@natsock @rasterman @coolboymew @mangeurdenuage @mrsaturday @why I honestly don't think Nintendo changed that much. A lot of stuff that came out well after iwata died was still in the oven while he was alive and acting CEO. There were questionable business decisions then, and there still are now. From going behind the scenes to shut down Project M, to not letting online Melee tournaments happen because of it being modded to do so during COVID-19 where nobody could meet in person. Iwata was closely involved in the development of the Switch as well. The Wii sold like a mother fucker and has some incredible games on it (Mario Galaxy, anyone?). The Wii U would have tanked Nintendo (due to horrible advertising, the games were really good) if it weren't for the 3DS, which still sold pretty well all things considered, and had a pretty good duration of support.
Before Iwata, you had the GameCube, N64, and SNES, all of which had absolutely amazing games but suffered from some critical design errors/business decisions especially for the time (I liken the Wii U to them in a way). You had major IPs like Final Fantasy jumping ship because cartridges didn't have enough space, and that would continue through to the Wii and even today on the switch in some cases (which has led to the horrible advent of buying streamed games).
Nintendo has incredible games, often times with really unique and polished gameplay you can't find anywhere else. They have always made very weird decisions for their systems and sometimes that has come back to bite them. They are somehow always simultaneously ahead of the curve and behind the times. The rest of the market is typically what dictates how well something they put out well be received, and you can see that tenfold with the switch. Even though it is super underpowered, it fills the handheld niche insanely well and the games are focused on good gameplay, rather than the shit many people are getting tired of from Playstation especially. As a reminder, the Switch was basically fully developed with Iwata overseeing the project. If you ask someone what consoles they have, it is likely they own a Switch. Just as it was with the Wii.
@why @rasterman @natsock @coolboymew @mangeurdenuage @mrsaturday it's hard to say whether or not there will be a switch 2 or switch pro. they have iterated time and time again on their handhelds, but the only console to get an iteration was the wii with the wii u, and even then it was really in name only. nintendo is always cooking up something different and unique for their main consoles, for better or worse. given that the switch is a hybrid between these two, who really knows what they're going to do going forward. everyone is pressuring them into making essentially a beefier switch, but perhaps the logistics aren't in it for them in term of pricing it well enough while still having it be a more powerful machine (let alone talks of battery life).
my prediction is that they will come out with a completely new console that can play switch games but is not able to be played on the go, then keep developing games for the switch that are essentially boosted on the new stay-at-home console. i don't really see any other option for them at this point unless they want to release what is essentially a steam deck but locked down to nintendo stuff only, and that includes the price of the deck as well. i can't see that being a very "nintendo" move.
@coolboymew @rasterman @natsock @mangeurdenuage @mrsaturday @why maybe "completely new console" is a bad way of putting it. an add-on for the switch, like an enhanced dock or something, might be what they shoot out. i really just don't think a portable system that's more powerful than the switch (at least, for modern standards) is in the cards at the moment. there are battery life and cost issues.
@coolboymew @rasterman @natsock @mangeurdenuage @mrsaturday @why yeah the dock would essentially have to be a translation layer of sorts. it'd get really fuckin weird. it definitely wouldn't be able to add hardware to the switch itself, so it would have to interpret all the calls coming from the switch with its own hardware or something. at the very least, that would still let the switch be played in handheld mode and it would likely be a lot cheaper (in terms of parts) to produce.
of course this is me just talking out of my ass. i don't know nearly enough about programming or the switch to know if this is even a possibility. and if it's not, i really don't know what direction nintendo goes until maybe a few years from now when it is more feasible to release a switch 2.