Life Support Never Looked So Good
Nintendo’s hit console, the Nintendo Switch, released worldwide on March 3rd, 2017. Despite being less powerful than its direct rivals, Sony’s dominant PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s less-impressive Xbox One, Nintendo’s handheld/console hybrid system captured the attention of gamers all over the world – to the point where it has become the third-highest selling game console ever, shipping over 125 million units as of the end of March 2023. While there is no doubt that the system is a tremendous success and continues to sell well, the gaming community is beginning to look forward at what Nintendo is planning to pull out of their bag of tricks next.
The Switch being well into it’s 6th year of life without the announcement of a successor is a bit of an anomaly for the company; Nintendo’s last system, the Wii U, was the company’s home console from November 2012 – March 2017, recording only just over 12 million sales across its short, nearly 4 and a half year lifespan. Nintendo’s home console with the longest lifespan before the Switch was their first console, the NES, which released in Japan in 1982 and replaced by the SNES in 1990. While 8 years is easily the longest gap in their history, US markets enjoyed it from 1985 through 1991, setting the trend for a new console to be released by the company every five to six years. So what’s Nintendo doing?
Power Isn’t Everything. Sales Are.
Simply put, it seems that Nintendo isn’t too worried about pushing out a new, more powerful console that needs to adopt an entirely new player base. 125 million consoles sold worldwide means their software can be purchased by a gigantic portion of the gaming community. To put it into perspective, the number of people living in the United State’s most populous states are California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, totaling 123,952,896 residents according to the 2022 US census. The Nintendo Switch has sold more consoles than the combined populations of these states worldwide. Moving to a new console will be necessary at some point, and Nintendo would be wise to focus on making games from their Switch successor backwards compatible for at least a year or two, but Nintendo clearly believes that their massive install base is important to the health of their company.
Software attachment rate is important too. Nintendo doesn’t need to worry about this problem. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a polished version of the Wii U’s Mario Kart 8, has sold over 53 million units. Super Mario Odyssey has moved over 25 million copies. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which released on the Wii U as well) sold just shy of 30 million copies. These numbers show little signs of slowing down; releasing last November, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has moved 22 million copies despite community backlash over performance issues yet still has a $30 downloadable content (DLC) expansion releasing later this year. And of course Nintendo’s juggernaut title of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been insanely successful, selling 10 million copies in just three days of being available.
Learning from the Past
Nintendo has a reputation of finding ways to support their consoles as it heads toward the sunset while preparing titles for a future platform. Nintendo’s Wii similarly had a Zelda swan song with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in November of 2011, one year before the release of the Wii U. Otherwise, the Wii’s final year was mostly supported by games that had yet to be localized; The Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, and Xenoblade Chronicles were three titles released that had been localized in Europe, and were released in the states to fill in the gap. Mario Party 9 and Rhythm Heaven Fever supported it as well, and while games that certainly found fans, weren’t the ‘huge releases’ that Wii owners looked for.
Nintendo’s GameCube followed the trend as well; The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was released on both the Wii and GameCube. 2006 also brought Baten Kaitos Origins and Odama to the platform, but other than Zelda, Nintendo had little to offer its fans as they transitioned into the era of the Wii. I believe that Nintendo has gradually improved on supporting the twilight years of their consoles, but they clearly have a trend of the large titles bowing out in favor of supporting their new system with new experiences to give customers a reason to throw down their hard-earned money.
Third Parties are…Lacking
Nintendo’s GameCube followed the trend as well; The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was released on both the Wii and GameCube. Beyond Zelda, 2006 brought Baten Kaitos Origins and Odama to the platform, but other than Zelda, Nintendo had little to offer its fans as they transitioned into the era of the Wii. Nintendo has gradually gotten better at supporting the twilight years of their consoles, but they clearly have a trend of the large titles bowing out in favor of supporting their new system with new experiences to give customers a reason to throw down their hard-earned money.
