WhiteUmbrella

@johnvboy The Wii U sold 13 million, a catastrophic failure. A combination of Wii and DS would be crazy numbers sure, but I'm pretty confident Nintendo would want bigger numbers or they've just dropped an entire home console audience.

I think that Nintendo will consider Switch a failure in the end. It's important to remember that Switch is supposed to be both a handheld and a home console, the idea being that Nintendo can consolidate both into one device, but presumably still retain both their handheld and home console numbers combined. Considering that lifetime sales of 3DS are at 75 million units, the Switch hasn't sold well enough to account for both markets. I doubt the aim was to ditch their home console audience, so they may rethink their approach in response to these numbers.

This does look interesting to me. If there's a physical release with everything on the cart I may buy this.

@Tempestryke Typically, purchasing a larger amount of something or the complete set as one purchase rather than in individual pieces costs less. What colour is the sky where you are? Green?

Not only are these ridiculously over priced, but it actually costs more to purchase all four in a set than to buy them individually. This is Nintendo.

@PJOReilly thank you

It's great to hear the frame rate performance is solid, but just
what is that frame rate? The review doesn't say. Hm ...

@Clyde_Radcliffe The performance of Mario Golf, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Age of Calamity all disagree with you.

@ramu-chan "In fact most high end phones have HDR now". Sorry, what? What current phone models that are considered "high end" have 1080p displays and hdr? I'm just asking for a friend.

So you're a pc master race gamer, who thinks little of the Switch but still holds it in higher regard than the vastly more powerful Steam Deck? Why are you even bothering to debate the finer points of a race you claim not to have a horse in? You seem confused, or perhaps you're just a contrarian.

@Clyde_Radcliffe the developer that made the statement about 30fps said 30fps minimum, This is a target very often Switch can only dream of, in games that are apparently designed for the system from the ground up, and that's not mentioning the resolution scaling either.

@ramu-chan Digital Foundry analysis of footage of Steam Deck has already established that Doom Eternal runs at a locked 60fps.
It's funny that Switch fans cite oled as so important, when no existing Switch on the market has an oled screen, and won't until October, and even then unless sales projections are 180 million, the oled model won't comprise even half the models sold. Switch doesn't have freesync, Switch doesn't have vrr. My tv supports them and has four hdmi 2.1 ports, but really almost no-one has those things at this point. HDR is reserved for 4k content only, which you should know, if you actually know anything about HDR. There aren't any HDR 1080p displays, much less 800p or even 720p. You're free not to be interested in it, but your claim to not believe that Steam Deck is a threat to Switch is somewhat weakened by your obvious desire to spread misinformation about it.

The media aren't the ones who make the decisions regarding the future of a platform. The intent for revisions to entirely replace the existing user base clearly isn't there within the company that makes the hardware, nor is it a realistic sales goal, especially if done at a point in the life cycle of a device where the device is clearly approaching market saturation.

"Long-term Sony fanboys that won't be purchasing a PS5 because of the PS4 pro". Honestly that just sounds made-up because you're trying to prove a point, and I doubt you know enough fanboys for it to be statistically relevant.
Hardware makers have shifted their designs numerous times as and when they wished. Typically, the majority of revisions are marketed as, and intended to be, upgraded hardware, to a greater or lesser degree. Notable exceptions are the PlayStation 3 having both backwards compatibilty with PS2 removed shortly after launch, and the ability to partition the drive and install Linux, which itself was the subject of a lawsuit in North America. The Wii mini is a particularly egregious example.

When one looks at the issue, it becomes clear that, despite any concerns you and others may have about revisions, Sony, Microsoft and nIntendo are in favour of them and will continue to be so. I imagine the data that they have supports releasing revisions as part of their business model, there's plenty of sales data by this point.
By the time a revision is released, the original hardware has been available on the market for years. Anyone who has already purchased the previous sku will likely also have invested in software and therefore be plenty invested in the platform. They already have that customers money, and care more about attracting more new customers to the system with a refresh, one that clearly a proportion of existing users will upgrade to.

