So when the Switch OLED was finally revealed with its built-in LAN report, new wide and adjustable back-stand, 64 GB internal storage and 7 inch screen, the lack of mention for any performance improvements was sobering. Nintendo further confirmed that the console didn’t have a new CPU or more RAM, remaining pretty much the same as its predecessor.

A more powerful Switch has been one of the bigger demands from fans over the years. It was obvious before the console’s launch that it was nowhere near as powerful as the Xbox One or PS4, let-alone their upgraded counterparts. The games were and continue to be top-notch and Nintendo still has plenty of exciting projects on the way, be it Metroid Dread or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel. One could compare this upgrade to Apple’s latest iteration of the iPhone or iPad, except more than four years later and with nowhere near the amount of substantial changes.

That being said, it makes perfect sense why Nintendo went this route. Take a quick peek at the Switch hardware sales – it’s sold over 84.5 million units worldwide as of May 2021 and regularly tops hardware sales in the United States, Europe and Japan. It’s still receiving strong software support and Nintendo has only just hit its stride with regards to indie offerings. A refresh, no matter how minor, is easy money for the company.

Nevertheless, it leaves a bad taste for multiple reasons. When Super Mario 3D All-Stars was released and touted to be available for a limited time to purchase, the ensuing FOMO helped it sell 9.01 million copies as of March 31^st 2021. Given the minimal changes made to the ports, it was a great way for Nintendo to artificially push demand and earn heaps of revenue. Titles like Metroid Dread and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD have accompanying amiibos which grant actual in-game benefits. Both titles are likely going to sell well so why not earn a little more on the side from amiibo sales? It makes sense, even if it is kind of shady.

The Nintendo Switch OLED is in the same boat especially when since the base Switch model isn’t getting a price reduction. It’s a pretty ingenuous strategy – the question isn’t whether the OLED model is worth $50 more or not but why you’d continue to pay for the same hardware when you could get it with a few new bells and whistles for a little extra. It’s the embodiment of The Simpsons’ “But she’s got a new hat!” moment.

Some fans may argue that this is par for the course for Nintendo which released several iterations of its handhelds over the years. Back in the day, there was the Game Boy Advance SP with a rechargeable battery and back-lit display…and then Nintendo released the AGS-101 model, which was the exact same but offered two brightness settings. And who can forget the lack of a headphone jack in the GBA SP, which necessitated purchasing special headphones or an adapter for extra? The Game Boy Advance sold 81.48 million units worldwide as of June 30^th 2009 and the GBA SP made up more than half that number so again, great business sense from Nintendo.

Of course, it’s worth noting that the Nintendo DSi was a significant improvement over the regular DS and released four years after the base model. It had a better processor, four times as much RAM and more storage. The New Nintendo 3DS followed roughly the same pattern, releasing more than four years later in the US after the base version and having a significantly better processor and more RAM. We’ll come back to this in a bit but both handheld lines were very successful, selling tens of millions of units.

As for the Switch OLED, things get even more intriguing when you consider the rumored Switch Pro. It’s apparently still a thing, completely separate from the Switch OLED. VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb has been hearing that it will release in 2022 and have a more “efficient chip.” Dr. Serkan Toto believes that the new model appears more like “an interim model” than a proper upgrade. “This might just be a dummy upgrade until Breath Of The Wild 2 is ready and the component shortage is over next year,” he said on Twitter. One may dismiss any rumors about the Switch Pro at this point but this does make the most sense given how recent events have impacted the world over the past year.

You could argue that expectations for the Switch OLED are mismanaged because of the rumors – Nintendo never said it was working on a more powerful Switch so why should people be upset? It’s never been one to compete with the likes of Sony and Microsoft in terms of power. But if you look back on the history of the Nintendo DS and 3DS, it absolutely has offered more powerful hardware with its refreshes. Given the number of different models for both handhelds, whether its Lite versions, XL version, “New” versions, the Switch’s release pattern becomes a bit familiar.

Granted, Nintendo hasn’t released a major hardware refresh only one year after a minor one – even the New Nintendo 3DS launched three years after the 3DS XL and two years after the 2DS in the US. Maybe it wanted to launch the Switch Pro alongside the Switch OLED this year itself but component shortages forced a delay.

