Here's just two questions I would ask
1.) Is there a new Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash Bros. or epic 3D Mario available for launch day?
2.) Is there past that a strong secondary Nintendo IP (like a Splatoon-level) available no more than 3-4 months later?
If Nintendo can't answer "yes" to both of these questions, they probably shouldn't launch their system.
Even Nintendo fans can be a bitch to Nintendo if they don't get an "epic" Nintendo release right at the launch of a system, like you would think after 30+ years Nintendo could say "hey we're good for these IP, you know you're only going to play them on our system since we don't release them anywhere else, so give us a bit of a break and just buy the machine at launch, OK" ... doesn't work for Nintendo even with Nintendo fans.
Nintendo fans lose their shit if you don't give them that "wow, this is a BIG TICKET Nintendo IP new installment" ... and no, I don't think even Metroid is near enough. Metroid is a B/C tier Nintendo franchise. You gotta bring the big guns, Zelda is probably the most preferable because it generates excitement within the core Nintendo community like nothing else (unless you release a "kiddy Zelda" that Wind Waker was dubbed as).
Nintendo has to make sure they have 2 (not just 1) big titles in the launch window with the bigger of those two games being more ideally a day 1 launch title. Actually really ideally you probably want 3 ... the Switch got Zelda: BOTW, Mario Kart 8, and Splatoon 2 within its first 5 months on market, and it will be harder for Nintendo to replicate that this time around because they were able to basically take those games from the Wii U, even Splatoon 2 uses a ton of assets and content from Splatoon 1.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 18 January 2023
