The_Liquid_Laser said:
The core of Otter's argument is, "Switch sales have peaked, because Nintendo has already fired all of their 'big guns'." Various people have made this argument and it is consistently wrong. The reason why people have been consistently wrong with this argument is because the argument is fundamentally flawed. A bad argument leads to a wrong conclusion. And yet there are still people who make this argument. The reasoning is still flawed. It will still lead to the wrong conclusion.
To see why this reasoning is flawed, let's look at the history of the argument vs what really happened.
End of 2017 argument: "Switch sales are going to plummet after this year. They've already released all of their big guns: Zelda, Mario Kart, and Mario. What have they got left? Basically Pokemon and that's it. Smash Bros will only do 10-12m."
What really happened 2018: Smash Bros wildly exceeded everyone's expectations (except tbone51). It's currently at about 19m and is still selling strong. On top of that 2018 had two more 10m+ sellers: Pokemon Let's Go and Super Mario Party. Super Mario Party is selling better than it ever has before. Pokemon Let's Go is just a spinoff title. It's not a mainline Pokemon. People treat it that way, because it has sold about 12m as of now, but it's actually just a spinoff title.
End of 2018 argument: "Switch has already peaked. It already fired all of it's big guns: Zelda, Mario Kart, Mario, Pokemon, Smash. What has it got left? Animal Crossing and that's not as big as those other games. Future Pokemon games aren't going to help much, because they already released a Pokemon game."
What really happened 2019: Switch sales kept increasing. Pokemon released and they sold a ton of hardware during the holidays. On top of that both Luigi's Mansion and NSMB U are selling well enough to likely become 10m+ sellers eventually. This is on top of launching a bunch of other games which sold 1m+, and those games help move hardware too. In reality, Pokemon Sw/Sh still moved hardware even after Let's Go. Luigi's Mansion is an established IP selling better than ever and NSMB U is a port selling better now than on it's original system.
End of 2019 argument: "Switch has already peaked. They've fired all of their big guns. All they have now is Animal Crossing and that was never as big as Pokemon or Mario Kart."
What really happened so far 2020: Animal Crossing had the best launch of any Switch title yet. Games like Zelda and Smash are setting unprecedented records and yet Animal Crossing still even outdid that. People are now asking if Animal Crossing can reach Mario Kart levels. We also find out that Switch had 27 titles that shipped at least 1 million in the past fiscal year, including 9 third party titles. All 27 of those titles are moving hardware.
Current argument: "Switch has already peaked. They've already fired all of their big guns. What do they have left? It's just sequels to Pokemon and Zelda. Sequels and price cuts can only slow it's decent. There is no possible way for Switch sales to increase."
Reality of current situation: Switch has already been selling great because of games that are not traditionally considered "big guns" plus some other titles. Here is the run down of what actually has been selling Switch so far.
Traditional "big guns": 3D Mario, Pokemon
Games performing far beyond previous series records: Zelda, Smash, Splatoon, Mario Party, Luigi's Mansion, and (of course) Animal Crossing
Ports selling better than on original system: Mario Kart, NSMB U
Spin-off title: Pokemon Let's Go
1 million+ titles: 27 games in the past fiscal year including 9 third party titles shipped at least 1m (and all the 1m+ titles from previous years)
It has been a lot more than traditional "big guns" that have been selling Switch. Notably there are a lot of franchises that are overperforming. Switch is a very popular platform. We should expect more titles to overperform. Also, Nintendo isn't just going to do nothing for the next 3 years. They will still be making games. Some will be ports, some spin-offs, and some new IP. Any of these could be a 10m+ seller, because Nintendo already has 2 titles from these categories that have hit 10m+ (Mario Kart, Pokemon Go) and another on the way (NSMB U). Of course some will be sequels like Pokemon and Zelda. On top of that the Switch is going to keep getting 1m+ seller games, both first and third party, and these will continue to move hardware as well.
The reality is that "Nintendo has fired all of its big guns" is going to keep being a bad argument until they announce the Switch's successor. That is when you can safely assume they have fired all of their big guns, because at that point the big guns are going to the next system. Also, "Switch has already peaked" is a bad argument until after you can measurably observe YoY sales going down (especially after the launch of a big game). Until that happens we can only guess when it is going to peak.
Nintendo has not fired all of their big guns. They are going to keep making Switch games including some big ones. Switch hasn't yet peaked, because we can see sales are up YoY. These two basic facts destroy the argument "Switch has peaked because it has fired all of it's big guns."
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