| Soundwave said: Super NES had a pretty strong first six months I would say. Super Mario World, Pilotwings, F-Zero, Sim City, Super Castlevania IV, Final Fight, Super Ghouls N' Ghosts, Final Fantasy II, Contra III. All of those games were exclusive and made specifically for the SNES too ... not bad. Of course it helps when you can release a year after the Japanese Super Famicom. N64 and GameCube had critical droughts at early points in their product cycle though, that definitely hurt them badly. I think droughts early in a system's infancy can cause more lasting damage. Like Nintendo didn't release a whole lot for the SNES in 1993 (Star Fox and basically Super Mario All-Stars ... a repackaging of older games) but it didn't really matter as much because 3rd parties would pick up the slack. But BOTW and Mario Kart 8 helped the Switch have a smooth first 6 months on the market. Even Splatoon 2 shares a ton of content with Splatoon on Wii U, without that probably that game doesn't make that release window. The Switch would have had a poor first 6 months on market without those games, the launch window was basically carried by Zelda + Mario Kart + Splatoon. |
A year after the Japanese release doesn't make it the first six months though it puts those games firmly in the second year so this does nothing in refuting the point and only highlights how staggered releases may help some regions. Early droughts are not a problem if you can prevent them being a constant later on, PS1 for instance had early droughts before third parties switched over and even PS3. Only thing Splatoon 2 shares with the original are weapons the game itself had different maps, new modes, single player etc...
