA. A lot of its features and functionality is different but it's the approach Nintendo has now chosen to take to the handheld market. I don't think there's room for both a Nintendo hybrid system and a decided handheld in the same market so I wouldn't expect a return of a dual screen handheld anytime soon. It had a good run but I think Nintendo's moved on.

@Sentinator
1 answer = ZERO CHANCE
Accept the reality that Nintendo Switch is the replacement of 3DS.
The machines shouldn't be a cookie cutter.
They are very unique individual things.

Nintendo will probably never step away from the hybrid model ever again.

That said, who's to say the Switch's successor can't have 2 screens and a clamshell design? I can imagine the "Switch 2" not needing to be placed on a dock but having a remote connection to a device that's connected to the TV. In other words, being able to hold the Switch, while still able to play it on the TV. Add a second screen on the Switch itself, and the gameplay possibilities are endless.

The Wii U was basically a home console version of the DS. The Gamepad was your bottom screen mostly reserved for things like in game maps or inventory and the top was for gameplay, Just like a DS. I'm honestly still baffled at what exactly made the Wii U flop like it did while DS succeded. I mean graphically it was fine for the time, Just look at BOTW! The marketing is probably the worst thing. It had a limited library I'll admit but if you lived through the N64 era it was far better than that. I never loved the touch pad thing. I hate touch screens in general but not every game forced you to use it. All i can figure is the PS4 was just too big of a deal then and Once people saw that Nintendo was still stuck in the early HD era plus the confusion about the gamepad they were like meh I'll pass.

I still think Wii U got a bad rap for almost nothing. It's a solid system.

As for Nintendo's handheld future, You're experiencing it now. There's no logical reason for there to be two Handhelds by Nintendo when people can just play stuff on their Switch, ipads, phones or whatever.

It's sad but that era is dead and buried.

Unfortunately for the DS line Nintendo merged their home and portable console divisions. That does throw a “4DS” into doubt, however the 2DS XL did come out well after that merger.
If a proper third generation (fourth-gen if you count game and watch) DS was in the works I’d expect it to come from a separate hardware division. So that’d be a tell to look out for. I give the chances of that happening in the foreseeable future 41%.
I give the chances of a third generation DS device happening ever again a more favourable 79%.
Simply because portable hardware is ever advancing and because I think Japan would totally support that form factor from Nintendo again. And that gives it a good chance to come around again

This is an interesting idea. Would it be possible hardware wise because Switch was built with ease of porting in mind?

My speculation on Switch is off a prototype which had 2 Wii remotes attached to the side of it.

https://www.theverge.com/2012/12/7/3739626/nintendo-wii-u-his...

Thanks for the responses everybody.

@Link-Hero I'll second this. I was deep in 360/XB1 gameplay by then, and I had nary a clue at glance what the WiiU was supposed to be. And sure, I could have gone and looked into it. But the onus is on the product to get me motivated to do even that. It didn't help that displays had Wiimotes and Nunchucks hooked up.
It reminded me of the 64DD and 32X times. Seven years later, I bought a Wii U and enjoyed it, but Ninty definitely bungled that up.

Dedicated handhelds will make a proper return to Nintendo's business model I reckon. I definitely don't expect the hybrid console to be a permanent fixture. Considering Nintendo is always attempting to innovate and find something that breathes new life into the console market for better or worse, the hybrid concept of the Switch is just another experiment. A very successful experiment, but an experiment nonetheless. They will return to dedicated home and handheld platforms in due time.

@Sentinator
If Nintendo keeps doing the hybrid model of the Switch, they'll always be at least 1 generation behind other consoles when it comes to graphics. As such, porting games to Switch and its successors will remain difficult. But I don't see why a second screen would complicate it further. Like DS and 3DS games, the second screen would probably mostly be used for UI and map purposes.

I've seen this said alot, and I see why people say it, but I don't buy it. For the sole reason that Xbox gets by just fine with the absolute asinine names Microsoft gives them. Wii U was too confusing for the general public, but calling the third in a line of consoles 'One' isn't? Their latest isn't much better: Xbox One X to Xbox Series X. There's no way that's less confusing than Wii and Wii U to someone who's not an enthusiast.

Looking through all the model names of the Xboxes it kind of looks like Microsoft was trying to make them as confusing as possible, especially with the new one and when you start looking at models within generations. Microsoft just actually bothered to market theirs is the difference and it would have made a difference for the Wii U had Nintendo even bothered (it still probably wouldn't have been a runaway success, but it may not have failed so catastrophically). I think they were just sitting too high and mighty from the stellar Wii hardware sales and just expected the Wii U to automatically do the same with it's new gimmick.

@Shadowthrone However, Microsoft arguably did lose consumers with its confusing naming systems. The 360 was arguably the winner of its generation (though the PS3 sneaked ahead by the end), but the One is nowhere near the PS4 in sales.

You have to give Sony some credit: everybody knows what the latest version of its hardware is called. Even PS4 Pro is easier to understand than the souped-up Xbox One, whatever it’s called. Neither Wii U nor New 3DS really sold themselves on their names alone.

People often seem to dismiss how important marketing is. The Wii U was a failure because of poor marketing, nothing else to it. And yes, the name of a product is inherently tied to marketing.

@Rexenoboy
That was a pretty terrible name. I mean i get what they were trying to say with that name. It's a wii that's also for you meaning it's not just a casual console but for the hardcore as well. The original Wii was so popular with soccer moms, grandparents and loaded with shovelware that they lost alot of the core gamers. They wanted to distance themselves from that image with Wii U but it backfired.

Now Gamecube and switch were clever names! When people talk about those you know right away what it is. I still remember when switch launched they had a trailer with the song Believer by Imagine dragons. Just look at the lyrics and that says it all about the way people felt about the Wii U. Nintendo wanted to make people believe in them again and the switch seems to have done that quite well!

I do think Nintendo may consider a way to integrate dual screens into a Switch successor, but a dedicated handheld is probably never happening again. The Switch appeals to both markets and can do just about everything else Nintendo hardware has ever been able to do. There's no point in going back to that, only integrating it into what they're doing now.

Switch Lite is a dedicated handheld though so handhelds are still happening. There are also a whole bunch of problems with just sticking with the hybrid and leaving everything else because that notion that "we led that direction so they'll follow us no matter what we do or no matter who joins in" is exactly what contributed to the PS3 struggling initially.

I suspect will see a switch mini that truly fits into the handheld market launch alongside in Nintendo’s next generation super switch.

I don’t think we’ll see them splitting development between two separate platforms in the future.

@Zeldafan79 @Link-Hero My big problem with the Wii U what is the quality of the game pad’s screen. Whilst it would’ve been fine in isolation you were always looking at it at the same time as your far high quality TV screen. Which made it shortcomings continuously glaringly obvious.

@Sentinator i think nintendo said years ago that they would have 2 consoles.

@Ryall
Good point. It really was as if the Wii U was trying to be a DS. Not to mention how 90% of the library pretty much forced you to use the gamepad. I never could get into touch controls.