Ever since Nintendo declared that the Switch would be a hybrid tablet/console that you can take on the go or play from home, there’s been chatter about what the new console would mean for Nintendo’s 3DS. Now that the Switch has formally been unveiled, general consensus has been that the tablet is an amazing improvement over the Nintendo 3DS or New 3DS, but only a modest step forward compared with the Wii U. Given how dramatically the 3DS has outsold the Wii U (61.6 million units vs. 13.6 million units), it made sense for Nintendo to focus on the Switch as a potent handheld follow-up — but that may not be the company’s plan.
In a recent interview with Wired, Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils-Aime, answered questions about how the Switch and the 3DS would co-exist, post-launch:
3DS has a long life in front of it. We’ve already announced games that will be launching in the first couple quarters of this year. There are a number of big games coming. And in our view, the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch are going to live side-by-side. You’re going to be meeting different price points, you’re going to be meeting different types of consumers, you’re going to have the newest, freshest content available on Nintendo Switch, you’ve got a thousand-game library available on Nintendo 3DS, plus some key new ones coming. They’re going to coexist just fine. We’ve done this before, managing two different systems. I think there’s a sense that Nintendo Switch is a portable device. It is portable.
