Rate Nintendo's pre-covid gaming conversion of ipad/cellphone evangelism. A,B,C,D,F?

I think the switch is only doing well because of covid. I honestly would give them a D. There should have been a LTE-3DS and at least an ipad mini size DS. Covid saved their pants the same way the gulf war made CNN.

D

I’m not sure you have a firm enough grasp on Time.

Today I learned that Covid-19, which is named that because it was discovered in 2019, is responsible for the success of a console that was wildly popular from its launch in March 2017 and was already on track to be Nintendo's highest selling console ever by the end of 2019.

This take is so hot it should come in insulated packaging so we don't burn our eyes reading it.

There are a lot of words here and I'm trying to fit them together, but it's like I have pieces from three different jigsaw puzzles.

@eccentrix: Well said.

The surpassed its first year of sales projections by 700% it was the best selling console of 2018. That was all BEFORE COVID it. What has any of that to do with CNN?

@rigas: I think the meaning of the CNN thing was that the Gulf War was a big boon to CNN because there was an explosion in interest in news and 24 hour coverage. Similarly Covid was a big boon to the Switch (in OP's opinion, not mine) because there was an explosion in interest in video games when everyone was locked in.

My personal view is that COVID probably helped Animal Crossing specifically, though it would have sold fine regardless, but that the Switch was already doing great and the chip shortage might have hurt the Switch more than lockdowns helped it. Plus it delayed a bunch of big games.

@rigas: i wonder if Wii-u's launch year + 3ds sales that year surpasses 2018 Switch numbers. They downsized to 1 console. 700% of an unknown number is also an unknown number. They were competing against an xbox one, ps4, and a failed wii-u in 2018. And CNN? If you know you know.

@sometingbanuble: @bigsocrates: looking at wii+3ds+2ds numbers they were sitting at 325 million sold consoles. Switch at 93 million has a long way to go to even crack that. First year numbers are often a fluke. The Delorean sales probably had an amazing 3 minutes in there somewhere too. A nice apple made magnetized Razer Kishi type controller on an iphone and Nintendo is done-zo.

Is this… SeventhLine?

@sometingbanuble: Comparing a single hybrid console against a home console and two generations of handhelds doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Hostess sells 500 million Twinkies PER YEAR so the Switch has a long way to go to catch up with that, but what does that have to do with the price of laundry detergent in Uganda?

Most of the profit in video games is not in the sale of consoles but rather software. The Switch has an extremely high attach rate and Nintendo has been doing extraordinarily well financially. The Switch sold very well for the first THREE Years it was on the market, not one (it launched in March 2017 and Covid lock downs didn't start until March 2020) and Nintendo was extremely profitable during that period, which we know because it is a publicly traded company and reports its revenue.

By all metrics that matter Nintendo was doing great with the Switch for the three years before Covid and it didn't show any sign of slowing down. Arbitrarily comparing it to three different products that you've smooshed together for some reason doesn't change that or make it a failure. And the Wii had a notoriously poor attach rate AND stopped selling after the first few years, so the Switch was outperforming it handily.

Handhelds make less money per console sold and in software (because people buy less and the games are cheaper) so you can't just directly compare handhelds to a home console in that way.

Nothing you can say will change the fact that Nintendo was doing well financially in the first 3 years of the Switch's life so regardless of whether you want to say that Pandemic helped the Switch or not there's no way it needed saving. They were doing well before covid came along.

@efesell: I don't see anybody rating. If you think it's an 'A.' Say as much. Please reread the assignment and resubmit.

@sometingbanuble: There’s nothing to grade. You’ve handed in a single sheet of paper with the Cool S drawn on it.

This feels like a distinct possibility.

The points about sales are already being addressed so instead I'll ask what use case would anyone possibly have had for an LTE-3DS? I just checked and my 3DS XL when unfolded is only slightly smaller than an iPad mini, unless you meant the screens alone should be iPad sized which sounds like it would be impossible to hold comfortably with 1 hand. Also I'm not sure any handheld console was ever intended to 'evangelise' users away from the mobile market, that's just not the main target demographic.

In terms of gaming conversion of iPad/cellphone evangelists prior to the pandemic, I'd give Nintendo a B-, Microsoft a C+ and Sony a C-. They all did pretty well and there's not a lot in it, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

@efesell: immediately where my brain went.