Heck, I would go on to say that year 6 was a comback year from the argubly lackluster year 5. People thought the system was on its way out back then.

As a Nintendo doom's enthusiast I gotta say it does matter. If it sells terrible we can justify our terrible mindset when it comes to Nintendo consoles.

It matters if it doesn't sell enough, but after that point, no not so much :p

Which "A-AA" games are you really worried won't be on Switch? Here's a not so little secret, most of these games are on every platform under the sun, and they will be on Switch so long as it sells even 30 million units and isn't a total pain in the ass to program on, but most devs are fine with Nvidia CUDA core based GPUs and ARM CPUs. 

I'm not really that enanmoured with a lot of these so-called "indie" or "smaller" titles because they largely try to ape play styles that Nintendo already does (and does better quite frankly). I'm sure Fast Racing RMX or whatever that is might be cool, but I'll probably be thinking about how much better a real F-Zero would be when I'm playing it. So no, I don't really go bees knees for these games, but I don't really think there's much chance most of them won't be on Switch. As long as it sells even 30 mill it will get most of these games, so what exactly is the drama here? Oh no, maybe Switch wasn't going to get Shovel Knight or Super Meat Boy?

But my game tastes are probably more eclectic than most here ... I'd gladly for example take a new Advance Wars over a new Zelda, and a new Wave Race over a new Smash Bros. anyday, but when it comes to developer support I'd simply rather have games that Nintendo just isn't ever going to make (like say a Madden game or a Batman game) than so-called "low budget" games, most of which are kinda like nostalgia throw backs (nice) but without the top tier game play to back them up (not so nice). Like "I Am Setsuna" I mean it looks obviously like it's aping Chrono Trigger, but it's a 7/10 type of game instead of the 9/10 game Chrono Trigger was for its day. Maybe that's good enough for some, it's not my personal cup of tea though. 

I don't mind shorter life cycles because I know I will buy every Nintendo system and don't go through the whole pretense of needed to be "seduced" by Nintendo every time. C'mon, you should know by now if you're a Nintendo fan and you know you will have to buy their next hardware to get future installments of their franchises. Why do we always act like we need to be "sold" on this? This is just one continuous generation basically, it's not as if I'm some how going to stop enjoying Mario games, so I'd rather get the better hardware sooner because it enables better Nintendo games. 

Do you think Breath of the Wild would be possible on the Wii hardware? Nope, not without huge sacrifices. So whatever, 4 year life cycles are fine with me, people just feign dissapoinment anyway, I said this months ago that people would bitch and cry about Wii U getting phased out and then all it would take is like 10 seconds of new Mario footage for them to be all over NX. Pretty much happened right on cue. 

New hardware is exciting, always has been, always will be, I'm just dropping the whole supposition that we should be "offended" by new hardware somehow. Meh. I'm a grown adult not a 10-year-old that is upset over new hardware because it means having to beg the parents for a new Nintendo. Bring on the new hardware. Just as Switch is exciting now, the successor will be exciting too. I know I will buy the new Nintendo hardware anyway so why should I as a gamer want longer cycles on aging hardware? There's no benefit to me as a consumer to have a longer life span, especially when Nintendo "really" only supports their consoles for about 4 years anyway. 

If they're on Vita they'll be on Switch. It doesn't need to sell 100 million units to get that type of support. Since a Vita 2 doesn't seem like it's going to happen, those devs have no choice, what else are they supposed to make games on? 

Nintendo systems are fun if you like Nintendo games. Maybe you have a different agenda and can't enjoy things on Wii U because it didn't sell as well as Wii ... I don't give a shit quite frankly. 

The real reason for "caring" about sales was primarily the whole schtick that we've been sold that better Nintendo hardware sales = way better developer support and that is just not true. As you yourself point out again and again, AAA developers are never going to care, OK, and A-AA developers just by pure economics can't afford to not have their games on any viable platform. 

So long as Switch is "viable", which can mean anyting from 30-50 million, it will get those games, and Nintendo is largely going to keep making the same types of games they always make and they will find a way to make a good amount of profit because they always do. 

So really I think putting it into context, really all the bitching and consernation about Switch sales is largely much ado about nothing. It's not going to impact much about the platform .... I'll tell you the ending to this movie if you're that much in suspense about it ... Switch will have some fantastic Nintendo games and some OK lower budget third party games now and again. It will be supported really for mostly about 4 years before Nintendo farms out projects to outsourced teams. 

And none of this is going to be terribly different if it sells 40 million instead of 80 million. Even with the Wii, you tell me that they supported that thing well in 2011 and 2012, I'd rather just have moved onto Wii U, but ultimately even that is besides the point. The point is 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 million doesn't really change anything dramatically. 

Maybe as a Nintendo fan I should feel "bad" because they're not making the max profit, but they make so much money anyway and have such a low overhead that quite frankly it's really not worth being that worried about. Nintendo has making good money even with sluggish hardware sales down to a science by this point and it's only going to be easier now thanks to mobile as a new revenue stream. 

If it sells half way decent those little indie games are going to be on the system because of simple economics. Those studios are small, they are working to put food on their table (literally), any viable system those games can be on they will be on. 

