Nintendo exits dedicated console market

Nintendo announced the discontinuation of Wii U hardware production months ago. Since that day they have not announced a next gen dedicated home console. Before the end of Wii U production, this has never happened in Nintendo history. Has Nintendo left the dedicated home console market for good? Please discuss..

*Note

The Switch is a hybrid so it's not considered a dedicated home console, and spec-wise it's certainly not attempting to compete with Sony/MS in the home console arena.

By whom?

And Nintendo didn't try to compete specs wise for the last 2 gens

Yeah, thank goodness. They're doing what they are best at now, which is handhelds. Good on them for making the decision.

Thoughts? good.

I have a PC... no need for stationary HTPC's... waste of time and money.

@MonsieurX: A dedicated home console by definition is a unit solely dedicated to your home entertainment. The Switch is inherently portable, with an option to display to a TV screen.

It has the option to be portable while being a home console

That's like saying if I plug a USB cable into my smartphone then it stops being a portable device. That's all the Switch hub thingy does, it gives the Switch more power to increase the clock of the device and display the image to your TV. The tablet is the console, the dock isn't.

Sounds good. I look forward to picking one up at some point and playing BotW

If I use Switch portable but I use it in my house, is it a dedicated home console then ?

after the switch they'll never make another console again

@MonsieurX: I would argue that because the pack-in joy cons have miniaturized buttons, analog sticks and triggers and they're designed to be connected to the portable unit, that it is foremost a portable. The optional Pro Controller is best suited for home console-type controls. So it seems that Nintendo is selling the unit bundled with portability in mind. Traditional home console-esque playability in the Pro Controller comes with an $80 pricetag.

Nintendo stopped competing at the high end of hardware scale since the Wii. Instead, they've went to forge their own niche: what I call the "gaming's mad scientists" niche. They're going to try different things, some of which will work (DS, Wii), some of which won't (3DS, Wii U) - but that's just the nature of experimentation. Either way, they'll sell their consoles at a profit, then come back to try again. They've made this niche their own and stuck with it, and I can at least respect them for that.

I see the Switch merely as the natural next step of this; the next, new experiment from the mad scientists' lab. We'll see if this experiment works.

White horses dragged my lover from me the clouds rushed in and drowned my sorrow with the rain

That would be sad if that happened. They don't want to make a proper console. They make the best games of all time and make underpowered consoles. They're on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

According to them Switch is a home console, so...semantics.

Its about time they stopped pumping trash hardware onto the market. I look forward to the failure of the Switch.

@Guy_Brohski: Coolyfett says yes and so what? PlayStation left the handheld market. Xbox never even tired.

Its now this PC- MAC - PlayStation - Xbox

And Android - iOS - Nintendo

Fine by Coolyfett. Nintendo should never return to home consoles. The handheld that plays on HDTVs is just fine.

Meanwhile, since Sony failed in the handheld market, the Nintendo Switch might also herald the end of the dedicated handheld console market.

Fortunately, the Switch marks the start lf Nintendo's hybrid focus. Hopefully this means that the Switch will get the best of both worlds.

You will be waiting a very long time for the switch to fail.

The Switch is the best handheld I've ever had.

I'd be fine if they just kept making handhelds. I have a PC for everything else.

Have yourself a good time with a $300 US handheld.

So they are going from "dedicated home console", to a "home console-portable hybrid". So it is still in the home console market, just not "dedicated" lol.

It's still clearly competition for Sony and MS, every bit as much as the Wii and Wiiu were. The Switch is in that lineage. The Wii introduced motion controls. The WiiU was the same as the Wii, just with tablet control. The Switch is just like the Wiiu and Wii, just with portability. All three were not powerful.

The Switch has little in common with the 3DS. Nintendo will not be combining their development houses like people thought. The Switch will continue to get home console style software. The 3DS will continue to get games from their handheld devs. There may be some overlap because of the portability of the Switch, but there will still be a separation.

Nintendo has gone on record stating the NS is a console. As it is a hybrid, the definition is grey at best so it really depends on how you use it. For me, it's a console. I bought a Pro controller with it and plan to have it docked and in console mode 99% of the time. The other 1%, it will remain in the house but allow me to play while the kids or wife have taken over the TV.

Yep, Switch is Nintendo bowing out of the dedicated console market. Switch is just a Nintendo branded tablet with HDMI pass through box.