Taking all this into account, the Switch OLED will release this year, make a lot of money – both off of current Switch owners and new ones – and then Nintendo could roll out the Switch Pro next year for even more returns. One could also see the older Switch slowly being phased out while $350 becomes the new entry – a price reduction could happen but looks very unlikely at this point. Again, it’s the best scenario business-wise but from a consumer point-of-view, charging for a new Switch model this year and then again next year for the Switch Pro feels kind of scummy.

At any rate, even if a proper Switch Pro isn’t in the works, the Switch OLED indicates that Nintendo is more than happy for fans to pay for the same performance they’ve been experiencing since 2017. It’s also satisfied with the current status quo where some titles struggle to maintain a solid frame rate or offer resolutions higher than 900p (and in some cases, 720p). When it’s worked out so well in terms of sales, you have to just ask: Why not? Nevertheless, looking at the heated discussions about cross-gen titles and when games on the Xbox Series X and PS5 will start having those “next-gen visuals”, it’s funny to see Nintendo firmly planted in the previous generation, proudly boasting about its new hat.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

It’s in the tradition of pretty much all Nintendo portable systems in the past – the Gameboy got Gameboy Color, the DS got DSi, and the 3DS got the New Nintendo 3DS (that was its real name). And while it’s a concept that PlayStation and Xbox both embraced with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, it seems like the Switch Pro (we’re sticking with that one till the official name inevitably requires us to call it something else, and presumably something much stupider) will be more along the lines of the old Nintendo handheld upgrades than the console ones.

We can say this because of what the reports that have leaked this system’s existence have told us – these reports have told us of a fairly massive upgrade over the existing Switch system, with a fairly thorough modernization of its capabilities and specs, compared to the more conservative PS4 Pro, for example. These rumours also claim that, unlike the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, which were not permitted to ever have any exclusives – meaning that while games could look and run better on them, they would have to run on base consoles all the same – the Switch Pro will in fact be allowed to have those. In fact, it also sounds like at least a few ones from third parties may even be in the works, games that otherwise wouldn’t work on the Switch.

This all seems to be in line with the kind of upgrades we have been told the Switch Pro will have, which allegedly include major bumps to the SoC’s CPU cores and GPU capabilities, as well as memory bandwidth, thanks to a new chip that is rumoured to be based on the newer, cutting edge Ampere or Turing architectures. More importantly, the Switch Pro is also rumoured to include Nvidia’s vaunted DLSS 2.0 technology, which allows for image upscaling and reconstruction using machine learning, and very often delivering better than native rendered images for very little in the way of performance costs, thanks to specialized hardware. All of this stuff is supposed to make the Switch Pro a hefty update – for example, we know it will support 4K resolutions, though it appears more via DLSS than natively, to be fair. And none of this accounts for other exciting components of the systems that have also been leaked, including a larger OLED screen (versus the current 6.2 inch LCD one), as well as presumably better battery life thanks to a more efficient node for the SoC.

Hefty hardware upgrades, superior construction, and at least some exclusive software make the Switch Pro more than just a simple PS4 Pro style upgrade – while it’s not a full fledged next generation successor, these would bring the Switch Pro closer to that than a PS4 Pro style incremental step up would have been. There’s a reason I specifically invoked the Nintendo handheld upgrades, because, as mentioned, the Switch Pro seems to be following in their footsteps more than in PlayStation or Xbox’s.

The difference is that having substantial upgrades for cheaper handhelds that had been made with fairly obsolete tech to begin with is a fundamentally different proposition than what we are looking at with the Switch. It was easy for Nintendo to have a Gameboy Color that was a major upgrade over the Gameboy, while still being extremely cheap. It was very easy to have a DSi or a New 3DS that provided a substantial improvement over the base systems, while still being priced very similarly. But the Nintendo Switch was not made using cheap or outdated technology. While more console-minded players may often like to sneer at its relatively more limited capabilities, the Switch was using some of the most modern SoC tech available in 2016-17 at mass market prices. Many will probably point to their $1,200 iPhone or Galaxy S and say how it outperforms the $300 Switch – which it should! But that comparison is as facile as is comparing a $2,500 PC to a $500 PS5, and then laughing at the PS5 for being weak in comparison. At those prices, you’re getting some of the best tech there is.

With the Switch already being such modern tech, then, profit margins on it were slimmer. In and of itself, this isn’t really an issue – there was definitely high markup on accessories such as the Joycon controllers (which keep drifting, so you’re probably buying a fair few of them), and Nintendo game prices, as well as increasing digital revenues, have all helped make Nintendo have the single most profitable period any console manufacturer has ever had with the Switch. But the hardware itself, that’s probably harder to iterate on while maintaining profit margins, and keeping it in the same price range as the current Switch, which is generally how their previous portable upgrades have gone. So how do we reconcile that with the seemingly fairly ambitious sounding upgrade the Switch Pro is rumoured to be?