I'm not gonna lose sleep over that or wish that the Switch has to sell some unrealistic super high number to get such little in return from developers. We've gone from having top tier third party games to grovelling for same day releases of indie studio games, sorry but I just can't work up enough "give a fuck" about that. If they want to port those types of games, great, if they don't so be it. 

There's a reason too a lot of indie games aren't that great too and that's because if you're really such a hot shot programmer, designer, or artist, odds are you would've been scooped up by a bigger money studio ages ago, talent doesn't float around unnoticed very long in this business, but that's a different point. A lot of these game rely on a quirky art style but really they're 6/10 or 7/10 in actual game play, usually trying to ape (or "pay homage") to much better games made 20-30 years ago. 

Like I said largely speaking none of this is worth losing any sleep over. Big whoop if some little "it's a 8-bit game with an emotional story" indie studio doesn't make their game day and date on a Nintendo Switch, who cares. 

It's not like games like Splatoon 2 or Mario Odyessy popped out of a vacuum either, these are probably Wii U games that just got moved over to the Switch, which is a system as a Nintendo you were going to have to buy eventually no matter what ... now you can just play these games on better hardware and play them portably instead of them being stuck on the Wii U. 

Again, how is this worse for you as a Nintendo hardware buyer? Nintendo just makes games continously, if they miss one hardware platform they just move on to the next system, so the "death" of any Nintendo hardware is never really a big deal, it just means usually that a game project moves on to the next hardware and is usually better for it.  To be honest I'd take Splatoon or Mario Kart 8 or Mario 3D World or DKC: Tropical Freeze over anything on the Wii not named Mario Galaxy but that's just me. Plenty of Nintendo's best games ever have been on their lower selling systems. 

In the longrun? No, I don't think it will matter much if it sells 50m or 90m.

No usually those indie studios are maybe 1-2 guys who are burnt out of AAA development, but the dirty little secret they don't tell you is that a lot of their programming/design/art staff is filled up with relative novices or lower end employees. 

Why would a top flight programmer or designer or artist work for your little dinky studio for 1/4 the salary? In most cases they don't. It's also why a lot of these studios flounder without the proper guidance of a larger studio with a larger budget, like the Retro guys who left Retro because they were tired of working on Metroid games, well they've produced jack shit since then. 

Indie studios are overrated IMO, they have quirky high concepts and fun art styles, yes, but when you break down the game play/design aspects of many of these games it's clear they are really more realistically amateur games. The real top talent works for the real top studios because people kinda like getting paid what they are worth in any profession (and if they don't there's usually a wife or young child at home that has a way of bringing priorities into focus pretty damn fast). 

Either way it's neither here nor there, the Switch will get plenty of indie games, more than probably anyone can play in one life time, just because those games are ported to every viable platform under the sun. PC, PS4, XB1, Switch will all get those same games. It's not worth losing sleep over any of that, like oh noez maybe we won't get Super Meat Boy, how will we ever survive with just Mario (and Kirby and Donkey Kong and Yoshi). Most of these indie devs just want to make Nintendo style knock off games, except Nintendo does that better than them in almost every case. 

Because they don't usually have 5/10 gameplay. It's usually 7/10-8/10 in that range ... if you're going to tell me all of COD, Madden, Batman Arkham, Mortal Kombat, Dark Souls, Battlefield, FIFA, NBA 2K, NHL, etc. are just 5/10 game play ... lol, sorry I would disagree. 

It doesn't really even matter anyway since the Switch isn't getting those games as you are so keen to point out. 

I prefer those games simply because Nintendo doesn't make those games, whereas most indie games do tend to fall into some kind of range of something Nintendo might make. There are pleny of 2D platformers and wannabe throw back RPGs, and F-Zero knock offs ... I'd just rather play Nintendo games instead of these types of games. Maybe I'll try out Shovel Knight or something, but if I'm honest if Nintendo had more games at their launch I wouldn't even bother with that. 

Bottom line is who really gives a shit if the Switch sells 80 million just so it can get something like Super Meat Boy. The Super Meat Boy developers or whoever can go blow themselves if they don't want to port to a 40-50 million userbase, at least the top fligh devs have an actual reason in that there are hardware difficulties in porting many of the higher end games and they can't just develop for one random system when the PS4/XB1/PC have a combined userbase that's probably going to be well over 200 million players. 

At least there's a valid business/resources reason there. If some indie studio doesn't want to port their game that could run on the original Wii because 40-50 million Switch owners just isn't enough for them but it's easily technically possible and cheap to do otherwise ... quite frankly they can go get bent as far as I'm concerned. I'm not losing sleep over their little garage team passion project about wanting to make a game about an autistic dog who dreams in black & white and it plays like Earthbound meets Super Metroid (except shittier). Sorry breh. Nintendo fans should just enjoy the Nintendo games they get, the rest of this crap doesn't matter. We're not getting anything special if the system sells great instead of just good and Nintendo's games are not going to be any better/worse. The SNES/N64/GameCube have as many good Nintendo games as the Wii/NES/DS do, maybe even more. Sales have never stopped Nintendo from making their own games great. 

It matters a LOT. It is the difference between
1) 3rd party support equal to other consoles (Wii level sales)
2) slight delays in 3rd party releases (lifetime sub 50m)
3) shoddy cheaply done 3rd party ports where they bother (lifetime sub 30m)
4) no 3rd party support as it just aint worth it (Wii U)