Doug Bowser on the Switch’s Place in the Console Wars

Nintendo wanted recognition without joining the rivalry

Doug Bowser found it frustrating when coverage of the console wars focused on Sony and Microsoft while overlooking Nintendo’s original Switch. The former Nintendo of America president says the omission sat oddly with the system’s sales, even as Nintendo deliberately kept its distance from that rivalry. There’s a difference between declining to compete on another company’s terms and being left out of the account of who’s winning.

The Switch has sold about 150 million units, making it one of the best-selling consoles ever; only the PlayStation 2 has sold more, and by a relatively small margin. Speaking on a GamesBeat panel, Bowser recalled seeing reports that treated the market as a two-company contest. His reaction was pointed: by his telling, Nintendo had a sales record that made the omission conspicuous, regardless of how the company described its strategy.

“It’s interesting. It’s funny. I’m a pretty competitive guy. There are times when I would read news reports talking about the console wars, and they’d only mention Sony and Microsoft. WTF? We’re selling 150 million units and we’re not even included in the conversation? But there are times like this where I’m glad we’re not included in the conversation. Nintendo really chose to play in its own ocean and not get dragged down by that.”

That contradiction is the useful part of Bowser’s account. Nintendo wanted the scale of its success acknowledged, but it also saw distance from the rivalry as a strategic advantage. The Switch could be discussed as a major console without being measured solely against the hardware priorities that dominated the Sony and Microsoft comparison.

A different measure of hardware appeal

Bowser’s account captures a tension in Nintendo’s position: the company wanted the Switch’s success recognized, but its strategy didn’t depend on matching the hardware race between Sony and Microsoft. At the time, industry discussion often centered on teraflops, with ray tracing entering the conversation soon after. Those measures can help describe what a system is built to do, but they don’t tell a reader whether its games or form factor will appeal. Bowser worried that consumers might judge the Switch by capabilities it didn’t offer.

That concern points to a familiar problem in product comparisons. Specifications are easy to line up, while the feel of using a system is harder to capture in a chart. If coverage leads with processing power, a console designed around portability and a different style of play can appear deficient before anyone has considered what its design makes possible.

His confidence came from the console’s design. The Switch brought Nintendo’s handheld and home console businesses together in one device, allowing development teams to focus their work on a single platform. That combination gave the system a clear pitch: players could use one device in settings that had previously called for different kinds of hardware. It also gave Nintendo and its development teams a shared target, though the design alone couldn’t guarantee that players would embrace it.

Bowser said he was excited when he first saw and handled the Switch, but the response from players remained an open question. A product can make sense in a presentation and still fail to persuade once it reaches customers. The test was whether people would understand its appeal through the games and the act of playing.

For him, the answer became clear at the system’s January unveiling, when attendees had a chance to try its games. “It’s less about what’s under the hood and more about what’s on the screen,” he said, pointing to the experience of seeing a game and playing it firsthand as the factor that could change perceptions. Here’s the thing: that argument doesn’t make technical capability irrelevant. It says the value of a console can’t be reduced to a spec sheet. The playing.

Launch day made the case

Bowser said the launch brought that response into focus. Outside Nintendo’s New York store, customers lined up past Rockefeller Center to buy a Switch. He remembers some arriving in tears, moved by their excitement and attachment to the company’s games. It’s a vivid recollection, though one scene can’t stand in for every buyer; what it does show is how strongly Nintendo’s existing characters and games could connect with people at a public launch.

That scene helps explain why Bowser could feel both irritation and relief at being left out of the console wars narrative. Nintendo’s console had reached a scale that made the omission hard to ignore, while its appeal rested on a play experience and hybrid format that didn’t fit neatly into a contest defined by hardware specifications. This is more significant than it looks: the argument over what counts as a console’s strength also shapes how the industry describes success.

What the framing leaves out

The “console wars” label offers a simple story: two companies competing on familiar terms. But the Switch’s sales and hybrid design complicate that frame. A market account that treats processing power as the main measure can miss why a different product finds a large audience, while a sales total alone can’t explain what features or games brought players in. Bowser’s comments make a case for looking at both the scale of adoption and the experience the hardware was built to deliver.

That said, Nintendo’s distance from the rivalry is not a reason to treat the company as above competition. Bowser’s own frustration shows that recognition still mattered, and the Switch’s success gave him a concrete basis for wanting it. If you’re working in this space, the lesson is to ask what a comparison measures before accepting its categories: hardware benchmarks can describe a contest, but they can also narrow the story before it starts.

Bowser’s account doesn’t settle how future consoles should be compared. It does show why the Switch resisted a neat place in a two-company narrative: Nintendo pursued a distinct design, and players responded at a scale that made the omission noticeable. The numbers here are underwhelming only if the measure is chosen to discount what the system actually offered.