The market for "motion" games is often misunderstood in my opinion. Many people would love to pop in the occasional motion control game to play with friends, but no one wants all of their games to be motion control.

Much like any other genre, it's a lot of fun when done right but not something you want to be restricted to. For whatever reason Nintendo and, to a much lesser extent Microsoft and Sony, have taken something of an "all or nothing" approach to motion control.

It should be utilized for those games that really benefit from the addition (especially in multiplayer games designed for friends, where motion control really fosters that communal fun in a way sitting still and staring forward can't), but shouldn't be required or included when it adds nothing to the experience (and more often than not actually hurts said experience). It's a simple concept that they struggle to grasp, forcing it into games that don't need it and then abandoning it entirely when people complain.

The truth is motion control no longer is a "fad"; it's actually present to some degree in just about all controllers now and, as someone with the HTC Vive, it's becoming incredibly accurate and increasingly accepted. I personally still prefer sitting still with a conventional controller, but with the introduction of VR those motion controls are becoming more and more accepted as being a useful control scheme for certain games and experiences.

I think the error in thinking and judgement we were guilty of back when it truly was an overnight sensation/fad was that we attempted to suggest one should entirely replace the other; there's a time and place for both.

Wasn't Nintendoland bundled from launch?

We only have Japan's numbers upto now and 1,2 switch is matching Twilight Princess while BoTW is matching Wii Sports (as a %). Amazing how gullible the hardcore are to a bit of marketing. The cazualz wouldn't have cared whether Zelda or 12S got all the attention at last years e3 where as the 'hardcorez' would have been spitting their dummy out.

I know you think 'da cazual' games like Fit/Sports/Party/Play are all the same (can be done on a smartphone) but they each satisfied a different need for different people. Whether that's a cheap tech demo of the hardware or a party game that only comes out once a year.

If Nintendololololand was free, how much does 12S at full price need to sell surpass it in terms of profit (accounting for dev time)?

I actually don't really buy that it's misunderstood. 

Where are the sales? There should be at least some decent sales for some of these games, but they are underperforming big time. 

There should at least be one hit motion gaming franchise. Just one, but there isn't. Now that Just Dance has gone to the discount bin in heaven, it's pretty curtains for that. 

I agree motion control can be utilized as a feature in some games, just like rumble or touch or whatever. No big deal. 

But the days of motion gaming driving industry sales on the basis of "family fun waggling around in front of the TV" are over. For several reasons, but mainly because that audience has been corrupted by Apple and Google. Why pay $50 for something when you can have whatever tiny gaming fix you need for free?

Like I'm not a huge cigar guy, but I don't mind having a cigar now and again. Now a cigar company could try wooing me with all the quality bullshit they want, but if I can get for my tastes a decent quality cigar for free or $1, am I going to pay $40 for one from your company. Hells to the no. 

There's no more wide appealling than "free". That's also very badly misunderstood on this board, some people should actually go talk to some of the people who owned a Wii for example primarily for Wii Sports but today don't own a console. I've talked to a lot of these people. They do still play games, just on their phones and just occassionally. It's not a big fucking deal to them. That's just how that cookie crumbles. 

"Soft launch" means they didn't go balls to the wall with a full launch, which is more or less true. I'd say PS4 was also a soft launch, but it also sold like a milion units. Dispute my last point there, but you can't because deep down you know it's true. 

I agree. 12S is a bad all-rounder and could easily have been improved if it was to be used in a different way. Relying on sound in a party atmosphere isn't great. Having to add/remove the joycon things is dumb too and there's no way I'm letting kids or drunks rock my Switch like a baby.

I gave it to a bunch of kids and they ended up on baseball/boxing/pingpong mainly. Gave it to drunks and it was quickdraw/catwalk/stupid stuff. The kids were playing the more 'serious' games while the adults behaved like kids.

Would love to have an updated and deeper version of Wii Sports for the Switch. Wii Sports was months of nonstop fun with friends. I played a tonnnnnnn of bowling, a ton of golf, a lot of boxing on my own, some tennis and a little baseball. You add some options to those games (tennis was fun but basically a fail cuz you couldn't even control your character, golf needed more courses, etc) and add online plus add some more sports, sell it for $30, it'll sell millions. For certain types of games motion controls are wayyyy better than playing with a normal controller, Wii Sports taught us that and Nintendo would be wise to give us at least one Wii Sports like game to sell millions, the tiny little weird 1-2 Switch doesn't count, that game should cost like $10.

I think 1,2 Switch fills in that role. The problem is that it's too expensive. It should be priced lower, or should have been bundled with the Switch from the start.

Bundling 1,2 Switch is probably the worst thing they could've done, it would've given the system the impression of being a silly novelty to consumers. 

Nintendo's policy on console games is clear too -- $40 minimum or bust. If you can't sell at that price, then you're not getting a retail release. 

If there is this wild, huge demand for arm flaling mini-game-a-thons ... 1,2 Switch should be selling 2,3,4,5 million copies. Without much fuss. Wii Play did it. Wii Fit did it. Hell even second/third tier mini-game stuff like Mario & Sonic did it too. 

What we see in all those IP is a monumental collapse in sales of later entries of those franchises. Case in point:

Wii Fit - 18.22 million (at $100)

Wii Fit U - 0.85 million 

Wii Party - 8.39 million

Wii Party U - 1.79 million and this is largely inflated by Wii Party U being force bundled in Japan.

You will see similar collapses for things like Brain Training (if you want to blame the Wii U solely, the 3DS has sold 65 million). The audience for these games simply doesn't want to pay for games period anymore (witness Mario Run struggling on iOS/Android for even $10, and that's a pretty full featured Mario game for $10 that couldn't be any easier to pick up and play). 

They just sold a whopping 900k in the month of March and are doing quite well in Japan and seems to be doing well in Europe. 

So to the point I'd say -- do they really? Seems to me like it's selling just fine without a Wii Sports and IMO the dividends for releasing a more "serious" system will pay off later because it won't be built on a wishy washy foundation of people who just "sorta/kinda/sometimes/maybe" like video games. The foundation the Switch is building for itself may well be a lot more long lasting because it's built on firmer bedrock. 

I would say the combination of a AAA killer app that has modern gameplay done Nintendo style combined with marketing heavily to core male gamers with a product that looks fairly sleek/sexy is what's working for Switch. 

Why not continue pushing that approach? It's clearly working. 

To be honest even functionally I don't think motion "stand up and play" games work that great on the Switch in portable mode. You have to stand a reasonable distance away from the screen, especially with two players, which makes playing it kinda tough on a tiny 6 inch display. Sitting down and hunching in close to the Switch set down on a table (like how Mario Kart is played) with Joycons in NES config works much, much better for this hardware, so why not make some sports games NES-style? NES hockey and tennis were quite fun as I recall and quite frankly better than Wii Sports. 

I am all in for a Pokemon party game in the veins of the ones in Stadium 1 and 2. No better way to show the franchise coming to switch before the imminent mainline release.