Despite your desire to claim a hard dividing line between the intent of a "refresh" and an "upgrade" the reality is that line is blurred. The concern over present customers feeling disgruntled by the next generation and not buying the hardware on the basis of event during the previous generation, this doubtless does happen, but it's clearly not treated as of prime importance, and seemingly least of all Nintendo.
Do you remember Reggie Fils-Aimee's statement that customers should treat Wii U as an essential step to reaching the Switch? I'm paraphrasing here, but that's pretty much the gist. At the time I thought, well that's all well and good for the people that didn't pay for it, and I didn't like it, but from a business standpoint Nintendo doesn't care about the twelve million customers they had as much as the hundred million they want to reach. This is a company that has, with every generation, left digital purchases on the preceding platform so customers will have to buy them again. Shut down features of previous platforms so the successor doesn't look bad in comparison. This generation, the saturation of Wii U ports has been defended with "no-one bought the Wii U so to most people these are new games". It wasn't Nintendo saying that but doubtless it will have weight for you since that's the narrative that's been bouncing around on sites regarding all the Wii U games Switch has seen.

With an upgraded Switch, I wouldn't imagine it would have exclusive games.

@FantasiaWHT Great argument for exploiting the disabled, sir. Your award for outstanding services in the promotion of unfettered exploitation in the name of capitalism is in the post.

@Wexter Your claim about projections being made that updated models of consoles would replace previously released models sounds a little dubious. If they're released close to market saturation, I don't know who would be thinking that the entire customer base would ditch their original model. Do you have a good citation for this claim, because I'd really like to read it.
The idea that updated models can turn people off on the next generation of hardware, where's the evidence for that? You can perhaps claim that potential customers have held off on the Switch because of New 3DSxl, but the last sales figure for Switch I read was around the 85 million market, so how many customers could it possibly be? Given that the console has been marketed as a home console by nintendo, wouldn't some people have been thinking of Wii U?

Laying all that aside, I'd just like to take a moment to direct your attention to the Sony PlayStation. A phenomenally successful platform that has produced an updated model for every piece of hardware they have ever made. They seem to be doing quite well, overall, wouldn't you say?

@Wexter The point still stands, if a manufacturer can make a product and sell every unit, how was it a bad idea? Please explain to me how Xbox One X and PS4 Pro harmed Microsoft and Sony.
Regarding lower sales figures, of course these models sold a lot less. How many Switch oled models do you expect will sell, surely a minority compared to the original model, this is just logical.
Revisions of models can reignite interest in any given platform, may encourage those that have held out to finally jump on board, also help with marketting since sites like the very one you are on will write about a new model of Switch if Nintendo make it. Of course, the Steam Deck is also in the conversation too now, and that doesn't look so good for Nintendo. They should have raised the power of their system to avoid any unfavourable comparisons then. From this perspective, an increase in power might have been a positive.

@Wexter PS4 Pro and Xbox One X didn't sell well? Well enough, I'd say. Go and try to find one brand new outside of eBay and tell me how that goes.

@Muddy_4_Ever Steam Deck has one set of specs to target, which wouldn't necessitate doing anything more than creating an optimum settings profile. I think Valve can manage that lol, especially considering how diverse pc hardware usually is.
You obviously don't know much about hardware if you think a machine with 16gb DDR5 quad channel ram and RDNA 2 is going to be obsolete in two years. Switch can barely run the games that are optimised for it now.

@Arkay I'm pretty sure the Steam Deck is going to affect future Switch sales. I mean, Nintendo are at 85 million consoles right now, so Switch won't fail exactly, but the oled model isn't going to sell as well as it would have, plus if sales taper off, Nintendo will launch a successor sooner. Sadly, I think Switch 2 would still be weaker than the Steam Deck. Nvidia can probably make a chip to rival the Arm one inside Valve's machine, but would NIntendo pay for it? I don't think so. Not unless they start chasing power in a way that they have sworn off doing. Switch has 4gb DDR4 ram, Steam Deck has 16gb DDR5, and that's quad channel too.
The multiplatform reviews I'm used to reading for Switch usually say something about Switch being a sacrifice in fidelity, but often mention that it's a worthy trade-off for portability. By next year, those reviews will likely end with a comparison that includes Steam Deck. That's not going to be a good look for Nintendo. If they had listened to the fanbase and boosted the power of the Switch, the conversation would be very different right now.

