Analyst Firm Notes Hype For Switch, But Worries Nintendo Is "Not Prepared" To Take Advantage

I think that's a worry for all of us still. Nintendo really has to hit this one out of the ballpark this time. The switch needs to be in our face a ton more then Wii U was and not just on social media.

Nintendo should learn to listen and not afraid to expand the features (Not by limiting the internal size, Multiplayer sessions, HD external supports, etc). Most important of all...Make it Region Free !

I find it interesting how we've gone from pushing game sales to selling DLC and microtransactions in-game as a large source of profit. I suppose no matter how the user acquires the software there's always the guarantee that profit can be made from in-game transactions.

In regards to the worry that Nintendo will fumble the launch of the Switch, I don't think it'll be by price point or message but rather supply. I fully expect the Switch to be out of stock by launch, which means I just need to try harder to grab one first.

Though I may hold off. My launch 3DS and Xbox One suffered from hardware problems and I'm slightly worried the same will happen here.

It's nigh on impossible to predict demand for a new piece of hardware. Make too many early on and you'll over-pay for production and also have to store the unsold units somewhere, then sweat it out in the hope that the overstock gets bought up quickly.

At least if you manufacture too few, the demand creates hype.

If it were my business, I'd prefer the idea that we weren't able to keep up with demand rather than the thought of sitting on unsold units.

Nintendo's had a load of internal restructuring since the Wii U was released, so there's no way of really telling how they'll handle the Switch launch... that still leaves quite a bit of uncertainty, but also means that predictions shouldn't be made based on the company's past actions.

I feel as if Nintendo is getting better though with their strategies. Of course, it will not be as good as the Wii launch, but eventually we should get to a point where they can make solid launches.

The only issue I see now is that they don't seem to be targeting the Switch at Wii U owners in the first year. So far, even the introductory video showed only one really new game from Nintendo (the 3D Mario), one game that will be released on Wii U too (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) and two enhanced ports of Wii U games (Splatoon and Mario Kart 8), and the subsequent rumors confirmed that impression. The intention to pay hackers to fix the 3DS firmware also makes me think that they don't want to really drop the 3DS soon, with the Switch thus being apparently a home console in the first year in terms of games developed.
At this point, I think much depends on how much the gamers who don't own Nintendo consoles will welcome the Switch, which is one of the unknowns along with actual hardware specs and third party support.

Who is this anal-cyst?

I don't think Nintendo have learned any lessons. I hope they have but time will tell.

One reason Nintendo may be doing a March launch rather than a holiday launch is so that it can slow-play things.

The demand will be low at first because of the season. It will be a slow process and allow Nintendo to build momentum for Holiday 2017.

the problem with Nintendo is they don't meet the demand. In my local walmart there were only 3 nes mini in stock.. just 3 for the whole thousands that live in the surrounding area ?

I hope the switch doesn't suffer from over shortages..I'd like to purchase day one if possible.

if nintendo plays their cards right it could be a successful launch.

I feel they need a new or better marketing team to push the new 'console' in the mass public. but here's to hoping nintendo gets out of the past and focuses on today's marketplace.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. Personally, though Nintendo have not had the best run of success with Wii U, I'm not worried one bit about the Switch. They're going to nail it this time 'round. Sit back, and enjoy the ride analysts. Come on in boys; the water's fiiiine.

Guys, what do you think about Tatsumi Kimishima as Nintendo president right now ? I wonder if he has better business strategies...

Dear Nintendo of America,

you had ONE job, ONE job! That job is MARKETING

They'll fudge it. This is Nintendo.

I wanted the NES mini. I just didn't want to wait in a line to get one. Now that window has passed and I feel as though I'll just wait for the switch virtual console.

Hearing that the Switch will only release 2 million units world wide has me very worried. If I can't preorder it. I doubt I'll wait in a line as well.

I don't remember seeing any marketing for the Wii U on release on TV, which was a major downfall. Nintendo PLEASE don't screw this up, I will still love you but I will be VERY disappointed.

@mike_intv I completely agree with you in why this is coming out in March. The rabid fans will be highly irritated if they don't get it day one, but most will wait for their preorder because it will not be needed for the holidays. I love Nintendo, but I would be happy to take odds that they will not have enough supply in March.