The simple answer here is that the Switch Pro will probably be expensive. By a fair bit over the current model, actually. While putting it in a whole different tier of pricing will be counter to how Nintendo has done things in the past, the Switch is not marketed or positioned as a portable, it’s positioned as a console. And the entire concept of more expensive upgrades is far more commonplace now than it was back in the time of the Nintendo DSi, thanks to annual smartphone and tablet upgrades, or even the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. By allowing themselves to hit a higher price, Nintendo presumably leaves itself more room to make the Switch Pro more capable than they would have been able to make under their older paradigm as well.

How expensive? That’s the (blank hundred dollar) question. There are several routes the company can take here. The first one is to have the Switch Pro take the current Switch’s $299 slot, while pushing the current model down to $249 (or discontinuing it); this, however, feels unlikely. As specified, the Switch Pro seems to be far too ambitious an upgrade to be able to hit a $299 price point while maintaining the kinds of profit margins on hardware Nintendo likes maintaining. Moreover, the same reports that have leaked the system’s existence have mentioned repeatedly that Nintendo is looking at pricing it in a higher tier than the current model.

So let’s go with that option for a second – it’ll be priced higher. Here, too, we have two possibilities. The first is that the Switch Pro takes a $399 price, while the current Switch retains its $299 price, and the Switch Lite keeps its $199 price. $399, however, would make the Switch Pro the most expensive hardware Nintendo has ever put out. It’s actually eye waveringly expensive, and puts it on par with the PS5 Digital Edition, and more expensive than the Xbox Series S. Then again, similar comparisons with the then-current PS4 and Xbox One never held back the original Switch, which was priced equal to the PS4 and Xbox One as well. There’s a possibility Nintendo may feel comfortable with this pricing model for a variety of reasons:

• It keeps things simple, clearly delineating and communicating an entry-, standard-, and premium-level tier to customers;
• $399 gives them higher profit margins than trying to keep the price similar to the current model would net them;
• Switch pricing relative to other consoles has not been an impediment to its success, as mentioned already;
• They probably feel comfortable with a higher price because of their understanding that the Switch Pro is aimed at a smaller niche, and their mass market movers will still be the standard and Lite models;
• It allows them to maintain the $299 and $199 pricing for the Switch and Lite respectively, which Nintendo really seems to be a fan of doing (because believe it or not, over four years in, the Switch has not received a single price-cut, the longest a system has ever gone in history without one).

This confluence of reasons makes this pricing model seem the likeliest. However, there is a chance that Nintendo chooses to keep that model, but with lower price points, in order to maintain some of their traditional price appeal with family friendly segments even with the more expensive Pro. In which case, I can see a Switch Pro coming in at $349, the standard Switch being dropped to $249, and the Switch Lite being dropped to $149. This model is essentially the same as the previous one, just with lower prices. It ends up retaining the elegant separation of tiers that that model has, although it does end up cutting into their profit margins across the board. Simultaneously, however, $349 is a more marketable price than $399 is – core, enthusiast players are likelier to buy a Switch Pro at a price where its cheaper than the PS5, even if it’s not by much, while that same price is also likelier to catch a lot of family purchases that may otherwise have not even considered the Pro and may have stuck with the standard model.

Simultaneously, dropping the prices of the standard and Lite models ends up opening those to a whole new demographic as well. The Switch Lite is actually extremely cheap at $199, but it’s still really expensive for a portable system, and $199 portable systems have traditionally been under performers compared to their cheaper counterparts. You have to assume that at $149, the Switch Lite can tap into a far bigger audience, particularly one that just wants to play, say, Pokemon or Animal Crossing, thus leading to substantially higher sales and revenue for Nintendo as well. Of course, $249 for the standard Switch helps it too – it’s a much more appealing price than the system’s current one, and again, more are likely to pick it up at that point than right now (not that the Switch has struggled to sell at its current asking price either, of course).

Here’s the thing, it’s hard to know what Nintendo will do. Not only are they a notoriously unpredictable company, but we’re in uncharted territory as far as the Switch Pro, and even the Switch itself, go. There are also a lot of variables at play, which make trying to divine any answer with any degree of certainty an exercise in futility. I don’t feel comfortable to committing to any specific prediction, other than saying that I feel like the Switch Pro will be priced much higher than the standard model – by how much, it remains to be seen. I’m personally a fan of the three tier pricing model for the Lite, standard, and Pro, separated by $100 each, but even that allows for a lot of variation (will the Pro be $399? $349?), and, again, is more down to my aesthetic preference for its symmetry more than anything else. 

It’s impossible to know what Nintendo is planning – assuming the Switch Pro is real to begin with (which, remember, officially it’s never been confirmed). Whatever they end up doing, presumably ends up going down well – with the Switch, Nintendo has exhibited uncanny business acumen, and the console is currently on a trajectory to end up as one of the highest selling systems of all time, and well above the PS4 or Wii ever managed. We’ll know soon enough, presumably by August or September at the latest, what, if anything, Nintendo has planned.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Then there was Sony with the PlayStation Vita (back then still just called the NGP). Featuring smart device capabilities, astonishingly high end graphics that approached early PS3 games, dual analog sticks, an embracing of modern handheld input methods such as touch screens and gryoscopes, and advanced networking features, the NGP looked like the greatest handheld system ever built- and when Sony announced that they would be pricing it for $250, the same price as Nintendo’s 3DS, it was clear that they were going for the kill. We were primed for a hell of a handheld war, even fiercer than the early days of the DS vs PSP, before the DS claimed absolute dominance, and the PSP receded into the background. This time around, the handheld market would clearly be a hard won one.

"When Sony announced that they would be pricing it for $250, the same price as Nintendo’s 3DS, it was clear that they were going for the kill. We were primed for a hell of a handheld war."

Four years later, the PlayStation Vita is dead, to the extent that Sony doesn’t even announce sales figures for it anymore (a recent estimate pegged it at 10.5 million units sold worldwide to date), all major support for the handheld having died out, and Sony themselves having publicly disavowed it. The Vita got no western third party support like the PSP did, and all but a highly niche lower mid end of the Japanese market fled the system too.

The 3DS, by comparison, seems to have done better at first glance- 52 million units sold worldwide, and a healthy library of some great games. But look closer, and the cracks start to appear. In spite of Nintendo’s great support for the 3DS, western support for the handheld was stillborn, and Japanese support for it is mostly sparing, as third parties have largely stuck with the PS3 as their target system. Indie development for the 3DS seems to never have taken off, thanks to the 3DS’s hobbled and dated architecture. Meanwhile, even on a sales front, the 3DS has been a constant disappointment- it has been the slowest selling Nintendo handheld ever, outpaced by the Gameboy Advance, outpaced by the Nintendo DS, outpaced by even the PSP. The 3DS has never met a single sales target that Nintendo set for it, and it seems set to end with lifetime sales just north of 60 million- a catastrophic collapse from the 154 million the DS sold.

Meanwhile, Nintendo seem to have given up on it entirely- no major new internally developed Nintendo 3DS title was announced at E3 this year, presumably because Nintendo is shifting all of its focus to the NX’s launch next year, and after announcing and releasing a highly capable New Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo seem to have forgotten all about it, with the only exclusive game for the system being a port of an old Wii game, rife with compromises. The 3DS is dead, and while it will probably have the chance to go out on a high next year, thanks to some long pending localizations such as Bravely Second and Fire Emblem Fates, it, too, is a far cry from what Nintendo intended.

Four years later, we have two dead handhelds, which sold a collective 63 million units worldwide. The handheld war we were all waiting for never happened- it was a limp, damp squib, a no show. From a high of 235 million handhelds sold last generation – almost as many handhelds sold as consoles, mind you – we’re down to just a quarter of that number. Handhelds today are dead, having long been overtaken by the smartdevices market. The very future of the segment seems to be in jeopardy.

The question is- what the hell happened?

"Four years later, we have two dead handhelds, which sold a collective 63 million units worldwide. The handheld war we were all waiting for never happened- it was a limp, damp squib, a no show."

It’s a good question- how did we get from the highs of last generation to wherever we are today? Were Sony and Nintendo really caught so much on the backfoot by the onslaught of tablets and smartphones? Does the world really not care for anything but the most shallow experience on a portable device any more? Or did Sony and Nintendo screw up somewhere along the line?

The answer here is, everything went wrong. That is not an exaggeration- this generation of handheld devices was launched in the perfect storm of every single possible factor working against it. Yes, there was momentum from the highly successful DS and PSP, but that had tapered off by 2011- when the 3DS and Vita launched in the first place.

The reason for the failure of the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita was the introduction of smartphones and tablets, yes, but that was further exacerbated by Sony and Nintendo messing up every step along the way. This is important to remember- after all, the DS and PSP both co-existed with the iPhone and Android smartphones for five years, and they had some of their best years on the market then. The 3DS and Vita had no reason to do as poorly as they did, but Nintendo and Sony hobbled them entirely in a spectacular act of self sabotage.

Let’s start with the Vita, because that one’s far easier to work with. I don’t have to tell most people what went wrong with the Vita, because everyone already knows- Sony never gave a damn. The Vita was the perfect handheld, with a lot of power, scope for some very innovative games, developer friendly policies, and a great price. It was after it had been made, and when the time came to sell it, however, that Sony just left it for dead.

"The Vita was the perfect handheld, with a lot of power, scope for some very innovative games, developer friendly policies, and a great price. It was after it had been made, and when the time came to sell it, however, that Sony just left it for dead."

Consider, for example, that Sony enlisted no third party support for the PS Vita- evident in the fact that there was none for the handheld when it was announced, and when it was launched. Sony let a game as major and integral to their portable success as Monster Hunter jump ship to Nintendo, and it was all downhill from there. Third parties wouldn’t touch the system- none in the west, because they had been burned by the PSP, and most of them were downscaling their mobile ambitions to focus on smartphones and tablets, if anything at all, and almost none in Japan, because Sony let them all migrate to Nintendo.

This means that some of the biggest and best games on the PSP – Monster Hunter, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Grand Theft Auto, Burnout, Need for Speed – were all gone from the get go.

Consider, then, also, that Sony’s own first party efforts for the Vita were thoroughly lacking, and completely failed to build on the successes that they had had on the PSP. We did not get a new original Ratchet and Clank, we did not get a new Patapon, we did not get a new LocoRoco.

I can hear the objections to these arguments brewing already, so let me pre-empt you: Sony did try, you say. They got Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty to be the headlining games for the Vita, after all- two of the biggest franchises on their handheld! How, then, can I say that they did not try with third parties? And what about games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush, Tearaway, Killzone Mercenary, or LittleBigPlanet Portable? How can I say they didn’t try with their first party efforts?

"While Sony did in fact get a new Assassin’s Creed and a new Call of Duty for the system, that was also really all they did- and in the process, Sony completely forgot to capitalize on Japanese third party development."

The answer is simple- while Sony did in fact get a new Assassin’s Creed and a new Call of Duty for the system, that was also really all they did- and in the process, Sony completely forgot to capitalize on Japanese third party development, which, I must remind you, was what the PSP had been best at by the end, thanks to the success of games like Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Monster Hunter Freedom 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Those third parties were completely ignored in lieu of western third parties, who had long since determined that handheld game development was not for them, after their failure on the PSP. Sony failed to build on their own momentum, in a futile attempt to chase western third parties, and even there, they stopped after securing two token, throwaway and ultimately terrible games- an attempt to capitalize on the Vita-PS3 development ecosystem was never made.

Their first party initiatives were no better- just months after the launch of the Vita, Sony’s biggest first party studio, Naughty Dog, was seen publicly dismissing the Vita. In spite of this, on paper, Sony’s attempts seem impressive: a new Uncharted, a new Wipeout, a new ModNation Racers, a new Killzone, a new LittleBigPlanet, a new Resistance, as well as ports of Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter games, alongside some new IPs such as Gravity Rush, Soul Sacrifice, and Tearaway. What did they do wrong here, then?

The issue was almost all of those games were poor, being outsourced to low tier studios, which led to a bad stigma associated with games on the Vita overall- remember terrible, substandard games like Resistance: Burning Skies? Remember how bad the Vita ports for games like Sly 4 or Jak and Daxter Trilogy were? Remember how gimmickly games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss felt?

The further issue was that when Sony did have a good Vita game launching, they completely neglected to market it- how can anyone buy Tearaway, or Killzone Mercenary, or Gravity Rush, if they don’t even know that they exist?

"This lack of marketing of the system and its games betrayed an attitude of indifference on Sony’s part towards the Vita, which would continue to be exhibited for years after that."

Marketing was perhaps the biggest issue with the Vita- Sony completely neglected to market the system. The Vita launched in 2012 with next to no marketing, neither for it nor for its games, and it understandably tanked at retail- how would it not, when people didn’t know it was a thing, that it was out and available, that they could go and buy it? Why would any game release for the Vita spur any interest in the system, when Sony completely neglected to market said games?

This lack of marketing of the system and its games betrayed an attitude of indifference on Sony’s part towards the Vita, which would continue to be exhibited for years after that. The E3 right after the Vita launched, just four months after its launch, Sony spent more time discussing the Wonderbook than they spent on the Vita. Subsequent conferences would see them give barely a throwaway mention of the handheld, if that. The Vita would be reduced to montages, which wouldn’t even be shown off on stage- they would be shown at their booths. With such a total marketing disaster, when the Vita understandably did poorly, scaring off publishers and developers, and creating more bad publicity for the system, Sony was all too happy to burn bridges and distance themselves from the Vita entirely, pronouncing it dead in public multiple times, and completely ceasing all game development on it.

People often like to say that the biggest issue with the Vita was its overpriced proprietary Memory Cards, but the fact of the matter is, even if the Vita had had standard SD card compatibility, it would have failed- Sony ensured that it would right from the get go, and after being burned by Sony handhelds twice in a row, the mature, high end portable market demographic that Sony had aimed for with the PSP and PS Vita had had enough, and was convinced to move away from handhelds entirely.

Meanwhile, the 3DS was a mess from the start, although the issue there comes more from Nintendo’s complete lack of understanding that the market had changed, and their sustained refusal to respond to those changes, than it does to their game support or marketing. Nintendo launched the 3DS in a blaze of publicity in March 2011, and from the beginning, it failed to meet targets- the problem here was the price, which at $250, was too high for a dedicated handheld game device, especially considering the tech that was packed into the system. For what the 3DS was offering, it was priced unnecessarily high, and it was hard to justify it given that it launched with, well, no games, and its much hyped network functionality completely hobbled.

"For what the 3DS was offering, it was priced unnecessarily high, and it was hard to justify it given that it launched with, well, no games, and its much hyped network functionality completely hobbled."

To Nintendo’s credit, they moved to resolve issues swiftly- the 3DS price was slashed by $80 to just $169 in July, just four months after the system’s launch. Nintendo got their digital and network strategy in place right around this time, and fast tracked the release of some key games, such as Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, as well. For a while, it seemed their gambit had worked, as 3DS sales took off. But they were not sustained sales, and in spite of Nintendo’s best efforts, including a killer 2013, which saw the release of games such as Etrian Odyssey IV, Monster Hunter 3, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Fire Emblem Awakening, Pokemon X and Y, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds one after the other, the handheld was faltering at the market. What was the problem here?

The issue was that the 3DS had been designed for a pre-iPhone world. The kinds of games that had made the Gameboy and the DS so successful were now all available on smartphones and tablets for just $1, if that, making the prospect of $40 games on a $150+ handheld very unappealing to most. Why buy a 3DS for Tetris, when Angry Birds was free on your iPhone? Why spend $150, plus $40 on games, on a 3DS for kids, when they could just be handed older iPhones or iPads? Nintendo handhelds have always done best when they have targeted younger gamers, and more casual older gamers- the success of Gameboy and DS with games like Brain Age, Nintendogs, Pokemon, Tetris, and Touch Generations is a testament to that. Their more sophisticated, ‘hardcore’ games benefit from the massive install base boost that these more casual games bring, and sell loads. But the 3DS was singularly ill equipped to target this demographic, what with its pricing, but more importantly, the kind of games it was getting.

Nintendo had been caught wrong footed- they had no digital strategy to respond. The 3DS has robust network functionality, but the system has an obtuse, proprietary architecture, meaning that the iPhone and iPad, and even the Vita, were far more appealing to the makers of the kinds of smaller, handheld oriented experiences that had characterized Nintendo handhelds. Indie support for the 3DS was a non starter, since it was far too difficult to get these games working on the 3DS, after they had originally been designed for iPhones- which, remember, was catering to hundreds of millions of people compared to the 3DS.

In this context, Nintendo threw everything they had at the 3DS- a full fledged Kirby, a full fledged Donkey Kong, a full fledged Mario Kart, a full fledged Smash Bros., a full fledged Zelda, a full fledged Fire Emblem, a full fledged Star Fox, a full fledged Super Mario, a full fledged Animal Crossing, a full fledged Xenoblade… games that were so competent and great, that the 3DS became, essentially, everybody’s primary Nintendo system this generation. This is important- the 3DS sold as much as it did because it was fulfilling the role of a Nintendo console. People could spend just $150 to have the full fledged Nintendo experience- everything from Mario and Zelda to Super Smash Bros. to Fire Emblem was on this thing, and the games were all as good as anything ever done on Nintendo’s consoles.

"This is important- the 3DS sold as much as it did because it was fulfilling the role of a Nintendo console. People could spend just $150 to have the full fledged Nintendo experience."

This was further reinforced by the fact that the third party games the 3DS did get, from Monster Hunter to Shin Megami Tensei, from Bravely Default to Street Fighter, from Kingdom Hearts to Metal Gear Solid, were all pretty console like too. The 3DS sold as a primary Nintendo system, and in that light, its numbers become far more reasonable- its 50 million units sold right in the ballpark that Nintendo systems such as NES, SNES, and N64 sold.

The 3DS was so good at being a primary Nintendo system, it completely cannibalized the Wii U in the process. But Nintendo systems have a cap, and the 3DS hit that soon enough, after which its sales began to falter too. Understanding that the future of Nintendo lay not in its architecture, but in something else, and in the face of dropping sales and dropping third party support, Nintendo slowed development for the 3DS down. Today, it has been months since it got its last major release. It has been forever since its Virtual Console was updated. It has been months since it got its last major firmware update.

The 3DS, then, was a victim of being a system made for the pre-iPhone world. The mobile gaming market has changed dramatically, and the 3DS was ill equipped to deal with it. It managed to sell regardless, but that came more from it becoming everybody’s Nintendo system of choice than anything else. Today, it’s pretty much dead, having reached its ceiling almost a year ago, its sales having faltered after a short boost that the launch of the New 3DS brought it earlier this year.

So that was that, then- the 3DS and Vita both failed, as a result of a changing market, and Nintendo and Sony’s inability to respond to changing conditions. Today, the very existence of handhelds is in jeopardy, as Sony moves on from handhelds entirely, and even Nintendo announces its first mobile games.

"The 3DS and Vita both failed, as a result of a changing market, and Nintendo and Sony’s inability to respond to changing conditions."

The question now is, are handhelds dead, then?

They might well be- obviously, it is hard to tell how things will go. But I suspect that they are not, that they won’t be. Next year, Nintendo launches the NX, which will be a home console, and also a handheld. I suspect that the NX, made in a post smartphone world, and with all of the failures of the 3DS firmly in mind, will be equipped to handle the new market better. The issue with the 3DS and Vita was that the Vita was a device which could and should have succeeded in the post smartphone world, but its platform holder didn’t care enough to even try; the 3DS was an outdated device, but its platform holder gave it everything they had. A device like the Vita in the hands of Nintendo might have had a very different kind of life.

Which is why all indications of just what the NX is – a highly networked, digital device, with developer friendly architecture, and a unified ecosystem – are so encouraging. The handheld market may yet die, but as of right now, it seems as though the launch of the NX will be its last stand. And if Nintendo gets it right this time, who knows, they may even prove that handhelds still have a place in the gaming market.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

GamingBolt’s review for Pokemon Black and White will not go online until after the game has been released. There are, of course, several reasons for this- Pokemon Black and White are incredibly deep and complex games, and the single player portion alone takes nearly seventy hours to finish. And finishing the main story mode isn’t even half of it, as not only does the game proper begin after the story mode’s been done, but Pokemon Black and White have the deepest, richest after game since the legendary Pokemon Gold and Silver. Given the sheer number of extra things to do in this game- local co-op, online battles, sidequests and minigames, trading, importing all your Pokemon from your older games to the newer one- and well, I think you can clearly understand why we need some time with this little baby before we can conclusively tell you how good (or bad) it is.

In the meanwhile, what we can tell you is that Pokemon Black and White are very, very special games. How special? Well, without giving away anything, let’s just say that these games have the potential to topple Pokemon Gold and Silver from their lofty perch. Yep, I just said that.

For the final word, look out for the review. We hope to have the review for Pokemon Black and White up before 11.59 PM on the 11th of March, Central Time. In the meantime, I seriously suggest you guys go back and play through the DS Pokemon games one last time. It’ll be your last opportunity to bid farewell to an era that lasted nearly fifteen years.