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[Okami Haundo]

If they do this, though, aren't they guaranteeing themselves that they won't be able to meet demand if it's greater than this? i.e. creating a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein they're locked in to ship only this many so they can't outperform the expected 2M (until the next Quarter)?

Not really. Quoting a number of "units shipped" doesn't mean that's all they plan on producing. Unless the Switch launches on the last day of the month, they should have time to ship more units to retailers if they find the demand is high.

 

[KingSnake]

Personally, I don't think the core SKU will have a pack-in, but a bundle with Mario Kart would easily be the more popular version among the hardcore and mainstream by very long shot. It won't even be remotely close.

I never said MK is not popular. Never. I don't think you understand my point. I'm sorry for that, I really don't know how to make it clearer than that. I will try again:

MK and Splatoon would be great pack-in games, but being Wii U ports they don't compensate for the $50 potential difference in price between a meh $299 and a great $249 launch price.

 

[Cid Highwind]

are there any other big adventure/rpgs slated for march '17 that we know of?

Skyward Sword

Release date(s)

EU: November 18, 2011
NA: November 20, 2011
JP: November 23, 2011
AUS: November 24, 2011

Skyrim

Release date(s)

WW: November 11, 2011

While the hype for Skyward Sword wasn't nearly as high as Twilight Princess, I still think it would have sold better had it released in 2010. By late 2011 the Wii was very much so on its way out and you also had Skyrim taking a lot of the adventure game buzz from it. Not to mention holiday 2011 was slam packed with high profile releases.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I disagree with this. To the general public who didn't give a crap about Wii U or even know what it is Splatoon and Mario Kart come off as brand new games. Mario Kart is a huge IP recognized by casuals.

Zelda will never happen of course.

While I agree that MK and splatoon would be good titles to pack in, I see this argument on GAF a lot.

Wii U bombed horribly. Technically stuff like MK did not. Mario Kart 8 has shipped 8 million So the whole "no one knows these games exist" is hard to say. Within mario kart, MK8 has sold more than SMK, MKDD, MKSS, iirc. And it's ~2 million behind MK64.

Additionally
n64 games (from wiki)
1997 GoldenEye 007 8.09 million[5][6]
1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 7.6 million[7]
1999 Super Smash Bros. 5.55 million[8]

GC: (from wiki)
Super Smash Bros. Melee 2001 7.09 million[1]
Mario Kart: Double Dash‼ 2003 7 million approximately[2]
Super Mario Sunshine 2002 6.31 million

It's shipped more than most of these games' original releases. Including Melee and OoT. All of these games were big in their day though

Would people have argued, "Wii needs a Double Dash and Sunshine Port because no one played it on GC"? No, people would say, everyone already knows about those games.

I've seen the sentiment a lot on GAF that essentially no one bought splatoon or MK, so a port is almost like a brand new game, and I disagree. MK's ceiling is clearly not 8 million, but still. It's disingenuous to make that statement.Considering it did more than games like smash, and kart, and even had a tiny run in the public light with death stare luigi. These games are still definitely worth a port given the gaming environment though.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

How is 2 million in a week or two bad? Switch is not launching March 1st. In the past Nintendo has launched mid to late part of the month on a Sunday. So March 12, 19, or 26 seems plausible. How many PS4s and Xbox Ones sold in two weeks?

Y'all realize he is not talking about selling two million units to consumers in March, right?

Two million is what they plan for the initial shipment. That is the maximum number that can sell for this FY. All these sales are happening literally at once.

I suspect this breaks down into 500k for Japan, 750k for US, and another 750k split across Europe and Australia. That is indeed fairly low. Not absurdly, not worryingly, but fairly.

 

[Haganeren]

How many of the Marios would you like?

*Mario games

And yes, i need more stuff, that's the only new game !

 

[ShadowFox08]

Y'all realize he is not talking about selling two million units to consumers in March, right?

Two million is what they plan for the initial shipment. That is the maximum number that can sell for this FY. All these sales are happening literally at once.

I suspect this breaks down into 500k for Japan, 750k for US, and another 750k split across Europe and Australia. That is indeed fairly low. Not absurdly, not worryingly, but fairly.

Its not so bad. They're playing it safe since the Wii u flopped Could also be creating more demand as well on purpose.