So I guess PSP 3000 model is a home console as well since you can hook it up to a TV.

@emgesp: If you use it as a console then sure. It's essentially a portable PS2 without even half as many good games. PSP was marketed as a handheld and I've never heard of someone using it primarily on their TV. With the NS, many people will be using it primarily on their TV. It's marketed as a console that you can take with you anywhere. That's the difference.

With Nintendo defining the Switch as a home console, it shows that the definition between handheld and home console is beginning to blur.

I still consider it a hybrid.

Not if you are posting in this thread.

Good........................PS4 have dominate,is simply the best console with the best games.

it doesnt have the best games this year.

You're not making any sense

It's an hybrid that underperforms as a home device and overperforms as a portable. Still an hybrid as it even designed to boost performance when docked.

The PSP or Vita hook up to the TV is obviously a novelty. For the Switch, it is the intended purpose. This goes much more deeply than just stating it. This is core to the design of the console, not just in things like the HDMI pass through in the dock, but in the processors, controllers, and anything else you could think of. Many gamers will be playing it almost exclusively in docked mode. The portability of it is just a feature for those people.

And again, look at the software. The PSP and Vita got handheld software. Yes, they were sold as portable ps2s and ps3s, and had games like Assassin's Creed and GTA, but those were cheap-ish approximations meant to evoke the home console experience, not duplicate it. The Switch has BOTW, which is home console software without compromise. It will also have handheld/tablet type software, but this all just supports the hybrid nature of it.

Just because it isn't like the ps4 or xbone doesn't mean it isn't a home console.

You are enjoying Zelda so much that you take time out of game time to respond. LMAO.

Its always sad when teenagers get riled up so easily, take deep breaths and pretend to enjoy playing Zelda.

The switch is what the vita should have been for Sony. It's great so far. I did long for the days of a good Nintendo console but I guess this will be the closest thing to it.

Based on some of the frame rates we've been seeing in docked mode I don't think I can agree. There is a lot of talk about "half baked" consoles around these parts, but for me the Switch is the very definition of that. If the Switch really is a home console first then consider me unimpressed.

Not if it doesn't get all those great AAA third party titles. Mario and Zelda is not competition, sorry.

Switch will sell ok, but it won't sell anywhere near a swell as the 3DS or PS4. I still see 30 - 35 million units as a best case scenario for the Switch.

Eh whatever Nintendo is doing is lame and has been lame for the better part of a decade.

3rd party games will be critical to help the Switch be successful. The Wii U had some great exclusives and still failed.

I think the Switch might sell 20 million units.

I agree and I'm tired of it.

they are in an interesting spot. nintendo havent really left any market yet. withthe way modern consoles are designed everything nintendo do and learn while working on the switch will still be applicable to a dedicated home console.

consoles are not completely bespoke boxes anymore. they use off the shelf parts and tech. so nintendos selection in hardware has given them a great degree of flexability. i mean they could easily have a shield type console that runs switch games in undocked mode out by christmas if they wanted. or they could make a smaller more pocket friendly device with phone functionality. or they could really ramp it up and have a console that would give scorpio something to think about (not gonna happen. but they could).

the switch is primarily a handheld imho but it can also have a presence in the living room so i wouldnt say they have completely left the console market. they have the tools and capacity to make a console still. whether they will or not is hard to say. nintendo are hard to predict.

The Switch doesn't have to be identical for it to be competition. There could be market out there of people who don't really care about specs, never got into the AAA sphere all that much, and maybe appreciate the features of the Switch. They might have begrudgingly bought a ps4 or xbone if the Switch never appeared, but now will not. It's not as intense or as direct a competition that the ps4 and xbone have with each other, but it is competition.

It really is in the exact same lineage of the wii, which was competition for the ps3/360. You don't need the same processors or the exact same games to be competition

Sorry, the Switch is no Wii. Switch is definitely more geared to dedicated gamers, not super casuals. The Switch doesn't have a Wii like killer app concept that will bring in an entire brand new group of gamers like the original Wii did.

What you are saying is just that Nintendo's idea for the Switch isn't as good as the idea of the Wii. Either way, the Switch is still in the same lineage as the Wii. You've said it doesn't have the same processors or AAA games as the ps4 and xbone, and that's why it isn't a home console, but then according to you the Wii wasn't a home console either.

Don't really care what anyone calls it. Too buys enjoying Zelda.

Meh semi weak troll bait 4/10