This morning, my daughter asked for "that Nintendo you can play in the car" for Christmas. Clearly, Big N, your concept is resonating, but marketing and manufacturing efforts must be doubled pronto!

@Bunkerneath You are so correct in talking about the Wii U marketing. I think they started showing commercials in front of family movies two weeks before release.

@gcunit

Nope, nada, nyet. This isn't Nintendo's first time at the dance. They should know their market and plan accordingly.

Customers are getting sick of the lack of product at launch. It is to the point that it's not generating demand. It's pissing people off and there are other options where their money can go.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE What you did there..... I see it.

Anyway, business as usual here. DOOOOOOOOOOM.

Reggie at the helm = failure

Reading the title I though the guy had a point.

I could very well see Nintendo underestimate the success of the console and either have to few machine leading to supply issues or not having online infrastructure ready for the influct of people. Thoses kind of thing.

But from what He said, looking at past release, and games shortage it is clear to me the guy didn't look at what Nintendo is doing lately.

So long as third parties do their part NS will be fine. But if there is more of this "we can't develop for it" nonsense then we are in for WiiU 2.0 with a dash of 3DS boost power thrown in.

@gcunit Great strategy. That's really worked for Nintendo as well.

@Spoony_Tech "The switch needs to be in our face a ton more then Wii U was"

You know, I was just thinking about this w/ Switch rumour article this morning that this is all so backwards and Nintendo is making it worse. Nobody is buying Switch b/c it looks like a toaster or has USB-C or the controller's make a cool sound when you take them on or off. People don't buy videogame consoles b/c they are cool, people buy them to play games. PS1, 2 3 and 4 are all basically the same rectangle but they sell. Same for Xbox. Nintendo is so focused on Switch hardware right now but that isn't going to sell it, games will. And where are the games 99 days before launch?

Sure, if the price is too high people won't buy it, but pricing it low won't sell it either. Wii didn't sell 100 million b/c everybody wanted a Wiimote, it sold b/c everybody wanted Sports and were willing to pay $250 for it. Wii U didn't fail just b/c of the overpriced tablet, but b/c nobody wanted to spend $350 for Nintendo Land and NSMBU that was interchangeable with NSMBWii. Had they launched Wii U with SMM and Splatoon, things may have turned out differently.

So I don't think we need to see any more of the Switch. It's a gaming console you can take with you, we get it. What we don't know are the games. Games sell hardware. Announcing new games 60 days before release boggles my mind. Promote the games, make people want to play the games, then they'll buy the system to play them on. If it's cheap enough. But the price won't matter if the games aren't there and being heavily promoted.

Have you seen the 3DS line-up for next year? DQ8 and Poochy & Yoshi early, then Pikmin 3DS and Mario Sports Superstars. And Ever Oasis. Switch is going against that as well as PS4 and X1. (Admittedly I can't name an Xbox game but I think it sells on FPS, sports and racing games I don't play.)

So I think Switch needs to move to the background, let the games sell the system. If there are any games.

I don't recall there being such acute stock issues with 3DS and Wii U at launch, certainly nothing like what the Wii had. Those consoles had other issues to the point that I saw them on shelves for several months after launch. Everything after Wii U was a sasspool, but none of them are primary consoles. The primary concern with Switch stock will depend on how hard the audience took Nintendo's message about multiple Switches per household.

@Spoony_Tech It's sad but, I don't think I ever saw one commercial on TV or really any push for the Wii U with a launch too, I mean I waited 3 years until I bought my Wii U, and this is coming from a guy that has bought every single Nintendo console at launch except for the NES and the 3DS

@k8sMum Well I think it's somewhere between you and him. Disney Infinity over saturated the market with its toys and now it's gone. Nintendo made way too many Animal Crossing amiibo. I can't fault them for wanting to underproduce the NES Mini. B/c here's something we don't know. Is NES Mini a 1 time holiday holder for the Switch? Maybe after Switch releases Nintendo plans on going back to selling these games for $5 each on the virtual console. Or maybe it's just a holiday gift, next year we'll get SNES. There has been nothing ever said by Nintendo in any of its financial briefings about this being a money maker or long time thing for them. Meanwhile, they've been talking about amiibo constantly for 3 years now. So we don't know how many they planned on making b/c we don't know how long they planned on selling them for.

