Console’s brand new death
In its next era incumbents and newcomers break with traditional strategy
The SuperJoost Playlist is a weekly take on gaming, tech, and entertainment by business professor and author Joost van Dreunen.
True success is self-evident.
Just ask FIFA. Touted as the pinnacle of global football, the Club World Cup was played to half-empty NFL venues.
It makes it less a celebration of sport than a reminder of what happens when cultural relevance slips. This wasn’t just a marketing failure. It was a symptom of cultural detachment and institutional overreach.
Ticket prices are well beyond reach for average fans, with some openers starting at $223 and upper-deck seats topping $100. And foreign fans now face travel barriers, visa denials, or political hostility. What should be a populist ritual—cheap seats, loud chants, flags in the wind—has been repackaged as a premium product, made inaccessible, and, subsequently, stripped of its meaning.
The same was true at the 250th anniversary military parade, which landed with a thud. Meant to project strength, it instead revealed isolation. Spectacle without spectators suggests a state without consensus.
By contrast, digital communities, often dismissed as trivial or less “real”, continue to grow in size, energy, and influence. Titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, Helldivers 2, and Trench Crusade (more on this one soon!) thrive not because of massive marketing budgets, but because people showed up. They bring others with them. Success online is self-reinforcing. It’s social proof at scale.
In both physical and digital life, presence is power. And absence is a signal.
On to this week’s update.
BIG READ: Console’s brand new death
It’s a long-standing tradition to call for the death of the console during its transition to new hardware. Declining sales toward the end of a generational cycle, in anticipation of the next, seem to suggest to investors and observers that the category at large is in decline and on its way out. Historically, that observation is incorrect.
Even so, the current console cycle is clearly different from before. Nintendo’s new device, launched globally last week, kicks off the next era. But this time, incumbents have different ideas on the future of console gaming. As do a few newcomers.
To start, Nintendo’s emergent strategy centers on leveraging its IP across a range of entertainment channels. Following the 2023 success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the opening of several amusement parks, Nintendo has started blending mass-market reach with targeted high-value segments.
The Japanese firm is a household brand with clear values that cater to a broad audience. In the lead-up to the Switch 2’s release, for instance, it could count on abundant mainstream media attention with a host of outlets doing in-depth analyses on Nintendo’s history and the popularity of its brands.
An important part of the narrative Nintendo undoubtedly seeks to control is that the current launch will not be a repeat of previously disappointing releases. Following the massive success of the Wii, the Wii U greatly under-delivered. Analysts have compared the Switch 2 to the Wii U, another marginal hardware upgrade. Without a new Mario or Zelda, many doubted its ability to match the Switch’s breakout success.
It is probably why Nintendo posted a new industry record, announcing it sold 3.5 million units worldwide within its first four days, making it “the highest global sales level for any Nintendo hardware.” According to Circana, 1.1 million units were sold in the US alone. Despite previous anxieties around tariffs, a historically higher price point, and pre-order disruptions, the first batch found buyers without a problem.
Next, Microsoft is redefining console gaming based on its relative strengths by reshaping where and how people play. Where in the past its marketing narrative would rely on raw performance alone, it is now focused on establishing itself as a gaming ecosystem that is entirely device-agnostic and widely accessible. Its emphasis on handhelds and cloud-compatible silicon indicates a structural pivot toward distribution innovation, in which hardware becomes a vector for reach rather than a moat for exclusivity.
Earlier this week, for instance, it announced a multi-year partnership with AMD as part of its broader strategy to unbundle gaming from a single console and integrate it more deeply into a multi-device ecosystem. I’d have to imagine there’s a clear efficiency to co-engineering silicon across console, handheld, and cloud platforms, at least from a tech stack perspective. It also allows Microsoft to leverage its AI capabilities and, perhaps most importantly, backward compatibility.
This isn’t just a chip deal. Microsoft attempts to reassert platform control via integrated hardware, backward compatibility, and a cloud-first future. In that sense, Microsoft is inching closer to Apple’s model of vertically integrated, user-centric design, even if it’s doing so in a fragmented, open ecosystem.
Strategically, this collaboration tightens the platform loop around AMD while raising competitive pressure on Nvidia, which dominates Nintendo’s silicon stack but has fewer console footholds. (Nvidia has all but abandoned gaming, according to The Economist.) It also raises questions for Sony, which has historically shared AMD as a chip supplier. Should Microsoft’s ecosystem strategy succeed—anchored by Game Pass, handheld Windows integration, and exclusive silicon optimization—it could recalibrate the entire platform landscape in gaming.
Next, Sony’s strategy is to evolve PlayStation from a console-first business into a transmedia IP platform. While it continues to sell hardware at scale, its strategic emphasis is shifting toward high-margin digital services and franchise expansion. Titles like The Last of Us have crossed into television with critical success, and Sony has invested heavily in anime distribution (via Crunchyroll) and film adaptations of its game IP.
It positions PlayStation less as a closed hardware ecosystem and more as the foundation for a vertically integrated content engine. Rather than chasing distribution breadth like Microsoft, Sony is doubling down on cultural depth, using its exclusive IP to build multi-format engagement loops.
The changing definition of what constitutes console gaming and gaming in general has also opened up some potential opportunities for relative newcomers. Despite having been part of gaming for a while now, two firms stand out as potential beneficiaries.
