Topic: Nintendo Console History

[JonLeung]

Since the Switch turned five years old yesterday, I was thinking how no Nintendo console has gone six years in North America before being replaced, and it got me thinking... how do the Nintendo consoles compare to each other?  So I made this:
https://vgmaps.com/temp/NintendoHistory.png

Click on the image, or better yet, the link, to see it in full 4K glory.  Yeah, it's crowded, I don't know how I'm going to fit another one in there.  Maybe I could reduce the launch games displayed from two to one, but with the last three, I had trouble deciding which game to choose.  Interesting how there's always a Mario or Zelda game, and at least one other game specifically meant to highlight the capabilities for the new console (except for the GameCube, unless you count Luigi's Mansion as a Mario game, and Wave Race: Blue Storm as... showing water physics?  I dunno.  I heard Wave Race 64's was more groundbreaking... or "wave breaking"?)...

I learned from posting this everywhere, that there's always someone that doesn't understand leap years, and points out "5 years and 365 days" for the Wii, thinking that should be "6 years".  No, "5 years and 365 days" is absolutely correct.  We can all agree that 5 years from Nov. 19, 2006 is Nov. 19, 2011.  Then count 365 days.  Because of February 29, you only get to Nov. 18.  You need to count to 366 to get to Nov. 19 for a full six years.  6 years would be Nov. 19.  One day less would be Nov. 18.  Hence, 5 years and 365 days.  It's not hard.  I knew it would come up, so I thought about just putting the number of days, but it's hard to comprehend what I mean if I say "2191 days" for the Wii.  If I did that, people would probably divide by 365 to get the number of years, but then that would give 6 years and 1 day which is clearly incorrect.  (People should be dividing by 365.2425, that's what I do, as that is even more accurate especially over large amounts of time as it accounts for the century exceptions, as well as the every-400-year exception to that exception.)

People have been asking for an image showing the handhelds, instead of the consoles.  I dunno, I just felt like making this one one a whim.  Maybe I will later.  I will have to research how many games there are for each, which I think might be trickier.

[Grizzly]

The fact of being replaced after at least 6 years is quite interesting. If you ever decide this for handhelds, I'd like two replacement counts: 1. The time between release dates of previous handheld and successor, 2. The time between original handheld and first successor that wasn't backwards compatible to said handheld.

And well, the Switch basically replaced the handheld line, too. At least it felt that way to me as a New 3DS owner - seeing no new releases for years.

[JonLeung]

Happy 6th birthday to the Switch!  A Nintendo console made it to six years (without a successor) after all!
(Though some say it's a handheld, and I guess the original Game Boy did last nine years before the Game Boy Color came out...)

I posted this again on reddit, on r/videogames and r/nintendo, and was once again annoyed with how many people don't understand the whole leap year thing that makes the Wii's life span of "5 years 365 days" look weird.  It's one day short of six years, but that was a leap year!  Fine, if it's so hard to understand, then is it better to say it's 2191 days old?  Sure doesn't seem as intuitive to me, but at least days aren't variable like months and years are...

And today the Switch is also 2191 days old.  Sure doesn't feel like it.  Probably a consequence of getting old, but the NES and Super NES eras felt so much longer!  And I didn't get my NES right away, but like at least a couple years later (though I did rent games most weekends so I caught up pretty quick), so it wasn't even five years with that, but it really felt like... ten!  Or more!  I sure have a lot of memories and experiences that I can recall even to this day, in just the two-three years with it, and if the Switch is multiple times that, it's sad that I don't feel that way about it.  I mean, I love the Switch and its games, but I don't know if there's anything that has affected me for the rest of my life like the NES and Super NES did.

[JonLeung]

With only ten days to go, I decided to FINALLY update the lower-right corner of the image, since we have long had the Switch 2 release date, we also have the original Switch's lifespan until that.  The Switch sales data is now up to the end of March of this year, and while the average daily sales are now less that when I originally posted this three years ago - unsurprising since it's now an average over a longer span of time, and it's certainly slowed down - it's interesting that it is STILL more successful than the Wii was.  And by over 5000 more units a day, wow.

This still isn't fully updated into its final form because we don't have true lifetime sales of the original Switch, which I imagine still has a couple years left at least.  And the final Switch game is probably years away yet, too.

The image was made with 4K resolution in mind, so if I wanted to update this to include the Switch 2, I would have to make a larger, non-standard image size.  I mean, that's not a problem, really, but if I'm okay with not trying to make it fit compactly on one screen, then I might as well redesign the whole thing so all the text and images aren't packed in TOO tightly.

And if I did, I guess the two games I would use to represent the launch would be... I guess Mario Kart World and... the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour?  Maybe that's a weird choice but I kind of want to keep the pattern going of choosing a second game that showcases the features of the new console and I guess that game literally does show that.  But if it's digital-only, that might be confusing, since for the game counts I only count physical releases.  And the whole "Game-Key Cards" thing might muddle how people choose to count games...

[Cyartog959]

Well, I'd keep a careful eye about Nintendo, as many people have. Their consoles have been thrilling, but what their plans and "changes" to their next system people have seen stands against physical media and game preservation as a whole.

Those "Game-Key Cards" aren't such an "evolution" as Nintendo wants people to think and themselves claim it to be. I feel, in my perspective, and out of my own great concern, as others that stand for physical media and game preservation that share such concerns, not to mention game ownership protection, so to speak, they're just a mere repeat of what happened to certain games' discs on the Xbox 360 that seems to have full data/on-disc DLC on their games, but haven't; that content in them were locked, and only required a price to actually play them/download from said disc.

I read that kind of story before, but, believe me, it did cause problems to any that thought they had full games.

Why would any game company try to "evolve" their own physical media that speaks the polar opposite of preservation at the behest of game collectors and preservationists all over the world?

Regular discs and carts always work very well, their sizes of which do get increased from time to time, and preservationists have been fighting to protect them.

People that have heard and seen the truth about theses Key-Cards have caused them to be against Nintendo for their anti-game preservation actions, merely mirroring to what happened with WiiWare, DSiWare, and 3DS eShop only games.

Not only that, the way how these cares are, they're trying to create more repetitive steps to playing and switching between physical games numerous more times.

And, people also strongly fear that should Nintendo's servers for that system go off, regardless of any digital game getting delisted from the marketplace in and at any situation, all their Key-Cards are permanently useless. Not everyone has fast Internet connection speeds and routers.

Nintendo, turning a blind eye to gamers and game preservationists, indeed.

Honestly, I feel Nintendo's trying to bankroll the Switch's hybrid console blueprint success quite too much because of its same features... and present management's vision. And, what the successor system offers is still the same, bland experience, in UI, sounds, pretty much as the original.

Since the Gamecube, Nintendo's consoles had their own charm and senses of identity that stood them out as regular game consoles. The DSi was the first handheld to have that kind of charm and identity, and improved on the 3DS. The Switch lacks it, and so is that new system... well, even more, to be precise.

People are advising not to purchase the Game-Key Cards after this. I'm all for preservation, but given the severity of its situation, I'd advise not to. I greatly worry for those people saving physical media.

I pray for things in the gaming industry and the game preservation business to sharp turn a 180 for the positive...