Now, I do think they royally screwed up how few to make. I'm no marketing expert, but judging from the response I'd say 4 million might have been a nice estimate for a one off holiday run of a must have $60 hot holiday item. So maybe they make 3.5mil to play it safe. But I'd be surprised if they made half that. Maybe 2 million tops. And that leads to people just throwing up their hands and walking away. B/c it's one thing to have Wii sold out for 2 straight years but every store is getting in more every day, so every day you have a chance to get one. But when people know you are only shipping 1 a week to a store, nobody is going to bother to look.

So I get underestimating, and people understand holiday shopping issues - Hatchimals are no where to be found either - but you have to make 80% of what you think you need, not 20%. Entice people to hunt, enjoy the thrill of the chase, but don't run out entirely everywhere, people will find something else to spend their $60 on.

A lot of it is going to come down to Nintendo's deal with their favorite ebay scalpers. They know that the scalpers are going to want about 50% of the Switch supply, but also want to make sure the Switch is a hot item.

I could see them only doing 2 million at launch, but 1.25 million is secured only for those people who will be reselling Switch at 3-4x the cost.

This also ensures Nintendo wouldn't have to do any TV or social media commercials, which saves them lots of money.

@k8sMum @gatorboi352 Try googling "Wii shortage" - when I do it the Top 3 results I get are an article from Aug. 2008, one from Nov. 2007, and one from Dec. 2006, all about shortage of supply of Wii.

Wii sold pretty well. Well enough to indicate that even a repeated shortage of supply does not have to mean it's a bad strategy.

To say that Nintendo should know their market is a massive over-simplification. Nintendo's market is anyone with any interest whatsoever in videogames. Estimating how many of those millions are going to want to buy Switch in the first 6 months is impossible.

I want to believe that all resources are going towards the Switch, hence why launches and all games other than Pokemon have been trash for the last year or two. Hoping that this will be their best console launch yet!

@gcunit

The Wii sold an almost 20 million in year 1 which was a record for a gaming console. Yes, they were somewhat tough to get for the first couple of years as demand was very strong but they weren't impossible to get like the NES classic.

I think as a business you want everyone who wants to buy them without creating excessive inventory. A worldwide launch should easily move two million units so I don't think demand is that difficult to predict. Nintendo needs lots of games and limited release gaps to keep it selling. If you do an NES classic like launch trying to limit demand, game sales will suffer which will lead to 3rd party reluctance to support the system which will lead to failure.

I'm assuming this massive Nintendo drought we are in is an indicator that they have been working hard to nail the Switch launch woth all the right games, bells, and whistles. I am confident they have a new and improved strategy factoring in the hard lessons they have learned the past 6 years. Here's hoping!

@cleveland124 So, if demand isn't too difficult to predict, tell us how many Switches should Nintendo produce for Year 1 - 2 million? 20 million?

This is my only concern about Nintendo and the Switch system. They have history of minimal distribution of products. I can honestly see Nintendo doing the same practice with Switch as with the current product NES Classic Edition. It's Nintendo's Tickle Me Elmo..

Scalpers learn about these "short quantity products" all the time. And they don't hesitate to take advantage of the situation of cheating the people who really look forward to playing the new console while profiting in the process.

Once Gamestop opens up that preorder list for Switch I'm on it and paying in full, guaranteeing my purchase upon pick up on release day. No need for camping out or anything extra..

I kind of doubt they'll nail it 100% perfectly, but if they haven't learned anything from the Wii U and the Mini NES Classic, I'll basically have lost all hope in Nintendo ever being good at releasing/marketing consoles. They'll basically be a joke if they have another flop.

Nintendo needs to start taking more risks.

At the very least, I hope that:
1. There will be pre-orders for the Switch
2. Every pre-order site will be limited to maybe 2 systems per customer
3. Nintendo makes a decent number of Switches. I can see why they underestimated the demand for a box with a bunch of 30-year-old games, most of which no one is going to play anyway, but since this is their main system, they need to understand just how many people want this, and how crucial getting enough systems into homes ASAP is for their own software sales, along with ensuring 3rd party support.

