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Official Pre-Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Speculation & Leaks thread

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I think... creating a successor to the 3DS that's separate from the Switch would be a huge step backwards. Combining their handheld and home console markets was a brilliant move, so about the only thing I could see making sense would be them making a cheaper, more portable version of the Switch without the dock. That way people could get a device that would be easier to carry around and more affordable to replace should it get lost, stolen, or damaged. And it could still be able to play the same games as their home device (assuming that they have a regular Switch too), which would still have its uses for the larger screen... and maybe the controllers for multiplayer play, if the theoretical smaller Switch lacks them. There's certainly ways to make a second device that's capable of playing Switch games without rendering either device obsolete. It all comes down to features and design.
 
the 2019 games will “have more of an emphasis on the hand held experience” and the 2019 games is what they see as their way to move the “handheld experience forward

who is to say they dont come up with a more portable device that can handle games that can also be played on the switch?

though it may not be seen as reliable here but if you know the history on Pixelpar he has been right about many things before.

though i don't agree with the business move, Furukawa has already told the Japanese press that Nintendo was considering various possibilities for a successor to the 3ds.
 
who is to say they dont come up with a more portable device that can handle games that can also be played on the switch?
So basically, just a smaller Switch?
Furukawa has already told the Japanese press that Nintendo was considering various possibilities for a successor to the 3ds.
Which again, doesn’t mean anything. Nintendo has been dishonest about this kind of thing many times in the past.
 
So basically, just a smaller Switch?
id hope so. it would suck to have two consoles with different games or a console to lag or have downgraded graphics so the game can run. i suppose they are concerned with consumers finding the switch too expensive so they go to other gaming options that are cheaper and cheaper gaming options tend to be more portable.


however this guy just took the position. new leader.
 
"Considering various possibilities" could be referring to how to design the "Switch Mini" so it doesn't render the regular Switch obsolete? They would have to consider how to make both devices equally appealing so one product doesn't completely consume the other's sales.

I can definitely see a high likelihood of a mini Switch being introduced sometime in the future- probably not before they've exhausted pushing the Switch, though.
 
personally i do think it is a bad move, but i wonder if nintendo's new edit, president is nervous about google's portable gaming system they are working on. if the switch is seen as to expensive people may go to google when they get their stuff out then Nintendo loses consumers. this guy just took seat in june.

Shuntaro Furukawa Officially Takes Over As Nintendo President

i just wonder what this could mean for the 2019 pokemon games.
 
"Considering various possibilities" could be referring to how to design the "Switch Mini" so it doesn't render the regular Switch obsolete? They would have to consider how to make both devices equally appealing so one product doesn't completely consume the other's sales.

I can definitely see a high likelihood of a mini Switch being introduced sometime in the future- probably not before they've exhausted pushing the Switch, though.
They are already releasing a dockless Switch. However, it is Japan exclusive.
 
I highly doubt they will create separate systems, the Switch is obviously becoming too successful for Nintendo to drop the idea of one central gaming system. If anything, I expect future Nintendo systems to be central gaming systems like the Switch.
 
I highly doubt they will create separate systems, the Switch is obviously becoming too successful for Nintendo to drop the idea of one central gaming system. If anything, I expect future Nintendo systems to be central gaming systems like the Switch.
But what happens if it fails? Nintendo would have nothing to fall back on. That's why they kept the GBA alive for long after the DS's launch. They needed it as something to fall back on if the DS failed.
 
Deciding the big, unexpected change of a generation is an entirely subjective idea. Everyone has their different opinions on what changes are bigger or what's unexpected. You listed the physical/special split as Gen 4's big curveball, but multiple review sites don't even mention it, instead considering the online play the biggest feature. Honestly, I can't even find mention of the split that's not on a site more focused on the metagame, apart from a TV Tropes review five years after the games came out. (Frankly, I'd even say considering it unexpected or unprecedented is subjective, too-the concept of contact already existed in Gen 3, and the concept of physical and special had already been altered with the split of the special stat in gen 2)

The scale of these changes also varies greatly between them. Some of them actually created new conventions for the series (the split and Megas, which have been carried over in all gens since), while others were just about the absence of expected games, not even affecting the gameplay of half the generation. (I think the absence of Z is a bit of stretch to call a big curveball-it contributed literally nothing.)

That's why I said this:

I agree that there is likely to be new and unexpected changes in Gen 8, but it doesn't make sense to say that it's most likely to try to change established gameplay because you've singled out these changes. While it's true they've all broken convention, they've done so in drastically different ways-timing of releases, altering established gameplay mechanics, adding new mechanics, altering story, or even just designing a Pokemon that hasn't been designed before (a legendary prevo)-and new designs are done in every game, I might add.

My point in listing those other changes was to show that convention breaking isn't as simple as one big curveball designed to get the biggest surprise, it's about improving on what's established in innovative ways. (And isn't it kind of contradictory to base a pattern-breaking theory on a pattern, anyways?)
I'm going to try to explain myself one more time. I understand that Game Freak does not break convention willy-nilly, and it's not done inorganically, but they do do it every generation (since at least Gen IV) in a tasteful manner.