@Perryg92 it resembles the Wii U game pad far more. Look at the stick and button positioning.

@jamesRainbowBoy well, the site could be renamed Valve Life, if you prefer?

@TryToBeHopeful improving humanity ... one article on a videogaming website at a time?

Why not just create a new site called Diversity Gamer or some such thing? Judging by the positive response in the comment section, there wouldn't be any shortage of readers on the site.
The reason this doesn't happen, I suspect, is because the people who write these pieces want those that disagree with the ideas contained therein to read this stuff much more than they want it to be read by those that welcome it. After all, who wants to preach to the converted? Bearing this in mind, an insistence on only positive and constructive comments is a little unrealistic. To begin the comments section with such a statement is not a great look.

To those claiming that articles focussing on identity politics have only been deemed political by those on the right, please take the time to google the term "identity politics", discover the origin of the term, and then come back once you have wiped the egg from your faces.

@dartmonkey Indeed, all comments are equal, it's just that some comments are more equal than others.

And it's no good, and you know what we say every time something strange happens, it's good that Nintendo did that, it's very good!

@sanderev hilarious that you criticise Steam Deck for possibly not managing 4k 60 or even 1080 60. It will certainly do 1080 60 comfortably. Yet the Switch hardly ever makes 720 30. Didn't Nintendo already state that Switch will have a 10 year lifespan? lol

@KryptoniteKrunch The Razer Edge used pretty much the same concept in 2014.

@SwitchForce I don't see what Switch has to do with gender, really. I'm curious what your native language is. Mine is English, but I also speak Spanish and know quite a bit of German. In studying languages, national idioms has become fascinating to me, and "digging the slug" doesn't really work in English, so I'm guessing that's an expression from another language.
Also the expression "to put the cart before the horse", I can see why you might choose to use that, but in English that expression is a negative one, meaning "to do things the wrong way round".

@SwitchForce What are you talking about? There are plenty of Switch users pay an isp for internet, likely most of them. Without internet you don't get any updates or patches. I know you were in the comment sections of articles where physical vs digital only was debated, so you know that there are also plenty of Switch gamers that download many if not all their games.
Like the Switch, it will require a check in if switched to offline mode i.e. access to the games would require a sign in after a period of time, but you don't need to be online all the time to play everything, something I'm sure you already know but just like spreading misinformation.
Besides that, there's nothing stopping anyone who purchases the Steam Deck and has the technical knowhow, from installing an operating system of their choosing and playing game files that aren't connected to Steam at all. It's an open system, in stark contrast to Nintendo's reaction to someone cracking their system (which wouldn't be necessary if they hadn't locked it down) which was to alter the hardware entirely and ban anyone that modified their own system from connecting to their network.
Here's a few other points of contrast, since you seem to want to debate the various merits of the two pieces of hardware.
Steam Deck is vastly superior in power, supports bluetooth 5.0, can use a usb c hub in place of a dock just fine, doesn't require an annual fee for online play, supports voice chat natively and doesn't require a phone, has a friend list and messaging service, also has free cloud saves, has achievements, access to xbox gamepass, the largest game library possible. Also as a bonus, anyone who purchases the Steam Deck has immediate access to the library they already had, no matter how long ago they purchased the game. If the device is no longer supported in the future or stops working, the entire library of games will still be available to the user. Tell me, how are you enjoying your 3DS, Wii and Wii U e shop purchases on your Switch? Oh sorry you can't do that, because Nintendo wipes your library every generation, except for some titles between Wii and Wii U, when they charged a transfer fee.

I'm pretty sure that the Steam Deck is going to eat into Nintendo hardware sales, however even I think it's a bit too soon to be writing a eulogy.

@Maxz Labo is a fire hazard.