@rjejr I think it's changing though. As long as 3rd party is on board of course.
Compare it to phones, people are going more for the "cool" tech. Don't forget Kinect, which sold tonnes for being cool despite not having anything good aside from Fruit Ninja.

@KirbyTheVampire Wii U and NES Mini are opposite problems. More money was spent on marketing and making Wii Us than NES Minis, but they completely were taken by surprise by how differently the market reacted compared to their expectations.
The issue is hype. Wii U had none, NES Mini exploded with hype from one online video.
The Switch has hype, but the issue is that the release could be too far away to take advantage of the hype, and Nintendo need to slowly keep it going before ramping it up in January - which is already their plan.

@gcunit

I'm staying out of the predicting business. I'm not saying it's 100% easy to grab the right number. I'm saying it's not art. You can look at other launches and see the pattern. It's also easy to adjust manufacturing pace over a year. So really the first 3-6 months are important.

NA Launch week sales -
PS4 - 1 million
WIi - 0.6 million
Gamecube - 0.5 million
PS2 - 0.5 million
Wii U - 0.4 million

Do those numbers look like Nintendo should have no clue how many units will sell at launch?

@MetaRyan Understanding how many people want a Switch?

I'm sure not many people would turn one down if you were handing them out for a fiver. But how many want one enough to commit to buying one in the first year?

Half of us here on this site probably haven't decided when to buy a Switch yet. I'm sure most of us want one, but we've no idea what the package will consist of, and what games are due in Year 1 and 2, and we won't know until January, when it will be a little late to up production if the full reveal goes down well.

And if half of us on this site don't know yet, you can bet the majority of the lapsed Wii/DS market doesn't have a clue yet. So good luck predicting early demand.

@cleveland124 Launch week/month is hardly a reliable period on which to base things.

Take a look at this IGN article about Wii U's launch performance: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/how-successful-was-the-wii-u-launch

It indicates the Wii U's first month was perfectly respectable, when compared to the PS3 and XB360 launches. In it's first 3 weeks in Japan, Wii U outsold Wii's first 3 weeks.

Those launch figures tell you very little about traction over the first 6-12 months or lifetime sales performance.

Plus, Nintendo has to factor in dwindling hardware sales - with the Wii U dead for over a year, and the 3DS just dragging along, how can they be confident that the market isn't just losing interest in Nintendo? NES Classic Mini can't really be used as a reliable comparison, because (a) it's a retro product, and (b) initial production seems to have been so low that not even all the hardcore fans can get one - what does that tell them about how many casual gamers will actually buy it? Not much, I reckon.

Plus there's the issue of regionality. History shows us that, aside from Xbox in Japan, gaming hardware sales performance has varied quite a lot from region to region, generation to generation. It's all well and good having 3 million units in Japan, but if only 500,000 Japanese buy in early then you've got to try and decide how many of those extra you start shifting to other markets.

@gcunit

If the market has lost interest in Nintendo then they shouldn't be making a new system but should be going 3rd party. We don't know if Nintendo's strategy will work, that much is true. But a worldwide launch will sell at least 2 million. So if they don't have that many ready in March I'll be dissapointed. Then I would try to get anothrr 2 million units out for 2nd quarter and by then they should know if they have a Wii like product and have more info to scale production to. I don't think Nintendo thought the Wii would sell 20 million year 1, but through their manufacturing partners they were able to ramp up production very quickly. The targets I think I've heard is 50 million units for Switch. So I think you make sure your partners have the capacity to scale to 10 million a year (and more) quickly if needed.

You can't look at the Wii U and say our strategy didn't work there so let's cap production at Wii U levels. You have to have the capacity to produce enough to succeed. For interest let's say you meet with EA. EA is the biggest developer and despite people on this sites hatred of them, they are an important player. What do you think is going to get them on board to support the Switch.

Scenario A - Coming off the failure of the Wii U, we don't want to overproduce. So we are going to make 4 million year 1. Nobody knows which consoles will become successful so we'll see if we can sell that many. Are you on board to be a developer?

