I've seen a lot of commentary online about Nintendo having "learned their lesson with the Wii U", and thus going conservative with the Switch 2 to guarantee success. But I think it's a lot more nuanced than that:

• NES: Risky, success.
• Super NES: Conservative, success.
• Nintendo 64: Conservative, didn't really pan out.
• Gamecube: Conservative, didn't really pan out.
• Wii: Risky, success.
• Wii U: Risky, didn't really pan out.
• Switch: Risky, success.

For the risky designs, that's 3 successes and 1 failure. For the conservative designs, it's 1 success and 2 failures. It's less clear on the handheld side for Nintendo, since they've always been dominant no matter what they've put out, setting aside the early period for the 3DS.

What I see is that playing it safe or taking a risk can either be winning strategies, and actually Nintendo tends to win it the biggest when they do take risks. I think people are reading too much into the Wii U's failure, then extrapolating to infinity overall generalizations which don't hold.

Will the average person on the street really want just-another Switch but with marginally-- to the ordinary person, that is-- better graphics, at a premium price point which could be as high as $499? I don't see that idea catching "lightning in a bottle" like the original NES, the Wii, or the Switch-- but maybe I'll be proven wrong.

I know that I'll buy one-- I've been on the Nintendo train since fall of 2012 via the Wii U, and I've already got the money earmarked in my March budget. But I'm also an enthusiast who builds gaming PCs and owns a top-of-the-line OLED Steam Deck, a PlayStation 5 Pro, and innumerable other things. The potential mainstream success of the Switch 2 is what I'm curious about.