By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
couchmonkey on 03 May 2017
Edit Thread
SpokenTruth said:
potato_hamster said:

Agreed. I just think perhaps some Nintendo fans are getting a little ahead of themselves because the past couple months have been good. We actually don't know at this point if the Switch is going to be a long-term success, and there are a lot of cards Nintendo has to play right to sustain it. Remember the Wii U actually sold pretty well for a few months before the bottom dropped out of it.

The feel is different.  It's an intangible but very real factor. Wii U had a solid launch week but that's it and that was during the holidays.  This has been solid for 2 months during late winter/early spring.

 

That said, Switch is doing way better than Wii U.  First months sales have nearly equated Wii U's first entire year and certainly has including April.

Wii U launched in Nov 2012 and sold 2.25 million units through the end of the year.  Switch sold 2.74 million in just March.
Wii U launch to 472k week 1 (Black Friday weekend).  Switch launched to 1.4 million in the first week of March.
Wii U was already down to 45k per week in January.  2 months after launch.  Switch did twice that much just in Japan last week...2 months after launch.

So not only is the feel very different, the numbers are too.  Very different.

The feel is very different, but I do think we can come up with some tangibles:

- A truly ambitious Zelda game makes for a way better, "must have" launch game than formulaic New SMB, or Pilotwings.
- The Switch hardware concept does not have anything repulsive about it, in fact it's very cool if not "revolutionary" like Wii.
- The Switch also doesn't try to trojan-horse itself as an already-popular brand (only to deliver a very different gaming experience).
- The Switch is pushing classic brands like Skyrim, Tetris, Minecraft and Street Fighter II instead of sloppy seconds like Batman Arkham City and Ninja Gaiden III.

Also, we'll see how it works out, but for my two cents, I think the strategy of pacing out game releases so there's always something new is great.  I waited a whole year to buy a Wii U and never felt like I was missing out on much...the launch period of Wii U was exciting but then it took about 8 months for Nintendo to accumulate even 2 games that I considered "must have" - Pikmin 3 and Earthbound (and isn't it sad that a 20 year old SNES game was one of my must-haves?)