Scenario 2 - We have the capacity to sell at least 10 million year 1. We have learned a great deal about the market through some of our recent struggles. Every one that sees the Switch loves the concept and we know you will too. We are confident in this product and are backing it with a big investment both in the machine itself and in games for it. We have other third parties that have loved the machine and are developing for it. Do you want to be part of our success story?

I just think if you choke supply you risk pushing a product towards failure. Inventory is an investment you make yes, but third parties need to see thise sales to be convinced to produce for the Switch and then to continue to produce for it.

@audiobrainiac
"Even that piggly wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo". I agree with your statement. This time will be much better if they can have enough consoles ready at the launch. That scares me because I firmly believe Nintendo tries to strike that perfection of having just enough console so people erupt into chaos trying to find one and it ends up being media hype/free publicity over us fighting to find one. Happens time and time again with Nintendo and many other companies. Let's hope they are ready.

I still haven't heard of one game that makes me want to buy a Switch (I already own a Wii U and 3DS) and this thing's coming out in March?

I don't love it when Sony hypes games 4 or 5 years ahead of release but they sold a bunch of systems because people knew games were coming for it eventually. Unless Nintendo have lots of surprises up their sleeves, this is feeling like non-business as usual. Hopefully I'm wrong.

2 million units shipped for launch is pathetic. I hope they put 3 or even 4 times this number on the launch.

@Frank90 2 million units shipped for launch is pathetic. I hope they put 3 or even 4 times this number on the launch.

And then they only sell 1 million & it pushes the company under? While I would hope for more than 2m units at launch, it makes MUCH more sense for Nintendo to understock & sellout than to overstock and lose money... plus with companies like Apple deliberately understocking by huge margins to ramp up demand, I don't see Nintendo being cautious as the enemy.

After reading the headline I was about to come on & rip the Analyst a new hole... but after reading the quote I can actually see his point. Nintendo has utterly failed at every launch starting with the Gamecube. The DS, Wii & 3DS became successful despite Nintendo's best attempts to tank them.

However, as a very knowledgable YouTuber pointed out the othr day, Nintendo is doing things VERY differently this time & may not entirely be in control of the strategy this time around. USB-C, a non-propriety charging port, something that goes against everything we know about Nintendo... it may be that Nvidia has more of a hand in the Switch than people are realising now.

@DanteSolablood But the Wii U sold 3 million on the first month and the expectations was way lower!

@Frank90 Consider it this way, the Wii U came after the Wii, one of the best selling consoles of all time & had a huge amount of momentum behind it. The Switch comes after the Wii U, one of the worst selling consoles of all time (adjusted for size of population). Which one should they have higher hopes for?

Also, you said "first month", 2 million at launch means the actual day of launch. More will ship in during the following weeks. But remember, Nintendo can likely only produce a certain amount of Switchs by borrowing money (their profit goes into pay & investment) if they produced 8 million & sold 1 million, their creditors could lose confidence & wreck Nintendo. Many companies have gone under while still making profit for similar reasons.

I agree, those are my main worries as well especially how Nintendo handled with Amiibos and the NES mini

With the Wii U, people could be hesitant on getting the Switch, so they really need to launch the Switch with a bang

@DanteSolablood @gcunit Even if the Nintendo Switch underperforms at launch, I would argue that it would be better for Nintendo to produce more systems than less. Although the NES Classic's stock issues has created a lot of free demand and advertising, the same strategy can't work for the Switch because the Switch itself isn't the main money-maker here at launch. Nintendo needs a large userbase in order to secure third parties, which will help its performance, and also to sell first-party games to. Games are Nintendo's main money-makers. Having too much stock isn't as bad for Nintendo's bottom line (and future) as not having enough stock is.
The only reason scarcity is effective for the NES Classic is because Nintendo makes all its money upfront. It doesn't make any money from new game purchases for the NES Classic because there are no new games for it, so it doesn't matter how many units it sells. Nintendo still makes money either way.

@MetaRyan Completely disagree, respectfully. Third parties are not going to make their mind up on launch sales alone & would be short-sighted to do so with an unproven system that follows the horrific fail of the Wii U. Mid-long term sales are FAR more important and stories of stock sitting on shelves, money lost & disappointment could bury the Switch alongside the Wii U.

