???

I’d give up the portability in a heartbeat if it meant I didn’t have to play Zelda in potato-mode.

That’s probably the implication, but it doesn’t really make sense for them to extrapolate to that conclusion. It’s certainly possible that they’ll wait until later in the year, but I think a reveal early in the year could mean they could come out of the gates swinging and announce some big games in their usual…

metroid would be a great way to get the kinds of people who post on videogame website message boards, but not much else. it’s always been niche. now, that IS a great way to satiate those fans and say ‘hey serious gamers, we haven’t forgotten about you’.

Yeah the Switch was a phenomenal success and they merged their handheld and console departments for it. In no universe does it make sense for them to say “everyone loved this but let’s ditch the part of the market we’ve always dominated in and just make it TV only.”

The combined sales of every single Metroid Prime game, including rereleases and spinoffs, is about a third of Super Mario Odyssey’s sales. There’s excitement for Metroid Prime 4 but Metroid is not a system seller and is not a substitute for a Mario or Zelda.

I’d buy it but that doesn’t mean I’d prefer it that way

Yes. That’s not what I’m confused about. The linked article says Nintendo said (or implied) that no new console/model would be out before the end of the new fiscal year. It doesn’t say that there won’t be any news to share about a new console, it just says the console itself won’t be out by then. Now, this article is…

Fans really want Metroid Prime 4, but Metroid isn’t really a big seller. It does well but it’s nowhere near in the ballpark of Mario or Zelda or Smash Bros. It’ll be a good game to add to a launch-year lineup but I don’t think it’ll move many systems.

I feel like backward compatibility is kind of a given, the Switch is the only Nintendo system in the past 20 years to not have backwards compatibility and it's really not hard to see why it didn't. Unless the Switch 2 is a wildly different form factor, I see no reason to expect otherwise.

I’m guessing it’ll be a brand new 3D Mario game, not Odyssey 2. If they really want to blow people away with a new system, they’re going to want a brand new concept, not just a sequel to a game from their previous system. Galaxy 2 came out just 2 years later on the same system, I think if they were going to do another…

Nintendo announced earlier this year that it would have no news to share about a Switch 2 or any other gaming hardeware refresh prior to the end of its fiscal year in March 2024

Oh man, I don’t think they can hold out until 2025. Unless they have some big, big surprises I don’t think the Switch will have enough to hold people over until 2025, and if they do have some big, big surprises, they should probably just be saved for the next console.

That last point is a big one since iirc they haven’t released 70USD games since?

I’m wondering when/if they’ll port the Wii U versions of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker though.

This really isn’t a surprise to me. TotK was built on things that didn’t manage to make it into the DLC of BotW, and it really seems like they stuffed as much as they could into TotK. They always “could” find more things to do, but I can see why they’d be creatively “over it.” Some of the ideas that made it into the…

I dunno, I looked at a chart of Wii sales and it looked like it was trending similarly to the Switch. It sold ~25 million units in its best year, and ~15 million 2 years later (the year the Wii U was revealed) and even sold ~10 million the year the Wii U came out. The Switch isn’t dead but it’s certainly trending…

Oh for sure, that’s why I think this is just one last push to get what they can before announcing the next console. I was just addressing the question of whether there are people who want one but don’t have one.

After seeing these bundles I agree with you, but it wasn’t a sure thing. They showed off the Switch, the Wii U, the Wii, and the Gamecube before the last holiday of the previous system’s lifetime. Heck, when they first showed off the Wii U, Skyward Sword hadn’t even come out yet.

Here’s a chart from their website up through March of this year: