The Nintendo Switch was released worldwide in 2017 and took the gaming landscape by storm. The console itself is a massive success and one of Nintendo’s best-selling consoles ever, having sold over 85 million units, which bodes well for Nintendo considering the commercial failure that was the Wii U. But it also carved out its own unique niche with gamers because it doubled as a home console that can be hooked up to a TV but also a handheld gaming device. At the time in 2017, the premise was revolutionary, and the Switch’s ability to be played anywhere made up for its shortcomings in other areas, namely a lack of powerful hardware.
After six years on the market, the console is starting to show its age. The Switch’s hardware is struggling to run games at a consistently playable framerate, and with the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, gamers have been wondering when Nintendo will enter into the current generation of consoles with a new console release. In this article, I’ll explore Nintendo’s console history by analyzing its previous releases and speculate on what the next Nintendo console could be and should offer if it wants to stand out in a crowded console gaming landscape.
Nintendo’s Console History
Before looking ahead to the future and trying to determine where Nintendo should go with its next release, I’d like to look back to the past at their previous consoles.
Nintendo has a long history of creating groundbreaking consoles, and that history starts with the Nintendo Entertainment System, typically called the NES in America, and the Family Computer Disc System, or the Famicom for short, in Japan.
The NES was released in 1983, followed by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the Gamecube released in 2001, the Wii came out in 2006, and finally, the Wii U launched in 2012.
When looking at the Nintendo family of consoles, three consoles stand head and shoulders above the rest as being the most innovative and impactful: The NES, the WII, the Wii U, and the Switch.
The NES quite literally saved the gaming industry after it crashed in 1983 because of Nintendo’s proprietary cartridge designs. Cartridge gaming wasn't anything new when Nintendo made the NES, but the way they designed their console was. Prior to the NES, anyone could make a game for any console, and this led to a number of companies making extremely bad games and selling them as pure cash grabs to try and make as much money as possible.
Eventually, gamers got tired of playing poorly developed games, so they stopped buying games and consoles altogether. Nintendo saw this and implemented a chip system in their consoles that required game cartridges to have specific chips in them to be able to interface with the NES and play games. Without those chips, games wouldn’t work on the console, and Nintendo had the final say over what games would and wouldn’t get their stamp of approval. Less games got approval, but that led to a higher quality of game releases, which revitalized the industry in the late 1980s.
The Wii came about in 2006 and surprised everyone. Instead of focusing on traditional controller-based gameplay, Wii games were very much based around motion.
The Wiimote and its attachment, the Nunchuk, allowed for previously unseen levels of freedom and interaction when playing games. Swinging your controller in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword caused you to actually swing your sword when you were trying to hit an enemy. Motion controls in gaming led to a feeling of immersion because instead of just watching actions playing out on screen, you were physically causing them to happen.
The Wii U did for portable console gaming what the Wii did for motion controls in gaming. By creating a gamepad that could either mirror the image on your TV screen or allow you to play the game entirely on the gamepad while someone else used the TV, suddenly portable console gaming became not only possible but viable.
There were some limitations, and its limited functionality did lead to it being a commercial failure, but the Wii U’s Gamepad offered something that had never been seen or done before in terms of console gaming.
Finally, there’s Nintendo’s latest console release, the Switch, which doubles as both a handheld and a fully portable console that can be attached to and played on a TV. The Switch innovated in so many ways because it improved on almost all of the limitations of the Wii U by giving gamers a better, less bulky experience that was able to be taken anywhere instead of being limited by proximity to a console box. Improved motion controls that took a cue from the Nintendo Wii helped to round out the package.
There’s no telling what the future could hold for the next Nintendo console. But Nintendo has a long history of making innovative and sometimes industry-defining consoles and either creating trends in the console market or taking existing ideas and giving them a new spin to make them more popular than ever.
What Does The Future Look Like For The Next Nintendo Console?
When asking what the next Nintendo console will be, the obvious answer is to wonder whether or not it will be a new iteration of the Switch, which is possible, but there are some pros and cons to that idea.
Pros:
Name Recognition: The Nintendo Switch is already in the hands of millions of gamers worldwide, so releasing a Nintendo Switch 2 that’s similar to the current console with either some innovations or iterations could be a smart move by Nintendo. Instead of having to introduce and do marketing for a new console and design by explaining what it is and what it does, Nintendo could ride the power of the already extremely strong Nintendo Switch brand.
Comfort:
Gamers are already used to the Switch, so having a Switch 2 release that’s similar to the original would make them more likely to buy one if it was the next Nintendo console than they would be to buy a new console with a new design.
Cons:
Hardware limitations: Portable consoles will most likely always be weaker than stationary console counterparts because portable consoles have to be able to be taken anywhere, which means that they have to be made large enough to use, but small enough to be compact and able to be easily put in a bag or a carrying case.
These smaller designs mean that there is less room for airflow, which is necessary to cool larger and more powerful pieces of hardware like graphics cards that heat up during use. Smaller hardware means less powerful hardware as an end result, and in an era where not only is 60 frames per second gaming becoming the norm, but also 4K gaming, that could be difficult to achieve in a portable package.
Gamers invested in the Switch ecosystem could be hesitant to buy into a new platform if they’re happy with the console they already have and don’t feel the need or the desire for an upgrade.
What Should Nintendo Do To Get Gamers Attention
Given the strength of the Nintendo Switch, if Nintendo decides to create the next Nintendo console, the company will have to do something innovative to get the attention of the gaming industry at large, but also to set its new console apart from the Switch if it wants to continue to build brand awareness and capture market share.
One possibility for that would be for Nintendo to focus on virtual reality, which isn’t uncharted territory because Nintendo did create its own VR platform in the Virtual Boy decades ago. What Nintendo would or could do with VR isn’t clear, but a full-scale Legend of Zelda game could be an incredible experience.
Final Thoughts On The Next Nintendo Console:
In conclusion, there is no real definitive answer to whether the next Nintendo console should be a Switch 2 or something new.
There would certainly be benefits to there being a sequel to the Switch; similar branding would help increase the power and recognition of the Brand and be able to catch the consumer’s attention much more easily than a new console would be able to.
But there’s also the possibility that Nintendo releasing the same kind of console twice in a row could be harmful to its brand because of consumers' expectations of innovation. Whatever Nintendo decides to do with its next console, it’s clear that the bar is extremely high, but given Nintendo’s pedigree for success, I have no doubt that they’ll be able to clear it.