The secret sauce behind Nintendo Switch’s successful launch
“Nintendo’s days on the console market are numbered”. That’s what the average gamer would say back in 2013, when the ill-fated Wii U started showing signs that its cumbersome tablet-joystick wouldn’t become the new thing.
There were reasons for that, though: since the start, Wii U’s message wasn’t clear. What was the tablet for? Was it a portable? Was it a fancy controller for the Nintendo Wii? Only those who were closely following the news could tell — and let’s face it, that wasn’t exactly the profile of most of the 100+ million people who bought a Wii.
It didn’t help that time and again Nintendo themselves struggled at proving how the tablet could be useful and innovative. Sure, it had its moments of brilliance, such as the asynchronous multiplayer found on games like New Super Mario Bros. U or Nintendoland. But later, some first-party developed games wouldn’t even bother using it, turning off the tablet screen for the whole time, as it happened with Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Maybe it was for the best, since some games suffered greatly from trying to integrate the gamepad as a way to enhance the gameplay (I’m looking at you, Star Fox: Zero.)
As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, the Wii U also was known as hard to develop for. Having such a convoluted architecture and being a commercial failure meant all the platform had was a shallow pool of third-party developers. Granted, there were great first-party titles, but having to rely mostly on Nintendo’s development teams to deliver high profile games resulted in some rough periods of drought. Things worked like that for on and on, and Nintendo’s console kept limping all the way to its inevitable demise in 2017.
And well, here we are. Nintendo Switch has launched, and despite the okay-ish line up, it’s showing some potential. It’s no Wii — that lightning hardly will ever be bottled again — , but things are turning out well to the hybrid console. According to the latest Nintendo’s financial results for the fiscal year, 2.74 million units were shipped worldwide (as of May 3rd), proving that yes, this time their console may become The New Thing. Some of that can be attributed to the old Nintendo’s strategy: in order to maintain demand, they launch an undersupplied product. Unsurprisingly, said product soon becomes unavailable everywhere, which in turn further increases hype. It happened with amiibos, it happened with the NES mini, and it’s happening with the Switch. I’m not a fan of this move, but it’s certainly understandable, given they had to keep sales steady with only Zelda as a system-seller for almost two months.
Despite everything, this success isn’t very shocking. Everybody loves Nintendo, and it’ll sell as long as they’re not goofing around with some weird, crazy concept. Nintendo Switch obviously isn’t like a conventional console, either — its hybrid nature allows for games to be enjoyed however you want. It may look like a portable, but whenever you want to play it on the TV, all you must do is slide the console into its dock and its both controllers out of the system. Innovative? Yes. Gimmicky? Nope. There’s no forced motion controls or weird tablet controller this time around. Thank god.
That’s an easy concept to communicate and a very compelling one, considering this is the first time the market witnesses real console quality games on the go. Playstation Vita and even the 3DS came close to that, but at their core, most of their game library shared the design philosophy of a portable: titles with somewhat limited scope and a simpler structure, which allowed shorter gaming sessions. That’s not a bad thing per se, but by now everyone knows mobile is eating this lunch — Nintendo releasing games on Android and iOS meant that even they acknowledged that.
As this is a 2-on-1 system, there probably won’t be a new console by Nintendo during this generation, other than the inevitable Switch revisions akin to the DSi or New 3DS. Thanks to that, pretty much every Nintendo team will be available to develop for the same system. I mean, it’s not like it’ll be a flood of Mario, Kirby and Zelda every year (AAA development isn’t cheap and quick, after all), but their combined output should make up for a very rich platform when it comes to exclusives.
Electronic Entertainment Expo is right around the corner and, although Nintendo won’t make an appearance in the show, they will host their own Nintendo Direct to announce what they have in store for the future. Some big titles for the platform in 2017 were already shown, such as ARMS and Splatoon 2, but I feel like this whole year will be early adopter territory. Super Mario Odyssey will hit just in time for the holidays, marking Switch’s true launch. If everything goes well (and I can’t think of reasons it won’t), the system will have a good userbase by 2018, which is what Nintendo is waiting before they start dropping more heavy-hitters.
Are Nintendo’s days on the console market really numbered? Time will tell, but it surely doesn’t look like.
