Let's Temper Our 2021 Nintendo Expectations

[Wman1996]

Cerebralbore101 said:

If Switch doesn't deliver a great year for 2021, I'm going to assume that Nintendo thinks it's okay to abandon it's hardware mid to late gen. Gamecube had a pretty weak 2005 and an almost non-existant 2006 in terms of games. Wii's 2011 and 2012 were pretty barren as well. As Switch's 4th year 2020 has been very barren in terms of high new profile quality releases. If Nintendo has 2021 be another year with only 2-3 new high profile quality releases, then I'm going to assume that Nintendo consoles will always be front loaded, with little software support in the later years.

There's no excuse for 2021 being another light year though. BotW 2, Bayonetta 3, and Odyssey 2 should have been completed in 2020. And Nintendo has to have more than just those three games in the oven right now.

Yup.

People are criticizing me for ignoring third-party titles and first-party ports/remakes. I'm glad they exist because they give us more to play. Switch is doing far better with third-party than Wii U, and seems to have a better selection of third-party than N64 or GameCube as well.

But just look at Switch's top 20 selling games on the charts here.

Only three first-party Wii U ports (granted one is the best-selling Switch game), one cross-gen Nintendo game, two remakes, and one third-party game that uses Mario in a crossover. 

That leaves 13 sequels or new IPs that are first-party. New first-party games move Switch consoles, the ports/remakes and third-party games are an added bonus.

2020 has been a letdown for new Nintendo titles, and I'm just telling people to hope but not expect for 2021 to be much different. I would not put it past Nintendo at all to coast off of their evergreen first-party titles already released and not release as many first-party games for the rest of Switch's life as they should. This could be the GameCube and Wii all over again.