@SwitchForce There would be no Nintendo without John Logie Baird so let's all thank him for inventing the television without which there would be no gaming at all. All hail the television. Huzzah.

Metroid Prime Trilogy is real. I'm totally cereal.

@Ramen756 Mentioning the Wii U wasn't meant to prove that Nintendo products can't be successful, it was meant to show that Nintendo can't rely on a core fanbase inevitably buying their system because that is the only way to access their franchises. Whatever the reason the Wii U sold only 12 million, I'm pretty sure it wasn't because people believed it wouldn't have a Mario or Zelda game.
The specs aren't a bold claim, they're set in stone. This is Valve, not some indie start-up. I've never had a pc, but my son is a pc gamer, and I created an account so that I could easily gift him Steam credit. He says he's not interested in the Steam Drive and he does have a Switch. Since I can only get one, I decided I'll take it. That way also if he changes his mind it will still be there. I've got a lot of physical games, and apart from the very rare exception, I don't buy games as a download, to the extent that if it isn't physical I just won't buy it at all, typically. However, with the spec of this thing it's just too tempting, and while I have been waiting to bite for a Switch, and have a physical collection without a console, Nintendo aren't getting £310 for an oled screen when I can get much better functionality for £350.

@norwichred I have a modest physical collection of Switch games, around 40+, but no Switch console. The Steam Deck is really tempting, but I live in the UK, and strictly speaking playing games from backups of those games is still illegal here, even though I think it shouldn't be. I'm still tempted to get it anyway.

@Ramen756 The Wii U is proof of how many customers will automatically purchase a console because it's the only place to play Nintendo first party titles. Not that many, apparently.
Switch players only wish they had the option to sacrifice battery life for extra performance.
How will the hardware perform? Clearly, it will outperform the Switch by a country mile.

@RadioHedgeFund I haven't played Mario Odyssey, but I very much noticed the "portable design" in BOTW and it marred the game greatly for me. I presume this was the rationale behind removing the traditional dungeons, because they would take too long to complete. The design was still flawed however, because it was completely possible to pick the game up for a 30 minute blast and get nowhere, because I would see somewhere I wanted to climb, and by the time I'd traveled there and started climbing, it would start raining and an entire 30 minutes of gameplay would go absolutely nowhere. Fot this reason I don't rate BOTW as the greatest Zelda by a long way.

@the_beaver the Steam Deck doesn't require the dock for tv output, just a cable, and not a proprietary one at that. The dock is an optional extra.

I started the game, I got a sword, I swang the sword and chopped down some grass and (accidentally) smashed some pots. A lot of pots. Later on, I killed some monsters, some of them were really big, and also there were some conversations and things happened. I eventually finished the game and when the people of the town where I lived came and carried me through the streets of the town, cheering my name because I beat the game I was really happy. The end. Also there were rupees and ghosts. Some of this was lies.

@Ludovsky I would be amazed if Steam can profit much from the hardware at the quoted price, if at all. Steam machines was a great idea, but marred in execution. They somehow forgot that the idea was to simplify pc gaming to a console level, but actually made it complicated with a bewildering array of different specifications from a plethora of manufacturers. That was doomed, but I can't wonder what might have happened if they had just three or four versions, like this. We'll see.

@Slinkoy1 looking at the design, I think the controls were placed so high on the face of the unit, so that it's comfortable to rest fingers on the triggers to the rear. Where the hand rests is more chunky and ergonomic than the Joycon. Maybe more like the Hori split pad pro? It doesn't look immediately comfortable to the eye, though.

@Schizor88 The physical media is a plus to me, but I don't really associate that with children. Physical games can be lost, and Switch carts are small.

@The_New_Butler are you sure it supports sd cards? The article doesn't say.

@Schizor88 I can't possibly see in what way the Switch is more user friendly than this. They both have an online store accessible from the unit, I'd imagine. Maybe Nintendo's front end is more user friendly than Steams, but I wouldn't bet on it, and you surely don't know.

