December NPD 2020: Switch 2.1 million, PS5 800K, XBS 700K

[zorg1000]

Shadow1980 said:

zorg1000 said:

Ah yes, the old "released all the big guns argument" that has been made every single year.

You mention how they need to announce something big this year while ignoring the fact that 3D World+Bowser's Fury is releasing next week which is a gauranteed 5+ million seller with potential to do over 10 million.

Then next month is Monster Hunter Rise (not 1st party but a major exclusive). MH4 & MHX each did over 4 million on 3DS so with the Switch affect+World making the series huge in the West, Rise should easily pass 5 million with potential to do 10 million as well.

On top of that we have seen over the last few years that Nintendo is more than willing to announce games just a few months before launch so the whole, "they have nothing scheduled" argument is tired and nonsense at this point.

I mentioned SM3DW+BF in a prior post. While the Bowser's Fury expansion is new, the core game is a re-release of a 7-year-old Wii U game. Will it do well? Certainly. Re-releases can and often do well, and most of these Wii U re-releases have done better on the Switch (for obvious reasons), so SM3DW ought to do at least as well as its original Wii U release. But will it move any appreciable amount of hardware? Doubtful. Re-releases/remakes/remasters aren't typically known for having any real system-selling potential on any platform, with exceptions being incredibly rare. And Nintendo is running out of notable Wii U games to re-release, or at least ones that would be worth re-releasing. I doubt there's much demand for, say, Smash 4 or Splatoon to come to the Switch when they already have just-as-good-or-better sequels on it. All they have left that there's a point in re-releasing and that people will actually be interested in is maybe the HD Zelda re-releases and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Forget ports of old games. Where's the original games, i.e., the ones that aren't ports, remasters, or remakes? Nintendo isn't really able to readily fill in the gaps between new-new titles on a consistent basis with re-releases of Wii U games anymore, so those new games will be even more essential going forward. BotW2 is the only first-party title that we know of and that isn't a port of a Wii U game that has the potential to be a blockbuster release. The rest are unlikely to be big hits (as interested as I am in Metroid Prime 4, that's never been a huge franchise commercially). And don't "The megatons are coming, just you wait" me. Sure, they could have something big waiting in the wings, but past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, and I'm not expecting mountains of huge titles in the Switch's future unless something happens in the near future to convince me otherwise.

Nintendo's biggest and best titles for any given system released this century have been relatively front-loaded within that system's life, even for their more successful systems. The DS only had a few successful top-tier games released after 2008. The Wii didn't get many big games after it turned four, with the biggest titles by far from Nov. 2010 onward being Donkey Kong Country Returns and Skyward Sword. The 3DS had only a few top-tier new games released from 2015 onward. It would honestly surprise the hell out of me if the Switch got new entries in most of Nintendo's big series. The biggest thing I could see for the Switch is a Sword & Shield sequel or a remake of an older Pokemon game, seeing as the biggest late-life first-party games for their handhelds have been Pokemon games.

As for MH Rise, that's a third-party game. Third-party titles are not the lifeblood of the Switch. In fact, it's been a very long time since third-party titles were anywhere close to being as important as first-party games on a Nintendo system. Considering how big Monster Hunter is in Japan, Rise will probably be the best-selling third-party game on the Switch by far, but it would be one of the rare third-party games on the system that's a multi-million-seller. That's a list games so small you can literally hold them in one hand. On average, people buy Nintendo systems primarily to play Nintendo games. The rare third-party hit doesn't change that.

That's a really long post to say almost nothing.

2 of the top 10 best selling Switch games are Wii U ports of Mario titles so let's not sell this game short. It's going to sell great and help keep Switch momentum high even if it doesn't cause a massive short term boost.

As for MH Rise, who cares if it's 3rd party? The discussion is about big games that can carry momentum for the system and this game will do that. It's going to move a lot of systems in Japan.

Stop talking about how they have nothing announced for later in the year, Nintendo is constantly releasing games 3-6 months after the initial reveal, it has happened for multiple games each year of Switch's life. For somebody who talks about historical trends so often you would think you would factor this key point into your analysis.