Maybe more problematic than Nintendo gearing up to release a new system is the lack of third party support on their systems. Of course, Nintendo’s Switch has actually enjoyed huge third party support over its lifetime. Although they miss large releases such as Call of Duty or serviceable ports of EA’s sports games, the Switch still has received high-quality ports of games like The Witcher 3, Rocket League, Doom, No Man’s Sky, and Apex Legends. Even now, it is about to get the Arkham Collection where Arkham Knight will hit the platform for the first time. The Switch’s install base is still encouraging effort being invested into releasing games onto the platform, but Nintendo-only gamers are being left out of major releases.
Elden Ring, and consequently its major expansion, missed the Switch entirely. Hogwarts Legacy seems to be struggling to create a working build for the platform. Diablo 4 has skipped the console despite Diablo 3 and Diablo 2 Resurrected performing well. Genshin Impact was shown off early 2021 with nothing to see from it since then. Star Wars Jedi Survivor is absent from its lineup. The Switch version of Marvel’s Midnight Suns was outright canceled. All of these games would absolutely sell more copies if they could tap into the Switch’s install base; which leads me to believe that they haven’t because the investment of both time and money that it would take to get these games working well on the console is more than they believe they would bring back. Simply put, the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC have advanced way too far ahead of Nintendo’s aging console, and Nintendo gamers are missing out on excellent gaming experiences because of it.
New Software is Coming, Will it be Enough?
A new 3D Zelda game just came out, Pokemon and their 3rd-person shooter Splatoon is being supported with DLC, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still getting new tracks as part of their Mario Kart Expansion Pass, new 2D Mario is on its way, and Pikmin 4 looks like it will be another excellent RTS title for the handheld. However, Nintendo seems to be lacking major titles. We have heard nothing on a new 3D Mario title, Mario Kart 9 seems far in the distance, and Pokemon is struggling to run their titles up to modern standards. Despite the slate of games Nintendo just announced, it would be understandable for Nintendo fans to be wondering where the new, headlining titles are. I mean seriously, where is Metroid Prime 4?
Nintendo provided fans a bit of a roadmap for 2023 in their most recent Nintendo Direct presentation on June 21st. Fans of Nintendo’s mustachioed plumber Mario were likely satisfied, getting a remake of the Super Nintendo’s excellent Super Mario RPG finally bringing it to new and old fans since the original’s release in 1996. Super Mario Bros. Wonder finally takes the 2D games in a modern, more creative direction to breathe new life into a series that was beginning to feel stale in its last release New Super Mario Bros. U. Also announced was an upgraded port of the 3DS’ Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, and an untitled game starring Princess Peach.
A few games from third party partners were shown off too, like a new entry into the Dragon Quest Monsters series, a Batman Arkham collection, and a Metal Gear Solid collection. Now, between the Mario content blitz, Pikmin, and some third party titles, there is plenty of content for Nintendo fans to chew on throughout the rest of the year – however, its becoming clear that some heavy hitters are absent from the platform.
A Look to the Future
Despite the appearance of third party support dwindling, it is difficult to point at that as a reference for a new system being necessary, let alone on the horizon. Nintendo has typically been fine walking to the beat of their own drum, and Nintendo fans tend to be happy with their consoles as long as new, quality games are being released for it. However, I believe Nintendo is preparing for a Switch successor to be released in 2024. Despite Zelda, Pikmin, and Mario being excellent releases for 2023, the lack of huge, exciting games is incredibly noticeable. Even if Super Mario Bros. Wonder ends up being the best 2D Mario title in a long time (and it certainly looks to be the case), it’s still not as exciting as a brand new 3D Mario game, a new Mario Kart with a new gimmick, inventive new Kirby game, or even a Pokemon game that is ambitious while still running up to modern standards.
Nintendo is doing an excellent job at taking advantage of the Switch’s massive install base by giving plenty of new experiences for existing owners to play, but they’re doing little to entice new gamers to adopt their platform. I believe this is because Nintendo’s newest, premiere titles will be on whatever kind of system they have cooking up in their R&D department.
I just want a Nintendo Switch Advanced.