The reason why I picked the physical/special split for Gen IV is because types had either been "special" or "physical" types until that point, being a broken convention. Online play may be the major introduction of the generation, but it broke no already-established conventions, since it's difficult to argue that Pokemon was intentionally keeping trades and battles local-only. The matter of fact is that Game Freak does break a different convention each generation, and I can't imagine there being that many conventions that are still around that someone can't try to list them instead of critiquing the logic of "predicting."

To be clear, I'm not trying to predict anything. I just want to compile a list of what convention could be broken next, since it's interesting to see the possibilities. Wasn't trying to be rude, but I had to clarify what I meant, since what I'm trying to say isn't coming across as easily as I hoped it would :LOL:.
 
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But what happens if it fails? Nintendo would have nothing to fall back on. That's why they kept the GBA alive for long after the DS's launch. They needed it as something to fall back on if the DS failed.

Good thing the Switch didn’t fail then. It’s a successful system as it is.


well there are investors who have been "freaking out" as many articles put it over the switch not actually doing well for some reason. and then there were various articles about the stocks of nintendo.
perhaps this handheld console idea has something to do with that.
i dont understand why not just stick with the switch unless they are afraid everyone will migrate to the cheaper google handheld.
all we can do is hope for the best if they decide to push forward with this idea, and according to Pixelpar rumor, they already have.


Why Are Investors Panicking About The Nintendo Switch?
 
The main reason investors are shaky on the Switch is because of E3. They had so little new content to announce at the presentation and there's so many games that we know nothing about that didn't even get a mention at E3 (Metroid Prime 4, Yoshi, Pikmin 4, the 2019 Pokemon game, Bayonetta 3). It's hard to really have confidence in the Switch's future, and therefore confidence in investing in Nintendo, when we know almost nothing of what's happening beyond December 2018.
 
I don't quite understand how it behooves Nintendo to be so tight lipped about their upcoming games. Even if they don't have anything to show, at least an acknowledgement of the games' existence would help to quell the uproars of expectant fans.
 
They've never had much to say about games past December. Last year just looked better with BoTW, Kart Deluxe, Splatoon 2 and Odyssey, and since Nintendo raised the sales expectations, I guess that stockholders just had more in mind.
 
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They are already releasing a dockless Switch. However, it is Japan exclusive.
The dockless Switch is just a regular Switch without the dock, though, and is being released pretty much just to encourage households to buy more than one- like say two of your family members want one, but you only have one TV so obviously you don't need to a TV dock for both of them.

Not really the same as if they were to release a brand new device with better portability and zero TV connectivity that was still capable of playing Switch games.
 
personally i do think it is a bad move, but i wonder if nintendo's new edit, president is nervous about google's portable gaming system they are working on. if the switch is seen as to expensive people may go to google when they get their stuff out then Nintendo loses consumers. this guy just took seat in june.

Shuntaro Furukawa Officially Takes Over As Nintendo President

i just wonder what this could mean for the 2019 pokemon games.

However, same will happen if they create a handheld, since people are then gonna believe the Switch was just a quick cashgrab for Nintendo and thus are turned away by it.
 
The stockholders have nothing to worry about. Nintendo is meeting the criteria for a successful console with the Switch. Having 3rd-party games that were not previously on a Nintendo system is a good start, changing 3-D Mario and Zelda to be open world proved to be a success and satisfying fan wishes on various games proved to be a great tactic to attract sales.
 
They've never had much to say about games past December. Last year just looked better with BoTW, Kart Deluxe, Splatoon 2 and Odyssey, and since Nintendo raised the sales expectations, I guess that stockholders just had more in mind.

That's the thing though, I think a lot of people expected Nintendo would have more planned for this year, but it's mainly been third party games and Wii U ports. There's been very little in terms of big, first party games this year and I think a lot of people are skeptical that they can sell 20 million units this year even with LGPE and Smash Ultimate. This year's lineup feels like a Wii U-esque drought year, and with the Switch serving as both a console and a handheld I think most people were hoping they would combine their resources so that we wouldn't see these kinds of droughts again.

Really, this is shows exactly why a separate 3DS successor is a terrible idea. The 3DS and Wii U showed that they weren't really capable of supporting two different devices, and now they're having problems even supporting one. If it simply served as a different model of the Switch that could play the same games, that'd be fine, but going back to a separate handheld and a separate console is such a step backwards for Nintendo. If they want another piece of hardware that has the 3DS' hardware features (like dual screens), work them into a Switch successor. If they need something cheaper to sell to kids, release a budget model of the Switch like what the 2DS was. But having a separate 3DS successor just seems so daft.
 
Splitting resources is the exact problem with the 3DS staying. Some may make the argument of the 3DS having the biggest library of games, but until Nintendo is willing to let go of the 3DS for good like they did with the Wii U, the problem will persist.
 
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