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’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.