“Nintendo, historically never had any second thoughts in splitting their userbase…”
Are you talking about the handhelds like the New 3ds? I’d ask where they’ve split their user base in the home market, but I’m not trying to get into a Switch is a handheld vs. home console debate. But those “upgrades” kind of prove my point.
Take a look at the games released exclusively for those upgraded handhelds and then compare that small handful of sales to those that continued to appear on the core hardware.
With a straight face, can you see any data that shows that Nintendo “badly” needed to release upgraded versions of those handhelds? If we’re being honest, I always felt that they put out those updates just to get people to repurchase a new handheld, or because they got a better deal on the silicon. Regardless, looking at something like the New 3ds only shows us that a Switch Pro really isn’t necessary.
Just like we’ve seen in the handheld upgrades, it would barely get supported by 1st or 3rd Party who are concerned with losing sales to a split user base. They’d want to go where the 60 million preexisting customers are playing. Again, I don’t see the incentive.
Lower the price and ride this thing out to 100million. Launch the next one in a few years. Don’t milk fans with minor upgrades that will only lead to minimal support. Why split your user base for a few 3rd party games that only sell a few 100,000 as it is?
