Nintendo's next thing - What do you think it will be?

[Golgo 14]

I'm mostly curious to see what they call their next device. If I were at Nintendo I'd live in fear of another Wii U debacle. To this day when I mention the Wii U to people I invariably have to explain that the Wii U was not a Wii add-on.

The word "super" worked out okay with the SNES, but Super Switch kind of sounds like just a Switch with some additional features. Why buy that for the kids when they've already got a Switch that they assume plays the same games?

Of course, this is the same company that when things were looking dire on the console front with the GameCube, basically repackaged it, added weird controls, gave it a nonsense name, and experienced great success! Absolute madmen.

[Raging Justice]

So some people are already discussing what games we'll see first. I'll give you guys a clue from an old 2018 video about what I think would get people excited:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRWaOrLRqWs

Need I say more? That is Nintendo's most underutilized, first party IP and people are thirsty for it. We're all into nostalgia these days and this needs a good comeback story.

[Limewater]

I thought that their most underutilized first-party IPs that could transition to the current era were StarTropics and Kid Icarus.

[marurun]

Nintendo is understandably wary of Kid Icarus after Uprising, but I think it would be really cool to take the BotW/TotK engine and do a Kid Icarus game in it. I think there's a lot of potential there.

[Limewater]

Nintendo is understandably wary of Kid Icarus after Uprising, but I think it would be really cool to take the BotW/TotK engine and do a Kid Icarus game in it. I think there's a lot of potential there.

I haven't played it, or any 3DS games, but I thought Uprising was well-received critically and commercially. What was the problem?

[marurun]

Nintendo is understandably wary of Kid Icarus after Uprising, but I think it would be really cool to take the BotW/TotK engine and do a Kid Icarus game in it. I think there's a lot of potential there.

I haven't played it, or any 3DS games, but I thought Uprising was well-received critically and commercially. What was the problem?

Despite solid sales and decent reviews, there were complaints about the controls, and between those complaints and the disinterest of Sakurai in making another, I just think it's something Nintendo has no plans to move on. It did have complex media coverage, and even prompted a separate stand peripheral for the 3DS, which is a bit much.

[Jagosaurus]

Heard/watched some rumors circulating a couple weeks back that Nintendo may have 2 SKUs at launch... one supporting BC, another cheaper option with no BC.

Interesting... a way to appease both sides. Nintendo also makes money on HW so win, win.

We'll see how this plays out. I'd pay more to be able to access our Switch library. Just a rumor for now.

[Limewater]

We'll see how this plays out. I'd pay more to be able to access our Switch library. Just a rumor for now.

But if you have a switch, can't you already access your switch library?

I've never been big on backwards compatibility, but I also don't seem to mind owning a ton of consoles and swapping them out.

I can kind of see the point of backwards compatibility if you're buying a Playstation of XBox and the console barely fits through a standard front door, but the switch is pretty small, and its handheld nature seems to make it easy to keep around. I know some families with more than one switch.

Or are they expecting people to trade in their switches to get the new thing, and the trade-in value of their switch to exceed price differential between models?

[Raging Justice]

BC is a nice perk, but given how small and portable the Switch already is I don't need to put it away in a closet after getting the Switch 2. So I honestly don't care if the Switch 2 has BC. Besides, eventually people will figure out how to mod the thing anyway and just create some kind of emulation for the original Switch library. For years now, modders/hackers have been doing the work that Nintendo won't do themselves. I don't expect that to change. I can honestly say that getting a mooded/hacked Switch SIGNIFICANTLY increased my interest in the console as it just addressed all of the little things that annoyed me about the Switch (like not being able to back up your save data). And contrary to the stereotype you often hear, I have actually purchased more Switch games after getting a modded system (I actually have TWO modded systems). The stereotype that people just get modded systems to pirate games doesn't apply to everyone. In fact, I just pre-orderred a physical copy of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. It looks awesome. I bought a copy of Super Mario Wonder shortly after it released as well.

And yes, I know it's not "the Switch 2". I'm just using that since we don't know what it will be called.

And I stand by what I said about Starfox. It's pretty much expected that a new Nintendo console has first party games on it and that they will be well received and sell well, but Nintendo has been very hit and miss with Starfox games since Starfox 64 and doesn't put out new installments consistently like they do with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Zero disappointed a lot of people. Starlink was a fun game, but felt like just an appetizer for what a full fledged new Starfox game could be.

I think they could generate a ton of hype announcing a new Starfox game and just like Starfox, Starfox 64, and even the mess that was Starfox Zero, it could be a game that serves as an example of what the system is capable of.

I don't expect we'll get a new Starfox though, at least not in the near future, but one can dream.