They have their Gameboy and a Gameboy mini, the OLED Switch was the Gameboy Color. Now we need our Advanced. Backwards compatible, but bringing in some new features and higher specs. No need to reinvent the wheel, just iterate for a generation and give devs more power to play with.
Absolutely. I just don’t think we need a new gimmick. I don’t think I want or need a new gimmick. The Switch hit the right spot for me as a console. It’s by far the console I’ve used the most in my life, and it’s just too convenient.
Love the parallels you made of the Switch releases vs. Gameboy releases! This is exactly what I want too - bonus points if they can add some personality back into the consoles though with themes, optional menu/eShop music, etc. Maybe the new gimmick could just be online that works well!
Switch inspired a whole form factor, and now with the Steam Deck and ROG Ally to compete with, along with Nintendo never actually having aimed for superior specs or performance, I’m kind of wondering where they go from here.
Competition is good
Tbh, I buy Nintendo because I like their games, and I don’t play any other AAA games either, with most of my time spent on stuff like Cities:Skylines or indie steam titles.
So… I don’t really care about the specs in the slightest, and I think a lot of Nintendo’s playerbase is like that as well. The Steamdeck and PlayStation getting super powerful isn’t going to get me to buy them over a Nintendo console because I like Nintendo’s games and not… the next big Last of Us, Elder Scrolls or Dark Souls clone, to be honest.
Competition is good I guess, but with every passing day, it feels like Nintendo and PlayStation are getting further away from being direct competitors and more them catering to completely different niches and subcultures.
I think this is good. The world where “gaming” was this monolithic and culturally unified activity monopolised by mostly male teens was kind of boring and extremely toxic a lot of the time. With a more diverse playerbase in terms of age, gender and socioeconomic background, the “gamer” label seems to be getting kind of obsolete, and now it feels like people follow genres, developers or trends rather than gaming as an industry. It became mainstream I guess.
God if you’re right, I can’t wait for the word “gamer” to be obsolete
I mean, I think it is far removed from what it used to be, and that’s good.
Like… people spending more hours playing Animal Crossing or Zelda than those playing Overwatch and Dark Souls aren’t really called “gamers” despite sometimes being very hardcore about some video games.
So I think “gamer” has just more and more become synonymous with that competitive gamer stereotype that flocks to games like League of Legends, Valorant, Overwatch, and so on. But like… I know people who only play Fallout, or Garry’s Mod (yes in 2023) or Nintendo games, and probably have games as their main hobby, but they still aren’t really gamers as in the stereotype associated with that word.
I’m not one to care much about graphics either, and I usually enjoy seeing Nintendo rise to the challenge in creating artistically pleasing games that are stylized to make the most of the hardware rather than pushing polygons and making everything look as realistic as possible. Games like Windwaker, Skyward Sword, and Super Mario 3D World are breathtaking despite being on comparatively under powered hardware.
However, there are other game play opportunities that show themselves with better hardware. Paths tend to be able to be more open, more enemies can be on the screen, and more actions can happen simultaneously. Even the lack of loading screens is huge! The freedom we get now in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is so immersive, it’s easy to get sucked into the game without it needing to load and breaking up the action. Another great example is the newest Ratchet and Clank game on PS5, the different environments you hop around to in that game is incredible.
But you’re absolutely right - Nintendo isn’t looking to compete anymore, not really anyway. They’re content creating the experiences they want to bring to their fans at a price point that is accessible but doesn’t cost them money. As long as their bottom line isn’t suffering, they’re happy to just keep doing what they’re known for. The lack of innovation with their online service is more than enough evidence of that.
I completely agree with this. With more resources, you can create completely new experiences that weren’t possible before. Nintendo doesn’t need to release something as powerful as Sony or Xbox, but it should still be powerful enough, on it’s own.
I completely agree! I’m just interested to see if Nintendo thinks they need to innovate and change the continuously change the wheel to compete with the new market it created, or if they’ll just think that their software will do the heavy lifting for them. Asus isn’t making games, and Steam might as well not be…so minus portability and otherwise PC exclusives, Nintendo still doesn’t have much direct competition.