What third parties want is a decent launch & escalating sales, an initial sold-out launch followed by high demand (pretty much what happened with the Wii) will mean a better image & better long term sales. Again, Nintendo has not got the money to sit on 7 million unsold units.

I think Nintendo is doing the right thing, I do find it odd that people who are negative about Nintendo (not you MetaRyan) when being obvious Nintendo fans expect the general public to be more excited.

@gcunit a single example. From 10 years ago. Let's compare that against the THREE examples of Nintendo dropping the ball with new hardware detailed in this very article. From the last 5 years.

This worries me too! If there is anyone who can screw up the hype that's surrounding the Switch, it's Nintendo.

Seems like they are charging us for VC titles a third time, as well - which is a sign that not too many things have changed, and not enough lessons learned.

@rjejr OMG finally, someone who understands that games sell consoles and not the other way around!

Amiibos and nes mini's are just one off sale toys. Scarcity and limited releases makes them sell better as opposed to dumping stock 1/4 price after 6-12 months sitting on a shelf in a store that doesn't have room for 10 000 Mario plastic dealys.

Consoles on the other hand, need games, and need to be available to sell before the hype train leaves the station. They also need a steady stream of releases to keep people buying more games and to keep attracting new buyers of the console.

I still don't see any games for switch that makes me what to buy a switch at launch, that's the biggest issue Nintendo has. They had better announce at least a dozen games in January that weren't in the switch preview trailer... and they better be original, not ports.

I generally worry that Nintendo has stripped their staff back to bare bones to reduce costs over the past few years and as a result they don't have the resources they once had to develop games internally and create a solid platform for third parties to bother investing in. Time will tell and I prefer to be optimistic about switch/Nintendo. Do have that one worry though.

It is true! NONE OF US WILL BE PREPARED FOR THE COMING AMAZE-STORM!

@bolt05 Thanks. I've been getting hammered from all sides today, friends, enemies, strangers, I think your the first of 2 dozen replies not to disagree w/ me.

@MadAdam81 Kinect? The piece of Xbox One that Microsoft took out of the box to sell X1 for $50 cheaper and nobody has mentioned it since? That Kinect?

If anybody in the US cares, Reggie will be on Fallon tonight to promote the Switch.

Just kidding. Reggie will be on Fallon to promote Super Mario Run. Priorities.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/reggie-fils-aime-will-show-off-super-mario-run-on-/1100-6446076/

For everybody who has been arguing with me all day today, and it feels like everybody, this is my reply. 3 months to Switch launch and Reggie is on The Tonight Show to talk about a $9.99 mobile app.

From what we've seen about the system proper, I think it has potential, but Nintendo tends to err on the side of caution a little too much and will play it too safe and not play off the potential success. Get some bravado, Nintendo.

@gcunit Uh oh, you happened upon Nintendo's strategy for the NES Mini...

@rjejr You're absolutely correct about Nintendo being extremely late with showing off any games for the Sandwitch, including from a historical context with their past consoles. One of the best examples (which I find myself pulling out again and again recently) is Nintendo's N64 showcase at E3 1995. They were already showing off the first gameplay videos of Super Mario 64, even though the system would be delayed to 1996. Not only that, they were showing off the first gameplay videos of Ocarina of Time (then Zelda 64), even though it's release was 3 and a half years away. Nintendo built up hype by showing us what to expect early, and making good impressions with consistent updates of information.

The Nintendo of 20 years ago operated in almost the opposite way that they do now. They are being way, way too secretive about the Sandwitch. Showing off not just games, but even just the first gameplay videos a mere two months before launch is not doing them any favors. They know this.

I think there must be some major reorganizing and structural changes going on internally at Nintendo HQ right now, accompanied by their recent super economic conservative mode. We've gotten a few glimpses of that, with information about certain outsiders having more clout than executives like Reggie, but we don't really know as much as we should. Kimishima plays things to his chest far more so than Yamauchi or Iwata did. If you remember, a lot of people thought Kimishima was just going to be a temporary stand in until someone more like Iwata was brought in, but that obviously never happened, and was not intended.

