Nintendo Says Switch Can Have a Longer Life Cycle Than Previous Nintendo Consoles - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 August 2020 / 3,269 Views
The Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017 and has been a huge success for the company. Nintendo has shipped over 52 million Switch units worldwide and is on track to surpass the lifetime sales of the NES later this year.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa speaking in a recent Q&A said he expects the Nintendo Switch to have a longer life cycle than previous Nintendo consoles. The standard life cycle of a Nintendo console is around 5 to 7 years.
The Nintendo Switch will soon have been on sale for three years," said Furukawa. "We feel it is a different kind of console than the ones we have previously released.
“In addition to the flagship Switch model, we also released the Nintendo Switch Lite which can only be played as a handheld. This allows the user to choose a console to fit their lifestyle. We are also looking into the current market and feel there are many different ways to think about future console development.
"On the other hand, software is also very important. So in the short term, while the Nintendo Switch install base continues to expand, we must place a lot of focus on that. By placing our main focus on the Nintendo Switch, we feel we can have a very different (longer) hardware life cycle than previous Nintendo consoles."
"The most important thing [for us] is whether we can maintain the momentum of Nintendo Switch," he added. "In addition to continuously introducing new software, we believe that it will be very important to continue our efforts to sell titles that we have released so far."
Thanks Video Game Chronicle.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
Gameboy, DS and 3DS all had about a decade of support.
Wasn't the Wii U around 4 and half years
That sounds good and all, but I hope Nintendo plans to continue to fully support it with newer software then. They'd really have to start digging further into their IP treasure trove to keep interest high over the years. I'm talking new Donkey Kong Country, Golden Sun, Kid Icarus, Wario Ware, Wario Land, etc. as well as new IP so it won't get stale.
I also hope that 3rd parties will continue to support it through contracts with Nintendo or on their own will even in the midst of the PS5 and Xbox SX.
That's great to hear, but I hope it doesn't mean a ton of mid-generational upgrades.
I could see one happen. Just powerful enough to keep games at their highest dynamic resolution and more stable 30 fps would be nice.
In theory Nintendo could also patch their games to have higher resolutions and maybe 60 fps. If they made that effort, it would totally justify a mid gen upgrade.
@Mr Puggsly I doubt they'll put in the effort to do that, but the problem for me is that the difference in hardware will lead to performance disparity, so when it comes to third party releases one version might not be optimised.
For an example of that I can point to Hyrule Warriors on 3DS vs N3DS.
200 million units confirmed??
This is why the Switch has a chance to be the #1 selling console of all time as long as it is managed properly the next 3-4 years.
While we will have a PS5 Pro and a regular PS5 at 350€...
Unless you are willing to go back to Wii U days, cool. Didn't the lack of 3rd party ultimately end it? The power gap between the Switch and PS5/X1X is gigantic, 3rd party will end (The big stuff).
Mid-gen upgrade? Perhaps, depends what Nvidia can come up with.
The PS4 and Xbox One will still get nearly full 3rd party support even after the 9th gen Systems release because developers know that the 8th gen Systems have a huge install base, so the Switch will still be able to get the PS4 versions of 3rd party games. and the Xbox SX is already confirmed to have little to no next
gen exclusives in the 1st 2 years and it's heavily rumored for the PS5 too, so the Switch won't be left behind. And by the time 3rd party games start releasing exclusively on the 9th gen Systems Nintendo will probably start launching their Switch successor around 2024 to keep up
Fair enough.
3rd party ports of modern AAA games are nice to have on Switch, but not needed, for Switch to continue selling well. Most people don't buy a Switch to play Witcher 3, or Doom on the go. They buy it to play Nintendo's handheld and console IPs all on one system. Getting to play a few 3rd party AAA games on the go is just a nice little bonus.
The Wii was majorly under-powered compared to the PS3 and 360. That didn't really seem to hinder it too much.
Essay Pro