A nice price for the base unit too, also amazingly they managed to include their R&D, packaging, shipping and everything else, for a unit they designed from scratch. Great timing of the announcement, too ^_ ^

@Dethmunk So many people have latched on to this "Nintendo has hidden expenses" argument it's ridiculous. A few points to make. Firstly, Nintendo is always doing research and development, it's the nature of the business. They didn't need to invent an ethernet port, an oled screen or packaging. Those things already existed. The dock could have been a partially rejected earlier design or completely new. If the stand were part of the original design that was rejected in favour of the flimsy stand from the original sku it wouldn't surprise anyone in the slightest. It's obvious that the first dock was cheaper to make than the replacement design, and Nintendo even cheaped out on the wi-fi card (something that has still not been upgraded).

All this aside, if the argument that Nintendo aren't making anywhere near as much money as the $50 increase implies holds little weight. This would have to mean that the cost of altering the design must come close to outweighing the benefits of developing and marketing it. These kind of decisions are made during the planning stage, when the costs of any potential endeavour are weighed up, and the decision is made whether or not to proceed.
To sum it up, why even bother to make it if it's not going to be profitable? Furthermore, if such a mistake was made (which I don't believe was made) it would be Nintendo's mistake, not the consumers.
But really, the $50 rise is clearly profiteering from Nintendo. Stop blindly defending Nintendo over everything they do. you're only doing them harm in the long run. If they listen to you defending every mistake and ignore every criticism, it will lead the company down the wrong path to failure. Just the Wii U sales alone should be enough to tell you that Nintendo doesn't have enough fanatics to sustain the entire company. Laud their successes, but criticise when it's due. It's due, this time.

@tatchy "They compete with eachother for a totally different type of audience". This an often repeated fallacy. They compete for the same audience, gamers. For that claim to be true, this means that Nintendo have their own pool of customers that, during the Gamecube and Wii U era, decided not to buy any hardware at all because they didn't like what Nintendo had produced. The Wii sold over 100 million units, the direct successor Wii U just below 13 million. A significant proportion of those 87 million likely bought hardware from Sony and Microsoft.

"comparing the costs of the consoles as people have is a bit apples and oranges". A lot of people have compared the cost of competing hardware, so the very fact that many people will factor the price disparity into their purchasing decisions makes it relevant regardless of whether you or Nintendo want it to be. Plus, am I the only one to find that expression strange? I eat fruit, and while there are obvious differences between apples and oranges they both fulfill a similar need and I have frequently chosen between them.

Thw Switch has been an interesting experiment. As a handheld it's a success (the hardware reliabilty issues aside) but as a home console it's a failure. Let's face it, Switch isn't really a "hybrid", it's a handheld masquerading as a home console, with a dock designed to hide that it's a handheld while connected to a tv.
If Switch had launched as a handheld only, the power would have been considered impressive, and quite rightly so. Now imagine if it had launched as a home console only. With that power and pricepoint Nintendo would quite rightly have been laughed out of the room.
Therein lies the problem. While the Switch has been marketed as both handheld and home console, when considered as a home console only, the hardware is too weak to justify it's price point. It was too weak in 2017, in 2021 it looks weaker still, especially when compared to the competition you say they don't have.
It represents value to the handheld player, but is a rip-off for home only. Why should those who prefer home play only be paying for a screen, a stand, a battery, a dock and joycons when they could have had a pro controller, maybe support for an exterior drive and upgraded internals, and paid the same as those that wanted to be able to take their console with them wherever they went.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but I believe that Switch should have been two SKUs not one. A more powerful home console and another that sacrificed that power for portablility. It might have been more difficult to market, but who knows? Some might say that Nintendo wouldn't want to dilute the core message of the design, but haven't they already done that with Switch Lite?
It's even possible that what I'm suggesting is what Nintendo have planned for their next generation. It could be considered a natural evolution of the same idea.

@NotSoCryptic That's a bit optimistic. Nintendo under Furukawa are so greedy, the only chance the oled will see a price drop is if it doesn't sell at $350. I think it more likely that Nintendo thought they could get away with raising the price but needed a new model to do it. the original will be phased out if the oled sells. The new price stays.