It's a trend I've noticed a lot with Nintendo's new concepts on Switch, whenever it doesn't do Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Smash Ultimate, or hell, Wii Sports numbers, it automatically is deemed a failure, even before official numbers and expectations come out. 1-2 Switch? Failure (sold 2.69 million), ARMS? Failure (Sold 2 million), Nintendo Labo? Failure (Sold 1.4 million in its first few months, and has seen sales boosts during the holiday season, so it's probably at 2 million already). 

The only exceptions to this rule are Snipperclips, which was eShop only in its original run, and Sushi Striker, a game that actually failed. 2 million is not a failure, at all. You may not like these games, but they have an audience, and are some of the Switch's best selling titles. Do people honestly think Nintendo expects everything to catch on like Splatoon or have the same audience as it? Or is it because these IP are reminiscent of the filthy Wii era, and thus, need to hold them to the impossible Wii Sports standard to justify their argument? Also if ARMS and Labo were such failures, why does Nintendo keep promoting them regularly?

[Citation needed]

Just look at this forum alone. I made an ARMS topic a while back, and 90% of the posts made were about the game being a supposed failure, and that Nintendo should move on from it or farm out a sequel to a third party so they can focus more on the safe AAA franchises. It didn't matter that the game did 2 million copies worldwide, the fact that it didn't reach the highs of Splatoon 2 or Mario Odyssey was enough for people to write the game off. 

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/dev2016/thread.php?id=237192&page=1

Anytime Nintendo introduces a new Switch IP and it doesn't immediately do 5 million in a year, then it's deemed a bomb and a total failure by Nintendo fans, Even if Nintendo considers 2 million a success. How many "Failures" is it going to take Nintendo to get it through these people's heads?

They were bad games with little base to build off, sales aren't everything, I highly doubt you will ever see a second entry for these ip's.

I think its mainly because all their New IP's just look a litte odd and niche. Splats a great success but yeah cant really see Arms and 1 2 Switch getting sequels. Even if they did sell moderately well.

They aren't bad games at all, they're simply more niche than Nintendo's other Switch games. Also, don't be surprised if you see ARMS again.

The curse of success I guess?

All I can see is people saying that the new IPs failed to have the big impact its predecessors had. Nothing wrong with that. If your regular high class IPs sell upwards of 5 million and even breach 10m then an IP that sold 2m and definitely has no widespread appeal and will certainly not build a legacy then that IP certainly failed at being the next big IP of Nintendo.

I'm not actually sure what you're even trying to defend against here. Nintendo made a new IP, it didn't reach the heights of old IPs or even Splatoon and people noticed. An original IP of Nintendo is a big deal and of course it's gonna be measured against other Nintendo IPs.

If you feel the need to defend a game, doesn't that mean it already failed to speak with its own success?

In the case of 1-2 Switch some people didn't want the Switch to be a "casual" console and so declared it a failure. I think that sentiment has changed though as the game keeps on selling and will probably sell decent numbers for a few more years.

ARMS probably disappointed because it was compared to Splatoon. I like the game a lot but also hoped it would do better. That said, 2 million is definitely not a "failure".

Labo, well... a lot of people said it would sell amazing (others said it would flop hard) and Nintendo banked on it doing huge numbers: stand-alone direct, press invites to play the game, big marketing push. That wasn't the case. It sold decently but not great. Out of the three titles Labo is the closest to a failure because Nintendo tried to push it so hard and treated it like an AAA game in terms of selling power.

They are failures because when you set the bar at Mount Everest and you reach the top of Hollywood Hills, it isn't exciting.

Really? Ever since Labo was revealed, Nintendo hasn't really given it a massive marketing campaign. Even going into the Vehicle Kit, their marketing was modest at best. So I don't think they ever banked on this thing being an instant mega-hit. Rather, every time Nintendo talks about Labo, they talk about it in long term sales. Their plan is to sell it over time, with sales boosts during holidays and new Kit releases. Even Reggie said that it met their sales expectations. 

I think people were really hyping this up to do Wii Fit/Brain Age style mega numbers instantly, but when that inevitably didn't happen, they claimed it was a failure. Labo's a weird product, so are Nintendo's other new Switch IPs. Even if they're multi-million selling titles, they're still failures for not selling like Mario Odysssey or Smash Ultimate, even though games like those are freak anomalies.