Topic: Well the games are going down in price..

@Grumblevolcano
Indeed - that sounds feasible for them. Frankly, that would be pretty darn good consdering the realities of today's world (the whole bundle phase-out being a hidden increase).

As for a Lite 2... I'm pumped for it, definitely, but I just don't see new hardware this year. The original Lite took like 2.5 years? They've typically done their hardware offshoots/revisions about 2 years after original launches.

The closest original/revision gap I could find was the DS to the DS Lite at about 1.5 years. So, if Gen 10 does come out Fall/Holiday 2026, I guess it's possible? I don't know, that would feel super-fast, and with the price of tech components right now, even the non-higher-end stuff... seems crazy for anybody to be putting out brand-new hardware. I read somewhere that the new Steam Box or whatever was briefly leaked for like 900 bucks.

@rallydefault I felt the timing of cheaper handheld models was more about new Pokemon generations than anything else. GB Pocket released in 1996, DS Lite released in 2006, 2DS launched in 2013 and Switch Lite launched in 2019. GBA was the exception (Ruby/Sapphire in 2002, GB Micro in 2005) though Switch 2 is a lot more expensive than GBA.

So in general I think there’ll some more affordable way to get Gen 10 whenever it launches. Switch 2 Lite or releasing on Switch 1 feels like the most likely outcomes to achieve this of which I’d say the Lite is more likely.

Cool, I can now buy Mario Kart World for 75 bucks! Which is still significantly more expensive than the 50 bucks I paid for Mario Kart 8, 9 years ago.

See, that's the issue. Sure, not every retailer will sell a game at its msrp, but the msrp will still dictate the amount they are allowed to deviate. After all, every retailer would really like to generate some profit from each copy sold, even if it is only 5 bucks.

@Grumblevolcano
I'm not so convinced Pokemon has anything to do with it. It definitely had nothing to do with the Pocket. I forget if it was Low Spec Gamer or DYKG (probably the former) but I remember there was serious consideration during the development of the Pocket to remove the link cable. Which when you think about it without Pokemon does make some sense as a cost saver. But obviously that wouldn't have been considered if they had planned for or known that Pokemon was going to be as big as it was

The only one of those you could probably make a timing argument for would be the Switch Lite. But the Lite seems to have more to do with the SoC refresh which also gave us a silent revision of the OG Switch

Edit: I would say the timing and schedule of the Switch Lite and New 3DS rollout gives you the biggest clue about when they drop revisions. The Switch Lite happened because they had a more efficient SoC, a new process node, meaning they could get away with a smaller battery. And the New 3DS rollout early on was just in Japan and Australia, the two regions where they were starting to see a slowdown in sales

Revisions are about new tech and keeping the sales train going. Neither of which I think would apply this year to Switch 2