 

[True Fire]

Well, a lot of consumers have gone 10 years without a new Nintendo console. A lot of people who skipped the 3DS and have no idea what a Wii U is will probably go for this.

 

[OnionPowder]

And they moved off that for a reason.

Didn't the Wii U have a great first month? It's not like the first day it's available for sale makes that big of a difference.

 

[ksamedi]

20% of Wii U in one month. Seems fine to me

 

[Peltz]

Price it at $249. Undercutting the Xbox One S and PS4 Slim is essential to capturing the family market and entering "impulse buy" territory.

P.S. How does this compare to 3DS shipment/sales which also launched in March? That would be a far better comparison.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

And now we have the full reveal January 12th now what ghost trick

 

[John Harker]

Y'all realize he is not talking about selling two million units to consumers in March, right?

Two million is what they plan for the initial shipment. That is the maximum number that can sell for this FY. All these sales are happening literally at once.

I suspect this breaks down into 500k for Japan, 750k for US, and another 750k split across Europe and Australia. That is indeed fairly low. Not absurdly, not worryingly, but fairly.

I'd say it's appropriately ambitious.
It's March which is not an ideal revenue driving investment period for hardware, a new concept to sell, and they are likely artificially limiting supply to increase demand for next fY

They need the revenue this fiscal but clearly want the bulk of it to drive their next FY

 

[Maxinas]

Gotta remember that it's just a prediction, you never know, nintendo might hit homerun with the switch, and we see a repeat of what happened with the wii scarcity, or they drop the ball and don't even sell half that 2 million.

 

[casiopao]

Do you know what bread & butter means? It doesn't mean an equal or near equal share, it means the overwhelmingly larger share. Which it is not. Especially if you look at WiiU... a system generally seen as overpriced, meaning not selling, meaning no software sales, no software royalties etc...Which is what this discussion is about, setting a pricepoint for the successor to WiiU.

........ Go check again the financial report. It is nice you are only talking about Wii U when 3DS exactly make a bank for Nintendo from their hardware sales.

Lol. This is hilarious.

It must be hilarious to do one liner lol.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

I feel like this newly translated piece from the Q&A makes a lot of things clear about the 2 million estimate. Could increase if their demo events show more interest than they forecasted.

https://twitter.com/mochi_wsj/status/791997876037521408

Nintendo: can increase production of Switch from current 2 million plan this FY if demand shown strong at events.

 

[Neoxon]

Nah, it's not great unless it's Zelda. $299 with a game is better than $249 if the game is worth $50. Take for example Nintendo Land. While a great game, it has never offered the perception that it provides a good discount.

Mario Kart and Splatoon for Switch, while great games to have at launch are still practically kind of ports/remasters which don't offer a value easily recognisable.

What about Smash 4? It can basically be an advertisement for their IPs.

 

[TunaLover]

I don't mind paying a little more if the quality of the system is there.

 

[Aostia]

I'd say it's appropriately ambitious.
It's March which is not an ideal revenue driving investment period for hardware, a new concept to sell, and they are likely artificially limiting supply to increase demand for next fY

They need the revenue this fiscal but clearly want the bulk of it to drive their next FY

And now we can discard a 250 or lower price tag

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

The idea of packaging Zelda, Mario Kart, or Smash for a launch is sku is absurd. You'd literally be forcing a 50$ MSRP increase for the system. What makes sense is to make a budget concept game like a Nintendo Switch Play (mini-game comp) that showcases the multiplayer anywhere nature of the system. You can provide this game at a much smaller MSRP cost to the sku. You put your 50-60$ games on the retail shelves to make the system look good.

That's business talk, but the design philosophy would be you want to put a title that WAS originally made for the Switch yet doesn't sport a known IP, into the hands of the players. This was Wii Sports, Nintendo Land, and StreetPass Plaza / AR Games.

 

[Principate]

And now we can discard a 250 or lower price tag

I wouldn't be surprised by a $250 skU with a $300 premium it's only $50 dollars cheaper than what wii u launched and the more expensive sku sold more anyway. I doubt Nintendo wants the mindshare and OR nightmare of launching at the same price point ie catastrophically failed at, we all know what the argues and media would say in that case.

 

[13ruce]

Easy with Zelda at launch, that shipment will surely be sold through that month.

