 One of my favorite things to do is speculate about the future of Nintendo, be it sales, games, theories about specific games, or just in general have a nice chat about something we definitively do not know enough about just yet. Today, I want to take a different spin on this idea, and speculate about the woulda, coulda, shoulda scenario. We all know the story of the Wii U by now, and no matter what metric you look at, or what reasons you think it failed to be a big seller was, reality is I think something else could have happened that maybe would have provided a very different outlook for Nintendo. What if instead of releasing the Wii U as a new generation system at the end of 2012, it instead released a Wii HD during Holiday 2010? It's a very interesting prospect, and it's something that the much maligned Michael Pachter said Nintendo should have done many times over again the past 10 years, but it never happened. What if it did though? We'd be looking at a much different Nintendo today, at least in my opinion. The Wii itself was a smashing success, 100 million units, a 9 to 1 game to console attach ratio, and the system itself literally made Nintendo billions of dollars. It is the best selling Nintendo home console ever made. It is also the only console of its generation to not be an HD, which allowed it to sell at a much lower price than the competition. This made sense in 2006, when HDTVs had a less than 50% penetration into the home environment. By 2010, however, that penetration had reached over 75% of homes in the United States, and the 360 and PlayStation 3 really started to reap the benefits of that fact. While Wii sales had already been declining pretty rapidly, the 360 and PlayStation 3 both had strong sales in 2010, 2011, 2012, and even 2013. I feel this is largely based on a number of factors, including HD support, DVD playback, and of course, software support. We all know Nintendo's software support really fell off a ledge after 2009, and by 2010, many third parties were also ready to be done with the system too. The fad of motion controls on a cheap family friendly box was seemingly coming to an end. The Wii, brand, and momentum was almost over. However, if instead of the Wii U, Nintendo released a Wii HD in 2010, the story of that generation and even Nintendo's future could have been very different. Just the concept of a Wii HD in 2010 would have been very attractive to the marketplace. The promise of Wii games in HD is great. Nintendo could have literally released the Wii U hardware without the gamepad at a very affordable price range that would have fell in line with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 at that time. It would have had an easily understood name in the marketplace, and better yet, an easy to understand concept. You are now getting an HD Wii. Now this delivery wouldn't have been easy. Nintendo would have needed to create at least 720p, if not ideally 1080p texture packs for all of their released titles, and made it easy for third parties to do this too. But imagine a world where Nintendo did just that. Free HD texture updates to the entire Wii library people already know. You not only could still bring in a new consumer base, you convert a large chunk of the already existing Wii audience who are ready for gaming in HD in the first place. In addition, all future Nintendo game releases would also support the Wii and the Wii HD with the texture pack being the only difference. More importantly, you're far enough removed from the start of that current generation that a looming Xbox One and PlayStation 4 would be far enough off on the horizon as to not overshadow the device, and that means a full AAA third party support would have made a lot of sense. It also wouldn't be a whole new generation of hardware. This is akin to a PlayStation 4 Pro situation last year, except in a scenario for Nintendo where it actually made even more sense than it does today, since there is such a low penetration level of 4K TVs, especially back in 2016. Also, if Nintendo really loved that gamepad concept, it would have made more sense as an accessory you could buy with the Wii HD on the side, or maybe as a higher priced bundle. And who knows, maybe that would change the entire viewpoint of the gamepad itself. Anyways, with AAA multi-platform games on board, and Nintendo's very best Wii titles getting what would feel like a fresh coat of paint and a second life, Wii HD would have prolonged an already amazingly successful brand name and sales to a tune where cumulative between the Wii and Wii HD, it may have outsold the PlayStation 2, and kept Nintendo's brand and consumer loyalty around in plenty of time to release their next device to coincide with the rest of the industry, either in 2013 at the same time or even a year later in 2014. Of course, we all know this didn't happen, and if it did, it's possible the Nintendo Switch never exists. It's also possible that the Nintendo Switch may have still existed anyways and could have launched as soon as 2014 when the Tegra X1 came into existence and long before anyone even thought a PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X would even be a thing. While it would still be underpowered and maybe even launch at a $50 higher price tag, you would have carried a lot of that Wii audience into the launch hype, like Sony did with the PlayStation 4 coming out of the PlayStation 3 era. You would have also been positioned to potentially release a new Switch in 2017 with the Tegra X2 and 4K output for those that want that, or if nothing else, to help put the system on par with the standard PlayStation 4, something perfectly acceptable in 2017, especially for a portable. Alas, that's not the way the cookie crumbled, and as I noted, it's possible if the Wii HD blew up that the Nintendo Switch may not even have been conceived in the first place. Of course, I bring this to your folks laps. If Nintendo went the Wii HD route in 2010, as I described above, what do you think would have happened? Do you think it would have changed their forecast? Would we have gotten the Switch sooner, later, or not at all? How would the gaming landscape change, or would it not change at all? More importantly, do you like this what if style of video? Let me know in the comments below. As always, I am Nathaniel Ruffeljantz from Nintendo Prime. If you liked this video, you know what to do. If you disliked it, hit that dislike button, subscribe for more videos like this, and hey, if you really love what we do, we do have a patreon at patreon.com slash Nintendo Prime, where you can submit as little as $1 to us per month just to show your love for our content, or $5 to gain early access to our podcasts, and we have stretch goals there that allow us to create more video series and make our podcasts more regular and even launch a second podcast that talks about a little bit more than just Nintendo, because, hey, even though we're Nintendo Prime, we understand. There's more going on in the industry, right? Anyways, I will see you guys in the next one.