Obviously Mario! After the success of its Rabbids crossover. 

Time for a Final Fantasy musou

Don't we all ? I want to know the true demand for the Switch too but so far Nintendo has released a game every quarter of this year that will go on to sell 5M+ units in their lifetime ... 

Do you think or believe that its current software release pattern so far is supposed to be the norm for the Switch's entire life ? 

Oh don't get me wrong, of course we all want to know what the Switch's lifetime success will be after supply issues are figured out. But I can't stand it when people are waiting for something to happen, hopeful that it will have the outcome it wants them to have. It seems to me that Lawlight only wants to dismiss any supply constraints, or wants them to be over, just so he can critize sales. It's more like he's just waiting for confirmation bias rather than interesting data. 

Regarding your question, I feel it's kind of backwards logic. To think the Switch will lose momentum in 2018 because it doesn't have one game that will sell 5M+ lifetime is to say that the people buying games like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or Splatoon 2 all already have Switchs. In reality, the Switch could quite easily coast off those games for a couple of months into 2018. It's not like the Switch is going to stop at January and every Splatoon, Mario, Zelda, or Mario Kart fan will have a Switch. Unless you just expect the most insane attach rates of any console on a 10M install base.

I think there will probably be one or two big system sellers in 2018 with enough momentum to 2017 and enough semi-big releases to carry it throughout the year. To say if it will be a huge success or not? That's not my place, I simply don't know. Which again, is why i'm not rooting for confirmation bias. I'd prefer if the Switch sold well, but i'm not going to say it will. 

It's kind of unfair really ... Nintendo has only announced small projects for 2018 and they're all releasing in it's first 4 months ... so we can't have a real basis 

Maybe, maybe not. The switch from next year onwards has the full support of BOTH the handheld and console divisions, which is at LEAST a 1.5 times increase. Remember how there were 2 wii and 2 DS zelda titles on the wii? They can easily double down and make 3 this gen, or make extra 2.5D zeldas, for example. FE is also a multi million franchise now, and we still need smash and a 2d mario. We already have a kirby and a new FE title next year confirmed.

And who knows, this combining of their two sides to one might FINALLY give them enough time to focus on thier older niche IPs like f zero.

Going by Amazon Japan, it's still sold out. But the prices are slowly going down, with the gray model dropping just below the 40k Yen mark. This indicates that slowly by slowly, the demand gets more and more covered by the shipments

Kirby is slated for Q1 2018, then we have Yoshi and Fire Emblem later that year, plus certainly some yet unnanounced games. Nintendo generally doesn't announce games years in advance. BotW, Metroid Prime 4 and thenext Pokemon game are the big exeptions. They have still a lot of IPs to fill out any voids in the lineup for the upcoming years, and who knows what new stuff might be incoming from them.

I can definitely see and relate to the people's point around here about Lawlight's agressiveness in validating his confirmation bias ... (He's being fairly terse regarding Switch's supply issue but I guess he can go on celebrating how stock is resolved in Canada and soon to be for the US ?) 

Which is why I stressed "will go on to sell 5M+ units in their lifetime" but the Switch can't keep coasting off released titles forever as the main driver of hardware sales. Eventually they'll have to look for those immediate boosts to maintain their current hardware sales rate in addition to their previously released titles. I assume targetting a 5M+ selling game for each half of the year should be their goal when their IPs have some of the highest sales inequality ... 

I would hope so too for Nintendo's sake ... 

I'm especially curious about what those 'semi-big' releases are. It'll be interesting to see if there are new IPs on the horizon from Nintendo next year and how AAA third party support will play out in 2018 ... (I expect another entry for Animal Crossing next year) 

Well too be fair, I never said Nintendo would do amazing. I'm just hoping so, as you said. 

By semi-big I meant Kirby, Yoshi, and Fire Emblem. I know that they might not be "big" games, but especially the former two I can see being great ways of convincing families to pick up a system(lol is that too stereotypical?)

I know you made the point about lifetime, I just think those games could essentially carry the system out through some dry months. The PS4's library wasn't nearly as good as the Switch's in it's first year ... of course that's disregarding the many, many reasons the PS4 kept selling. 

In order for Nintendo to keep up momentum in 2018 ... they're going to need at least Animal Crossing and .... something else... 

See, this is why i'm a tad worried. I genuinely can't think of what that other game could be. Like we said, there's got to be at least two big hits per year. In my opinion, Nintendo's two biggest mistakes with the Switch thus far have been releasing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and the new Kirby and Yoshi game. With Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Nintendo is going to have to push development of the new Mario Kart back. When in reality, it didn't make much sense to release it in April. Sure, the game held the drought for immediate purchasers but Zelda alone was enough to carry sales long into June or July. Honestly, I think that was a big mistake on their part. A brand new Mario Kart in 2018 would have sold much better. Of course, it's possible that they couldn't have it out by then(wasn't it rumored the MK8 team were doing Arms?) but they probably could have gotten another internal studio to handle development, or release it earlier then they could now at least.

On Yoshi and Kirby, I think the problem is the lack of innovation. I feel Nintendo's design philosophy has been to chase after what made the N64 special. Games that aren't just innovative for their series, but also for their hardware. That works for Zelda and Mario, two games that innovative in both directions. Even for titles like Splatoon 2 and Xenoblade 2 ... iterative works ... those games are still pretty much a marvel for a handheld. A competitive tps and a huge RPG with PS3 graphics. 

But ... Kirby and Yoshi? Yeah, that's a problem. We've already seen how big franchises can be when they get refreshes, or at the very least suprises (DKCR) . These games will probably do the norm for Kirby and Yoshi, 2 - 2.5 mil and that's about it. 

The more I think about it, the more i'm thinking we might get a Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remake late next year .. but that just seems to early. I honestly don't know what they could possibly launch next year. I can only think of Animal Crossing as a big hit. Still, I'm hoping more than anything Retro releases their new ip.

Yeah but it's harder than ever to make high production value games on Nintendo systems too since the Switch system is more powerful than any of their previous systems so I expect Switch to have similar software output as the 3DS did ... (I'm not sure if smaller japanese developers will be able to keep up anymore) 

FE barely hitting 2M units per game to consider it a 'multi-million' franchise isn't all that impressive ... (the series could easily just teter below that and it would easily lose the 'multi-million' status so that's definitely not a reliable description for it now) 

@Bold It might or it might not. It was hard enough getting Kid Icarus, Pikmin and Luigi's Mansion to make a return so Nintendo could choose to work on those franchise on the Switch or pursue Star Fox and F Zero instead ... (Decisions, decisions, decisions are so hard to make with limited resources that Nintendo has especially when they've moved on to a harder system)