The guys over at Wired have a good interview with Reggie Fils-Amie that directly comments on common concerns I've seen posted. The full article text is here, but I wanted to share some excerpts I found particularly interesting.

[Wired]: Nintendo’s online service for Switch will charge a monthly fee and one of the incentives is one free classic game “per month.” Does that mean you lose access to that game after a month?

Reggie Fils-Aime: Correct. It means that essentially you’ve got access to that game for a period of time, and then after the month there’s a new selection. You’ll have the opportunity to buy it, but [after] that month we’ve moved on to another game. I think it would be helpful maybe to step back. Because I think it’s important there’s an understanding of the bigger vision. The bigger vision is that we are going to provide an overall online service, subscription-based, that not only will capture the multiplayer opportunity, but also the voice chat capability that we’re going to provide through a global app...

Reggie Fils-Amie: [Regarding availability] ...I know, because I read the boards and I read the comments, that there is concern about supply. From what I’ve read, the concern seems to stem from the lack of ability to buy NES Classic.... What happened with NES Classic is that was a situation where the global demand was well in excess of anything we had anticipated, and that’s what created shortages....

[Wired]: Did the surprising, to you, demand for NES Classic open your eyes to understanding the popularity of classic Nintendo products in this day and age?

Reggie Fils-Amie: We know the popularity of our classic games. That’s a known situation. The challenge for us is that with this particular system, we thought honestly that the key consumer would be between 30 and 40 years old, with kids, who had stepped away from gaming for some period of time... Because again, how many times have you purchased the original Super Mario Bros.? We thought that the consumer that already had a Wii or a Wii U and had purchased those games once or twice already, we didn’t think that they’d buy the NES Classic.

[Wired]: What does the launch of Switch mean for 3DS?

Fils-Aime: 3DS has a long life in front of it. We’ve already announced games that will be launching in the first couple quarters of this year. There are a number of big games coming. And in our view, the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch are going to live side-by-side... They’re going to coexist just fine. We’ve done this before, managing two different systems. I think there’s a sense that Nintendo Switch is a portable device. It is portable. But at its heart, it’s a home console that you can take with you on the go.

So it looks like this idea of Switch taking the portable torch is out, and they are directly chasing the XBL/PS+ crowd with their new service. Nintendo also seems to continue to be surprised at the value their back catalog has with fans.

Man, not that I had any expectations of anything different, but the continued screwing over regarding the Virtual Console stuff is frustrating. Because while he takes a wait-and-see approach, that might as well be code for "We're going to sell them to you again, and you're probably going to buy them again."

I haven't re-purchased any myself, but more than it feeling like a screw job, it also is just representative of how backwards and inelegant these Nintendo-like solutions seem to be in these departments. I'm having 360 games pop up on an almost weekly basis on my Xbox One, and meanwhile Nintendo insists that if I want to have an easy way to play the copy of Mega Man 2 that I bought on the VC for the Wii, I'd better just buy it again.

When he mentioned taking a step back, figured he meant they would step back and reevaluate the month-long ownership period idea.

Again, if we bought Mario a bunch of times, why don't they just let us hang onto it after the month period? Then once we build a library, there's an incentive to maintain our subscription with that library even if we don't play online games. Just give us a bunch of 20+ year old games to build interest for new ones within that franchise.

With the "service" Nintendo is offering (and I use that term loosely), the only way they catch that crowd is when that crowd comes around the track to lap them.

For me, the most exciting thing about the Switch was the idea that Nintendo might put all their new games onto it going forward, but I was skeptical that would be the case. The price point and the size of the device made me think it wouldn't appeal to a lot of the same people who bought a 3DS. I'm likely to mostly only use this thing in TV mode, so this is starting to feel like a Wii U that I have to buy again.

Kind of interesting how he basically confirms that the 3DS and it's games will continue to exist alongside the Switch. I thought the supposed point of the new console was to fuse the two platforms into one? Or was that just the hope? Does it mean anything that they aren't going to do that, and are even going so far as the separate the two even further by abandoning Miiverse/Streetpass on the Switch?

The more I hear about the Switch - and Nintendo's philosophy behind it - the less appealing it becomes.

I always thought the DS would continue to exist in some form. Mainly because of the 2DS. I thought they wouldn't want to abandon that cheaper priced range of hardware. I find it difficult to imagine someone giving their child a Switch to take into school and mess around with, but then I'm not a parent. I don't think there's anything really stopping them from maintaining the 3DS for at least a few more years. It has a great library and could just become a virtual console machine.

Who knows if they actually start announcing new games for the 3DS family. The real question is where the next Pokemon game ends up. If it goes to the Switch then that's the end of the 3DS.

this looks great.

@paulmako: From the sounds of it I don't think the next mainline Pokemon will be on Switch. All we've heard rumored is that a Pokemon Switch game is planned, but it could just be a spinoff like Pokken or a new Pokemon Snap. After all, the Switch Fire Emblem that was announced is a damn Dynasty Warriors game. Now I know how the Zelda fans felt about Hyrule Warriors.

It'll be interesting to see what they charge for their online service, because there's no way in hell they could ever get away with a Gold/PS+ pricing. Hell, even $19.99 for a year seems unreasonable.

It makes sense that he reassures people that the 3ds-train will chug along. You don't want to piss off your largest userbase with a console that is quite risky. That said, if the Switch becomes a success in Japan, the big games will switch to the Switch and the 3DS is slowly going to fade away.

Yeah I'm not buying what Reggie is saying about the 3ds. If it were true there wouldn't have been such a shortage in supply everywhere causing the prices to skyrocket. You never want to outwardly say no more 3ds support.

That last answer sounded very strategic to me. I wouldn't expect them to say that the 3ds line is done yet. Until the switch proves to be a success for them, they're going to leave the 3ds door open. If the switch gets a luke-warm reception they can just come back next year or the year after with their next big handheld idea and print some more money. If the switch takes off well enough, I'd bet we start to see them test the waters a bit more with some handheld series going to it. A main fire emblem would be an interesting contender since they have been on consoles before and have spiked in popularity lately.

Right now we're never going to get an answer that would hurt the 3ds's current marketability or an answer that they'd have to back pedal over in the future if the switch fails. It surprises me to see people surprised that they are saying the 3ds will live on.