I’d rather give a numerical score because I actually know what that stands for. Also, does E not exist? Anyway;

6/10

I bought games this year. Well for just one; 3D All Stars, but I’ll buy a second; Age of Calamity, so I can’t really give give it a failing grade. At the same time there also wasn’t any high note so can’t give the year a greater score either.

2008 wasn't much of a drought year in first or third-party, just too much of a front-loaded one. So basically the opposite of Nintendo's problem of back-ending most of their best titles to the second half or final quarter of a year.

Nintendo released two mega-hitters, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii within a month of each other. That led to E3 2008 sucking for Nintendo, because there wasn't much to get excited for in the immediate future. 

Given how this year has been for Nintendo it's technically possible that we could get a great first half of 2021, and then really no first-party games at all until November. But who knows? I still think the first half of 2021 will be pretty light, and we'll get better stuff in the second half.

agree with the C, if not for Animal Crossing it would be a D or an E

it's just three games really, the two spin-offs, and the rest is ultra-cheap cash for Nintendo

didn't play Paper Mario and Hyryle Warriors btw, maybe they are better than I think

c for sure
in my opinion this year PlayStation was much better with great games first party like dreams ,ghost of tsushima, last of us 2 (probably goty)also massive support from thirds, with new heavyweight games (some temporary exclusives)ff7, r3, nioh2 , crash 4, doom eternal , and to end the year cod and cyberpunk.
Xbox for me was the worst, with no relevant exclusives and less support from thirds.

I'll give it a B-

Positive points:

• Animal Crossing was HUGE!
• Paper Mario is getting better again
• Clubhouse Games came at the nick of time
• Age of Calamity was a great surprise and fitting for the backstory of BotW
• Nice remasters throughout the year with Xenoblade Chronicles and Pikmin 3
• Making a real-life Mario Kart, really crazy enough to work!

Negative points

• Mario 3D Allstars was a massive missed opportunity (and wtf about making it time-limited Nintendo???)
• While Animal Crossing was HUGE, it was also the only real big release of the year
• Nothing new for the holidays
• Overall rather bland

I guess I can also include Mario Kart Live as kinda fun and therefore worthwhile; I wouldn't have bought it for myself, but having played it with my brother I did enjoy it.
Still a D for the year though, in terms of first party anyway.

If Will of the Wisps, Sniper Elite 4, and Immortal Fenyx Rising turn out as good I hope though, it could be a C including thirds.

I voted D.

Animal Crossing and Xenoblade are the only new A+ first party games from Nintendo this year. Clubhouse games is well made, but is just a board game sim. That doesn't sound fun to me, and I doubt most gamers will find it fun either. The non-gaming crowd should eat it up though. Origami King is just more of them throwing out the RPG elements in favor of gimmicks. Same thing as Sticker Star, and Color Splash. Highrule Warriors 2 is mostly a 3rd party game. Besides, we don't know whether it will be a great game or not. I think it will get an Opencritic average of somewhere between 75 and 84.

But anyway, 2 new quality first party Nintendo games in a single year. One of them is a remake of a Wii game that was already remade for the 3DS. That's almost as bad as the Wii's 2011.

As you point out, Xenoblade isn't a new game, so shouldn't that be 1 new quality first party Nintendo game in a single year?

Ouch. My bias towards Nintendo is showing here. In the past I counted Poke'mon Let's Go since it was substantially different from Red/Blue in both graphics and gameplay. But with Xenoblade it's just a new paint job, right? And 15 extra hours of content? Right?

Yeah it's the same game just with a graphical facelift, a few quality of life tweaks, and bonus chapter.