Nintendo on more announcements to come, looking to release 20-30 indie games per week in the future, more details on Switch Online..

[Mnementh]

Majin-Tenshinhan said:

It's an incredible day when people are accusing me of "pushing an anti-Nintendo agenda". I've literally never cared a lick about any other video game company. But sure, you do you. This extreme defensiveness is totally going to do wonders. Everything is perfect and any potential criticisms need to be shouted down instantly. Makes tons of sense.

Ports of old games do not cover droughts for most gamers. Like I said in an earlier post, if you didn't own a Wii U, this year is probably great. I did. I already played all of these games. Despite that, I bought Tropical Freeze again anyway because I think it's such a good game, but I've already played it. It's not the same thing as new content. Ports of games from other consoles are of course a bonus, it's never going to be a negative, but again, if I wanted to play them I would've already played them elsewhere when they first came out.

As for indies, I can count on one hand the amount of indies that appeal to me, and they're called indies for a reason. They aren't system pushers or system sellers. When I say software drought, I mean that there's a lack of compelling titles on the console that will drive hardware. If you disagree, sure, go ahead. But throwing lists around blindly of the titles being released means nothing. Are any of these titles effectively driving sales?

Nintendo say they're going for 20 million Switches sold this year, up from last year which had a Mario Kart port, a new Mario, a new Zelda, a new Splatoon and lots of more content. Looking at the lineup, that seems incredibly unlikely. Maybe you disagree? Give arguments instead of just angrily throwing lists of releases around. If any release from any company counts, I don't think any system has ever had a software drought. But we're talking about games that actually elevate the console and make people want to buy it.

I concede, again, that the ports of Wii U games will do that for people who never owned a Wii U. But beyond that, I'm not seeing much this year? I could be wrong, but I certainly haven't been convinced so far in this thread.

Well, I can see where you're coming from, although I also can see the point of the others. Basically it is an issue of different expectations. How much count indies and ports is a difficult question. For someone who hasn't owned the WiiU (looking at the sales many) the WiiU-ports are great. Because frankly speaking the WiiU had incredible exclusives no one played. Which is a pity. That's why I root for the ports, while also thinking hard if I purchase the game again. Indies I personally like many of them, but as they sell not as much I can see why this doesn't matter in the big picture. And as I don't own the competition consoles (maybe later) I can dig the multiplats. I'm very happy about Skyrim for instance. But I can see your point: if you have a WiiU and PS4/XB1 and don't dig Indies (as most) the lineup looks instantly pretty dry. As I said before, something the other consoles have to mitigate the issue are big 3rd-parties, which are mostly absent on Switch.

We could look at it with data, to egt an impression. So far this year Nintendo has one million-seller (Kirby). That's the same for Xbox One (Farcry), while PS4 has five already (MonHun, God of War, FarCry, Dragon Quest, Dragon Ball Fighter Z). But theres also the problem with this look at things: MonHun and Dragon Ball are also on Xbox One, just don't sell that much there. Yearly data also says PS4 sold 42.9 million units software, Switch 15.4 million and Xbox One 13.1 million (data: VGC). Maybe we can look at it this way: how many games could a fan buy. So dividing these software numbers with the current life-time total at sold consoles, we get: PS4-owners bought on average 0.5 games this year so far, Switch-owners 0.9 games and Xbox One owners 0.35 games. So basically many Switch-owners actually found a game they wanted to play.

I can see your dissatisfaction with the lineup, and depending on personal preferences and ownage of WiiU and/or competing consoles I can follow your argument. But seemingly the preferences of current Switch owners mostly don't align with your, and they're happy to buy into the ports or so (otherwise this figure isn't explainable, that's not Kirby alone).