 

[Neff]

What makes sense is to make a budget concept game like a Nintendo Switch Play (mini-game comp) that showcases the multiplayer anywhere nature of the system.

Is such a game possible for Switch though? It doesn't really do anything terribly unique in terms of hardware, at least that we know of yet. Wii, 3DS and Wii U all had packed-in demos or mini-games which showed off their respective platform's features and did so very well, but I can't think of an equivalent for Switch.

Nintendo have had success with premium pack-in games at launch before (most notably SNES & Super Mario World), but I don't think we're in the same climate where people are guaranteed to want the same Nintendo title across the board. I think you're right that Switch is better off sold by itself, and the cheaper the better.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

What makes sense is to make a budget concept game like a Nintendo Switch Play (mini-game comp) that showcases the multiplayer anywhere nature of the system.

whats the concept for the Switch

"its a Wii U but now you can take it with you for three hours"

 

[Neff]

whats the concept for the Switch

"its a Wii U but now you can take it with you for three hours"

At least you can take this one outside your house without needing a mains socket.

But yeah, it's basically a combination of Famicom and Wii U.

 

[lwilliams3]

whats the concept for the Switch

"its a Wii U but now you can take it with you for three hours"

I believe the right phrase is, "It's much closer to what Nintendo wanted the Wii U to be."

The tech wasn't ready yet, and Nintendo ultimately had to sacrifice hardware BC.

 

[ozfunghi]

........ Go check again the financial report. It is nice you are only talking about Wii U when 3DS exactly make a bank for Nintendo from their hardware sales.

lol

3DS is a 6 year old system with decade old hardware. Obviously it's now cheap as fuck to produce and obviously they are raking in the profits from that. And that's thanks to the SOFTWARE. Without the software, your hardware TANKS to begin with. So Ninendo's bread and butter is their software, not the other way around. It's their software that sustains their hardware, and thanks to their hardware, if it performs well, they can get royalties on 3rd party software. So all of this, means hardware pricing is crucial to keep low, and not an issue at all when the system actually succeeds. The bigger the success, the more production costs will drop and the more profits can be made ON HARDWARE in the long run as well (see 3ds after the price cut, see Wii). On the other hand, if you try to make money on hardware early on, and you don't price it correctly (see 3DS before the price cut, see Wii U), you won't sell any units. If you don't sell any units, you don't make any profit on hardware, you don't make any profit on software, production costs don't drop as fast, and you'll be stuck with an overpriced and costly console. If Switch turns out to be a succes, even if they don't make a profit at launch, they'll be making a profit in the next two years on hardware. Please see the bigger picture.

 

[RalchAC]

I would like to know two things:

A) Are docks sold separately? It would be interesting for households with more than one TV, university students that don't live at home in weekdays and stuff like that. If they are easy enough to setup, you could even bring the console with you to a friends home for some co-op stuff.
B) Does the Switch have a traditional charger?

Even if batteries last 3 hours, seeing how easy and cheap portable chargers are nowadays shouldn't be a problem. It's a compromise I would accept with those specs as long as the Switch uses a MicroUSB.

 

[ozfunghi]

I would like to know two things:

A) Are docks sold separately? It would be interesting for households with more than one TV, university students that don't live at home in weekdays and stuff like that. If they are easy enough to setup, you could even bring the console with you to a friends home for some co-op stuff.
B) Does the Switch have a traditional charger?

Even if batteries last 3 hours, seeing how easy and cheap portable chargers are nowadays shouldn't be a problem. It's a compromise I would accept with those specs as long as the Switch uses a MicroUSB.

I think it was going to use a USB charger. Type C
No idea if the dock would be sold separately or not. But your point has been raised by others.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Isn't PS4 also the fastest selling console of all time though?

It was a launch pretty sure it isn't anymore though I maybe be wrong on that.

I don't have numbers for modern machines in my database at the moment, but Wikipedia says 43.5 million PS4s through June 30, or 958 days from launch. That far in, it's no Wii.

Also since it's relevant to this thread and kind of hard to tell there, that first Wii dot is 3.19 million, and accounts for approximately one month holiday availability in NA+Japan.

Nobody but Nintendo thought $250 for the 3DS was a good idea.

Given DS was like the biggest thing ever, I thought they could pull it off--at least for a while.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

Modest expectations are NEVER a bad thing