At least Nintendo doesn’t seem to need to feel the pressure of an adversary to innovate other than keeping their company alive, for better (Wii, Switch) or worse (Wii U).
Nintendo said they are aiming for a 10 year lifecycle for Switch, I wonder if the Switch sales hadn’t started slowing down, would they continue with it, without releasing the next console? These new game releases should give it a slight push, but now they need a new console to keep the momentum they have built going on.
I am loving the “life support” though, if we can call it that. I can understand, people who have been with Nintendo for a long time may not want all these ports and re-releases, but with 125Million sold, there are lots of new people (like me) who got Switch as their first console. I want to play all the classics, so to have them on Switch is great for me, not to mention the nostalgia factor, that Nintendo has for all the existence fans.
I do think the third party support is slowing down for bigger games. We did have Witcher 3 and Doom etc., but they have pretty much stopped now. While I do have a PS5 too, I would love to play most of these on Switch, so that I can enjoy them on handheld too. Playing Midnights Suns, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy XVI would be so much fun on Switch.
Hopefully the console will also be a hybrid, Switch 2 so to speak, and it won’t be as powerful as PS5 / Series X, so we won’t really get all the third party games, but it would still increase the amount of games we get.
Good write up! I think that titles like TOTK show Nintendo are capable of creating great games still on the current system, and there are plenty of older games that could be ported or remastered. Does the Switch really need games like Elden Ring? I’d argue that anyone wanting to play those kind of games would already have a console on which they can be played. Yes, portability would be great for them but we’re increasingly seeing other handheld options enter the market to cater to that demographic (the Steam Deck fills this niche nicely).
And even if third party AAAs are off the table, there are a lot of great indie games that could be successfully ported to the system.
Does the Switch really need games like Elden Ring? I’d argue that anyone wanting to play those kind of games would already have a console on which they can be played. Yes, portability would be great for them but we’re increasingly seeing other handheld options enter the market to cater to that demographic (the Steam Deck fills this niche nicely).
My argument for that is, not everyone can afford multiple systems. And more games for any system (not counting shovelware) is always good. Maybe there are people who like Elden Ring, just not enough to buy a separate system for it. Or maybe they have never tried games like Elden Ring, but if they can have it on Switch, they may give it a try and find it that they love it.
And even if third party AAAs are off the table, there are a lot of great indie games that could be successfully ported to the system.
I completely agree with this, but I want more AAAs on my system too.
BTW that does not mean you are wrong. Just sharing my opinion about the points you made. Nintendo is just going to do what they have already planned, no matter what we say. 😀
That is true - I’d love to everyone to be able to experience as many games as possible. I’m quite glad that the Metal Gear games are coming to Switch as anyone that missed out previously deserves to try them! Certain current AAAs may be impossible to port to the Switch. Perhaps if/when a new Switch console is released.
My usage of switch decreases over the time since launch, despite usually there are 1~2 titles per year I would buy. (Last 2 games I bought was TOTK and Bayonetta 3. )
The most engaging game is Monster Hunter Rise + expansion because I am a MH series fan. The 2nd in place would be Mario Odyssey. I’m on slow burn with TOTK but since there are so many little things that are similar to BotW, I don’t really feel the urge to progress that much. Pretty much all the other games only occupy me for about 10~30hrs max. (BotW was a bit over 100h to 100% all shrines/side quests then feel really burned out, I did not bother max inventory or Korok seeds.) In comparison, God of War:Ragnarok, Horizon Zero Dawn series, Elden Ring/Sekiro easily push over that 100h threshold without feeling too repetitive.
I feel that TOTK could really benefit to have an actual sandbox mode after you clear the story + all shrines. Unlimited resource for crafting and respawn mobs and bosses every night to make the game last longer. Cause even duping resource just to feel more less constrained in creating stuff still feel like wasting time.
So what other games I’d like to see that aren’t open world + gimmicks on switch? I think another good Mario would be nice to have, even a 2D one is fine. There really isn’t any good 2D or 3D platformer with good quality mechanism.
