I do want to point out that it matches current consoles in the US, but is actually going to be significantly more expensive than anything on the market in many countries. Where I am, for example, if they release at exactly the US price -- which they won't, prices always get inflated -- a Switch will cost more than a PS4 that comes packed with Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Dishonored 2, three hit games.
On top of this, I think they've made a fatal flaw when it comes to handheld pricing. If you remember, the 3DS launched at $250, tanked hard, and received a whopping 33% price cut only 4 months after it launched, followed by the announcement of the new 2DS which would be even cheaper. One of the things Nintendo produced the 2DS is because they found, to their great surprise, that almost 80% of 3DS customers outside Japan never took their 3DS outside the home. They weren't buying it for portability, like Japanese customers usually did; they were buying it because it was the cheapest way to play videogames, only a third the price of a console and with games that were half the price of console games (in many countries even less). Right now I can buy a 2DS for 105 and brand-new games for 40 where an Xbox One is 400 and games are 80 - 100. That's a big reason many of my friends have one.
Then note that they've also priced the Switch above the iPad Mini. Most handhelds are bought by parents for kids. If parents see that they can get an iPad for less than the price of this new console, they're very likely to: iPads are seen as luxury products with a wider variety of uses and many cheap games, and the iPad Mini is even more portable. This is the first handheld Nintendo have announced since iPads hit the market and I worry they haven't taken this into account.
For those customers, who make up a majority of 3DS customers worldwide, the Switch is a non-starter; it's likely to be considerably more expensive than its rivals, and those rivals happen to have either larger libraries, greater popularity, free online, and better graphics (Xbox One/PS4) or a luxury image, greater portability, lower software costs, and a wider variety of uses including educational uses (iPad Mini). I'm really hoping Nintendo succeeds, because I'm a big fan of theirs, but I worry they have totally killed the big draws to handhelds.
> They weren't buying it for portability, like Japanese customers usually did; they were buying it because it was the cheapest way to play videogames
That's not true, they are buying a 3ds so they can play Pokemon. Without Pokemon every kid I know would rather have an iphone/ipad than a 3ds. (I'm talking about Pokemon Omega Ruby style games, not Pokemon Go).
They've sold 63.3 million 3DS units (counting the 2DS) and 14.7 million copies of Pokemon X & Y, the bestselling Pokemon game on the platform. So while it's undoubtedly a very popular game I don't think you can rank it above cost as the reason so many people were buying handhelds to use at home.
IIRC, they always try to sell their consoles at a profit, unlike the other companies in this space. It's part of why the Wii was such an amazing success for them (combined with their successful Blue Ocean strategy[0]).
Could you elaborate on what you consider to be Nintendo's Blue Ocean strategy? I mean, I get that they've often tried to be first movers with e.g. motion control, is that what you're referring to?
Specifically, it's that they do stuff qualitatively that their competitors don't, to the point where they're not so much competing as they are the sole player in a brand new market.
I remember when the seventh generation came out, Microsoft did Nintendo's PR work for them by telling people that they can buy both a 360 and a Wii for the price of a PS3. That's right, they got Microsoft of all people to tell consumers to buy a Wii! Why did MS do it? Because the Wii is so qualitatively different from the 360 that they weren't directly competing.
Nintendo set things up such that nobody would ever ask "should I get a 360 or a Wii?" the way people would ask "should I get a 360 or a PS3?". Instead, they made it so a large amount of gamers wanted to get both a "normal" console and a Wii in the same way that people own both a console and a PC. On top of that, they also attracted people who would never buy a normal console because normal consoles don't appeal to them at all.
> On top of that, they also attracted people who would never buy a normal console because normal consoles don't appeal to them at all.
Sounds like me. I don't buy a gaming system to play games generally, I buy one to play the kind of games Nintendo makes and attracts to its hardware. That's why I still pull my Gamecube out to play SSBM from time to time, but have never owned a Playstation or X-Box, and have barely touched either of them. I haven't had a new system since GBA and Gamecube, but I think I'd enjoy the newer Nintendo systems more than the systems they were released next to.
> They weren't buying it for portability, like Japanese customers usually did; they were buying it because it was the cheapest way to play videogames, only a third the price of a console and with games that were half the price of console games (in many countries even less).
I don't think that's right, price is not the only concern here. It's just a different feeling, from having to start a session on the TV or being able to play around the house, in bed, etc. -- tablets did that well also, and most people are more likely to open their 3DS than start up the TV and console. That's what they attempted to match here, and, to me, it seems successful. (Note that Wii U was directed towards that goal as well, but failed).
Are people really behaving like that? Was WiiU feature of being able to play the game on controller only successful?
Or will it take the backseat when the customers notice that PS4 offers a lot more content for lower price? Especially since use of cartriges will mean that the games will be and stay more expensive than their PS4 counterparts?
It's especially bothersome to me when parents use "learning" apps to try and pretend that they're being a more productive parent by giving their child an iPad. Perhaps they can do some good, but their effects are also vastly overstated and are no substitute for hands-on physical teaching by parents.