So yeah, we'll have to see. One thing's for sure, though: Nintendo cares more about advertising their simple mobile game in the USA right now, rather than what should be an exciting, newly upcoming system!

@PlywoodStick I just noticed you writing Sandwitch, I'd been reading it the past few days as sandwich b/c of the toaster. So what's w/ the Witch? Is Switch evil or does witch have something to do w/ your avatar? Inquiring minds want to know. (My kids and I were calling it NS for awhile but I think we've given up and just settled on Switch.)

You staying up to watch Reggie? I feel like I should, but I also feel like going to bed at 10 tonight, been a long day.

@rjejr It's as close as I can get, S(and)witch is cumbersome, and Sandwitch gets the point across for it's design. A switch is the name of a part of an electronic device in my mind, not the whole thing. So I'm having fun with renaming it, even if it makes me hungrier thinking about it.

My avatar is a Yagudo (birdman) High Priest (a witch of sorts, although it ties in with their religion, politics, and culture, counter to what the "witch" term implies) from an old MMORPG I used to play religiously, so Sandwitch does have a bit of an in reference there as well. They were often enemies with the player characters' nations, yet they weren't necessarily "evil" per se. (Sometimes it was the so-called civilized nations that brought about the most evil.)

And yeah, I may just see how Reggie does on live TV after such a long time. I don't really watch TV anymore, since I just use the internet, but occasionally this type of interview or documentary will convince me to take up the remote again.

@Yorumi
I've actually heard a lot of evidence pointing to a $249 launch price (obviously there will probably be a $299 bundle).

Seems like they've actually been hitting all the right notes with Switch. If the accounts are network based and the console is region free, they'll have pretty much nailed it. Which, I heard something about it being region free also, so it's looking good. Just waiting to hear about accounts now.

Nintendo only "plans" on selling 2 million Switches in March. They will only make that many consoles. If you think otherwise, then just remember Wii, Amiibo, WiiU Pro controllers, NES classic, and even the original NES. It's the Nintendo way. I wish they'd learn, but they won't. Underestimate demand, under deliver in physical products. Hello being a Nintendo fan-waiting is part of the game.

Just have more than 2 per store, please.
; )

THEY AREN'T SCREWING THIS UP AFTER THE JIMMY FALLON REVEAL! Lol
GOOOO NINTENDOOOOOO!

While I'm cautiously optimistic about the Switch, I'm fully expecting the same absent-minded stupidity from Nintendo upon its release. I'm expecting extremely limited storage capacity (along with a crappy solution, e.g. SD cards), region-locking, a lacking online infrastructure, blahblahblah. I'm fully prepared to eat my words if I'm wrong - and I'd LOVE if I were wrong. But I'm not expecting much.

If they have some good games at launch ang enough of them at launch (unlike something like NES Mini) then I can see it selling relatively well.

@rjejr Yet when it was launched for the 360 it made massive cash on hype, which very quickly died out.
Which is why Nintendo are better to delay the hype train o as close to launch as possible. If NES Mini was announced just as far ahead, the hype would be over by the time it was out.

"They have really struggled with overall strategy and product launches the past few years." ...yeah, you mean since the Release of the N64. Please do it better this time... like Sony does and did.

@emeyece Remember the PS3 launch? It's a good system now, but for the first few years it was really struggling to be anything more than a fancy Blu-ray player due to uncharacteristically incompetent and hubristic decisions by Sony's executives. I distinctly remember a $700 PS3 bundle existing during the first year after launch, that specifically highlighted it's features as a Blu-ray player. Even the cheapest SKU in 2007 was $500. Remember what happened to every previous console with such a high price tag? Sony is lucky that the PS3 finally recovered after the Slim model was introduced, and didn't turn into a total loss. In any case, it was the beginning of the end of Sony's reign as the tech king of the world.

@PlywoodStick I watched Fallon this morning. Had I known they were showing Switch I would have stayed up. Reggie did ok but Miyamoto in the audience in that awesome shirt stole the show.

Really hope Nintendo switch strategies with this new console, take full advantage of the My NintendoAccount system, Region free, VC releases to name a few things. Kinda ironic how they are great at "inovation" but they are still stuck in such old archaic ways sometimes.