Late to reply on this bit, but having streaming services like Netflix on this thing is totally important to it selling. Any hardware has the potential of being someone's gateway into something new. I didn't use any streaming devices or play online until I got a PS3, now its a normal thing I do. The camera and multimedia capabilities of the 3ds/2ds are trash, but tons of kids still use them for that purpose. Hell, remember how many people trashed the GameCube and Wii for not being able to play DvDs. Just because its a feature you don't care for doesn't mean it's not a value add-on as an entertainment device. specially one that's asking for
$300 with no game included.
Also I'm not sure why Sunblade thinks Nintendo messaging for Switch is bad. I think it's amazing.
I'll try to keep it simple, but it boils down to two things.
1.
A complete misunderstanding of why the Wii's marketing was so successful.I'll start by linking to the most absolutely brilliant marketing campaign ever made:
Wii would like to play.If you watch that commercial. It sells a lot of very basic concepts that other new game franchises would later copy, It's selling the idea that it doesn't matter how young or old you are to enjoy the system. You could be a nice suburban family or someone way off in a rural area, you can all enjoy playing these games. Do you know how to punch? Bowl? Swing a bat? Then you already know how to play the games on our console. There's no extraneous setup presented, and the most complicated game shown is Metroid Prime, which is presented as simply "point to the screen and shoot". If there was one bit of advertisement that absolutely propelled Wii sales through the roof, it was this one.
Compare that to the
Switch Preview trailer from a few months ago.
Right off the bat, this is a trailer that's presenting a ton of non-real world scenarios were people are actively taking their Switch to party settings, using it as part of e-Sports,
taking it to basketball courts. It's only showing you urban teen and young adults making use of the system. It's presenting you with tons of different, complicated control options. It's showing games that are more complex than "thing you already know how to do". It's showing you all these different moveable and removeable parts and carts that you have to keep track of. It's appealing to core audiences, but unattractive for general audiences who aren't already into video games. The messaging is a complete failure in selling your system to more than just the same 2 people who bough a WiiU.
But what about
1 2 Switch, you might say?
1 2 Switch is a glorified pack-in game being sold for $60. It was promoted in the presentation as a "game" you dont need to use a TV for. And they're right. You don't need a Switch or Joy-cons to "play" any of the things they do in that trailer either.
It goes without mentioning, but
there is another console in between the Switch and Wii that made this same mistake.
2.
"A console that you can take with you" is a niche selling point, not a mainstream one.Right off the bat, if your only interest in a Switch is its use as a home console, it's a losing proposition. It's $50 more expensive than its competition, it's weaker than its competition, has no pack-in game, has significantly more expensive accessories, has significantly less storage space, apparently doesn't have many if any of the media features the other consoles do, and doesn't benefit from a library of games released for it in the past 3 years.
Even buying a WiiU is a better proposition right now than buying a Switch, as it will let you play Switch's most anticipated launch game and most of the games its getting ports of without having to wait for months. So we then have to look at its gimmick, it doubling as a portable system. But that already has problems, price non-withstanding.
Just like how "the war on the living room" was a thing, you can only take so many things with you out of the house comfortably. A smartphone is, by the very nature of how we live today, necessary. That alone will cover most of your on the go needs, playing games included. The Switch doesn't even carry over Streetpass, a 3DS feature that's a massive hit in Japan/parts of the Wold and incentived people to take their system with them wherever they went. Unless you really really really need to be playing a Switch game with you wherever you go, and most people have enough self-control to not need to, the Switch then becomes no different than a WiiU: a tablet you use around the house.
Going back to that Switch trailer, it presents a lot of very niche, very circumstantial scenarios that will rarely, if ever, actually happen. No, most people aren't going to take their switch with them on the plane: they'll either sleep, read a book, watch the in-flight movie or do literally anything that requires less setup than taking an entire console w/ joy-cons with you and taking care not to lose anything. Most people aren't going to try and play Switch multiplayer while riding a car, they'll either chat or use their phone. Two people playing a switch game while a crowd stares in awe behind them is a scenario that's never ever going to happen.
The Switch ain't even the first system to try and sell "take your console experiences on the go".
One of them was a success that was still less popular than its competition more than two decades ago,
the other failed to take off 3 years ago.
tl;dr cause I wrote more than I intended to
The Switch as a concept is a pretty hard sell, and its marketing isnt doing a good job of helping to sell it to more than just the already faithful. While I doubt this thing can sell worse than the WiiU did, Nintendo is, again, making a device that will always be competing for attention with another device you already or could potentially own, rather than doing something that stands out on its own. It's too weak to compete as a home console, but too expensive/cumbersone to replace other portable devices, even its very own predecessor, the 3DS, which Nintendo reportedly said
is still getting support from them into 2017*. How does Nintendo intend to gain traction on its new hybrid portable device when it intends t continue supporting its cheaper, often bundled older brother with better portable features?
*So much for Nintendo consolidating all of its software development into one platform.