My iPhone now has a bunch of 2D Sonics, Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic, The Binding Of Isaac, a full port of Lego Star Wars, Surgeon Simulator, Minecraft, Hearthstone and a few others. Seems like iOS supports real games to me.
My youngest stepson (10) just got one for Christmas (secondhand iPad mini 2). He's mostly gaming on it, and he loves it. Bear in mind he has access to an xbox one, too. He doesn't see the iPad as inferior; he certainly did the hudl that he sold in order to part fund the iPad purchase.
Games are the number 1 app category in the iOS app store. [1] and smartphone + tablet game market is bigger than either console or PC game market.[2] So people clearly see them as gaming devices.
They also compete for a limited amount of time. There are very few console gamers who also don't have a smartphone or tablet with some games on it. They may not explicitly choose to game on their phone over Xbox, and they may acknowledge that they enjoy console games more. But on a given night, maybe they choose to watch tv, and second screen some games on their phone. And if that phone didn't exist, they would have chosen to play on their console. So they aren't equivalent, but they can still substitute for each other, and compete for time/money/attention.
Gaming in the living room? Xbox wins.
Gaming in the bedroom? iPad wins.
Gaming on a trip to visit Grandma? iPad wins.
Gaming on holiday? iPad wins.
Want to play low budget or free casual games? iPad wins.
Obviously a sample size of one - you can disqualify just about every comment anyone makes in such a way, so I'm not sure I see the relevance of it in the context of a discussion explicitly mentioning personal experience? It is of course completely possible that he's the only kid in the world who sees it the way he does.
I don't see them as equal in terms of specs, but I'm not interested in the same things as a 10 year old. I asked my stepson about it this morning, and he gave what I think was a pretty well-reasoned argument off the cuff about it, mostly that the games on the iPad are completely different to those on the xbox, and he prefers the games that are on whichever platform they are on, and he likes the portable nature of the iPad, but the xbox because multiple players can play together. Sounded like a more coherent review of the differences than I've read on some websites.
It's not all about specs, it's about gameplay. I'd actually say I've -enjoyed- playing games on the ZX Spectrum more than some PC games (with infinitely better graphics, sound etc), because I enjoy the game more, and because they could never rely on looking flash to engage you, so they -had- to be excellent games. Technically, there's no way that Manic Miner is a better game than all the FPS that my eldest stepson plays, but I'd take Manic Miner any day of the week.
Which has lead to the current market of free-to-play (pay-to-win) games and ruined potential most legitimate indie titles to thrive on the platform.
Jeff Minter himself has abandoned iOS altogether, leaving an amazing collection of some of the tightest controlling and most gorgeous retro styled iOS arcade shooters completely defunct like they never existed. (Minotaur Project) [0]
(Let this also be a lesson to back up your iOS stuff, iCloud will not save apps that are removed from the App Store).
Personally, I use my iPad for games when I travel (and sometimes during my twice-a-week commute) and at home I play games almost exclusively on PS4. I rarely, if ever, play games on my laptop now, despite having over 300 games on Steam.
My house has a PS4, Ps3, Wii-U, a gaming PC, a Vita, and two 3DS machines. My kids spend 90% of their gaming hours on an iPad or phone. The PS4 is my favorite device.
Depends on the parents and the kids. Some kids love to play on their tablets and others prefer 3DS or similar.
You can't say that no kids (or teenagers or adults) play on tablets.
On top of this, I think they've made a fatal flaw when it comes to handheld pricing. If you remember, the 3DS launched at $250, tanked hard, and received a whopping 33% price cut only 4 months after it launched, followed by the announcement of the new 2DS which would be even cheaper. One of the things Nintendo produced the 2DS is because they found, to their great surprise, that almost 80% of 3DS customers outside Japan never took their 3DS outside the home. They weren't buying it for portability, like Japanese customers usually did; they were buying it because it was the cheapest way to play videogames, only a third the price of a console and with games that were half the price of console games (in many countries even less). Right now I can buy a 2DS for 105 and brand-new games for 40 where an Xbox One is 400 and games are 80 - 100. That's a big reason many of my friends have one.
Then note that they've also priced the Switch above the iPad Mini. Most handhelds are bought by parents for kids. If parents see that they can get an iPad for less than the price of this new console, they're very likely to: iPads are seen as luxury products with a wider variety of uses and many cheap games, and the iPad Mini is even more portable. This is the first handheld Nintendo have announced since iPads hit the market and I worry they haven't taken this into account.
For those customers, who make up a majority of 3DS customers worldwide, the Switch is a non-starter; it's likely to be considerably more expensive than its rivals, and those rivals happen to have either larger libraries, greater popularity, free online, and better graphics (Xbox One/PS4) or a luxury image, greater portability, lower software costs, and a wider variety of uses including educational uses (iPad Mini). I'm really hoping Nintendo succeeds, because I'm a big fan of theirs, but I worry they have totally killed the big draws to handhelds.