Topic: Do you feel Switch 1 is being abandoned?

@Uncle_Franklin NSO should have at least one game per system a month at this point. I'd even say do a new game weekly, especially since there are still some significant gaps on Game Boy and Game Boy Advance alone. And that's not even including the handful of heavy hitters that are missing on N64 and Virtual Boy and the massive Gamecube library that they've barely even scratched the surface on.

@Uncle_Franklin @ElRoberico Yeah last year after Switch 2 launched almost all of the focus switched to GCN on NSO for Switch 2, but because of the small team that handles NSO and the sheer size of GCN games compared to the other emulated games/consoles on the service they are only able to pump a single GCN game out per update and that has pretty much slowed every other supported library's updates down to a barebones trickle.

Hopefully Nintendo has allocated more resources to NSO so we can get more updates for other consoles and maybe 2-3 GCN games per update when that is the library they're updating instead of just one game lol. 🤷

@TensuraFan7 I don't even mind one game if they're regularly updating games. I thought we would have gotten Mario Sunshine by now with the release of the movie. Or a Star Fox game so people had something to check out with the new one. And it's fine they haven't. It's just not like the best case scenario.

At this point that would look like this: Nintendo picks a day of the week, let's say Thursdays. On the first Thursday of the month, they add some sort of NES/SNES support that they don't have already. Next week is at least 1 N46 game. Third week is a Game Boy game and a GBA game. Fourth week is GameCube. And if you have a fifth, or even just quarterly, they add something to Sega Genesis or Virtual Boy.

I can see Nintendo doing 1 or 2 Switch 1 releases into mid-2027, and stopping production of the console sometime in 2030.

It makes sense Nintendo would want to support their best selling console ever for as long as possible, and I think a solid 11 years of game support would be more than enough to send off the console. Some people are adamant on keeping their Switch 1s so them getting a few more games to add to their already MASSIVE library would be nice.
(no matter what I'm gonna think they perople saying "ohhh why isn't this on Switch 1" to every Switch 2 game are kinda... ehhh. Like, yeah release a new console but give ME all the games instead!)

@Dyna-Z

There's also the fact that it comes with comparatively little downside, due to the backward compatibility. Releasing a game on Switch 1 might provide slightly less incentive to convert to Switch 2, but it doesn't actually incentivize not converting. And its not hard to do a Switch 2 edition or upgrade pack or the like to help nudge things.

I think Nintendo may focus a little bit more on Switch 1 as prices are increasing for Switch 2 and disposable income tends to be reducing around the world. So the uptake of Switch 2 same as other consoles and hardware is likely to be slower with higher pricing. This means Nintendo may need to focus a little more on Switch 1 software to keep its turnover high. Some games like Starfox you think a Switch 1 version could easily have been done. The big issue is Switch 1 piracy and emulation where people can play the games without paying. I do feel if that didn't exist Nintendo would be focusing more on Switch 1 for longer.

Lets also face the fact something like the Switch Lite is a far better portable system than Switch 2. It's much easier to carry with longer battery life and the screen is brighter and higher quality than the Switch 2 screen with smoother motion. The Switch 2 screen has a pixel response time of about 33ms and sometimes over 40ms so it can only do a true 30-40fps anything above that will have ghosting and it also adds quite a lot of input lag. Switch Lite and other Switch LCD models is about 21ms and the OLED model less than 1ms to give extremely fluid movement and low input lag. So the Switch 2 does have some drawbacks compared to the older models.

Ancient, excessively weak last gen console. It can and should be 'abandoned' when it comes to new software releases from Nintendo themselves.

I have to imagine it'll get third-party support for years to come, though, and will remain partially viable that way.

Well Nintendo have recently stated they will put more focus back onto Switch 1 so we should see more Nintendo developed games on Switch 1. Tomodachi Life has sold more on Switch 1 than Switch 2 and the selling of Switch 2's is bound to slow with new pricing. Also many games just don't need powerful hardware. Many indie games have very low system requirements. Games can be parallel developed across Switch 1, android and IOS. The Switch Lite represents the smallest portable gaming system of reasonable power and the Switch OLED represents the cheapest portable handheld with a premium OLED display to give low input lag and fluid animation with fantastic colour fidelity which is capable of a true 60fps. Far superior to Switch 2.

@BonzoBanana I expect we'll continue to see bones tossed at NS1 from Nintendo here and there, and of course it'll continue getting indie support where possible, but outside of late NS1 era productions like Tomodachi Life 2, I imagine the road has largely ended for first party support of that console.

@Ralizah We may see a few wii ports to Switch 1 as first party titles but I guess its hard to know at this point without knowing the long term sales of Switch 2. I keep looking at Starfox on Switch 2 and think those graphics don't look amazing and feels like a game that could have been achieved on Switch 1 at a lower resolution and texture quality.

Dunno about it being abandoned yet, but one thing I noticed NintendoLife didn't mentioned 9th birthday of it on March 31st while they usually mentioned all previous ones. Kinda same happened with other websites and people I still watch as well.

I was in CEX a while back and two parents were buying a Switch 1 for their child and the child was really excited about it. CEX is a secondhand retail chain in the UK and it was nice to see someone starting their Switch journey. Looking at the sales figures currently for every 5 people that buy a Switch 2, 1 person buys a Switch 1 and I would say most people are buying secondhand Switch 1s so I still think Switch 1 is a very active market. If 2 second-hand Switch 1s are sold for every new switch 1 that is 3 people being active on Switch 1 and buying software. Some of those 2 Switch 1 seller sales will be people moving to Switch 2 and of course others will simply be selling and not having a Switch at all.

I think the fact Switch 1 was never a powerful console means the buyers are not power obsessed and likely to buy such products for longer. I had a look at ebay uk research statistics and in the last year 20,000 sellers sold a second-hand Switch 1 so that is a minimum of 20k switches sold in the UK from ebay but of course many sellers are traders and will have sold multiple Switches. Here in the UK I would say Facebook marketplace sells many more as people are more likely to buy locally and avoid fees. Maybe 100-200,000 second-hand Switches are sold in the UK when you combine all the CEX and other secondhand stores and other online sellers like Music Magpie, Cash Converters, Cash Generator etc. Amazon do returns and other second-hand products. It's just a guess but it wouldn't seem unreasonable.