Aula is the rumored Switch pro model.  Right now the heavy rumor is it's an enhanced Switch that further utilizes the Mariko chip. They found info in a Switch OS update file. However like you say that's not a successor to the Switch. Just a possible new model of an existing system.

A Fire Emblem game sounds tempting, a lot of people mention that Intelligent should produce a remake of Genealogy of the Holy War, but who knows if they really are interested in making such a thing.

Rescue Mission got bad reviews. Paper Mario only got 78/100 on Opencritic. All stars contains nothing new. If Nintendo was smart they'd already have a sizable chunk of their Gamecube/Wii library on the Switch eShop for purchase. Pikmin 3 is a 7 year old game. If you're going to talk about MKLive then talk about Labo from 2018.

The notable releases from 2020 in terms of new 1st party games were Xenoblade Remake, Animal Crossing, Age of Calamity, and Clubhouse games (if board games are your thing).

But 2020 vs 2018 has been discussed to death in the "Staring into the Abyss" thread already.

I'm not referring to sales. I'm referring to 1st party content.

Again, I'm not referring to console sales being anemic, or dropping off a cliff. I'm referring to 1st party content.

It's been blatantly obvious for the last six months that Switch was going to sell 110+ million lifetime. Switch would get there on the strength of its evergreen titles + 3rd party content alone.

The thread is titled "I'm beginning to think", not "I know".

That's a good look at Switch's years. One thing to remember is that not all games are created equal. 2019 was an absolute blowout of a year with 7 new exclusives getting 80/100 average or higher on Opencritic. 2020 and 2018 didn't fare as well in terms of review scores.

I think this is a very long winded post based on very little.

Yes, obviously 3rd party will be great this year. I wasn't referring to 3rd party being anemic, but rather the possibility of Nintendo's 1st party content being weak this year, and every year until Nintendo releases Switch 2.

3rd party for 2021 will very clearly be...

SMTV
Ryza 2
Bravely Default II
No More Heroes III
Monster Hunter Rise
Persona 5 Strikers
Disgaea 6
World Ends With You Sequel
Monster Hunter Stories 2
Ys IX Monstrum Nox

IMO that's an insane year for 3rd party games. Many of them will be exclusives or semi-exclusive.

As far as 1st party goes, I'm afraid. Very afraid. I'm starting to think that BotW2 will get delayed into 2022 along with Bayo 3 being massively delayed. Possibly even into 2023 for Bayo 3.

I remain hopeful for Poke'mon Snap, but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

Prime 4 obviously isn't coming in 2021, let alone 2022.

P.S. Nintendo is anything but doomed. Switch will very easily sell 110+ million units lifetime. I'm just over here afraid that there is a very real possibility of Nintendo borderline abandoning the system 1st party wise.

And here's my not so pessimistic timetable. I think this one is less likely, but this is the sort of timetable I would prefer Nintendo to have for 2021-2023 first party game development.

1st Half of 2021

3D World + Bowser's Fury (With Bowser's Fury being a 20 hour long adventure).
Poke'mon Snap 2 (Winds up getting 80 to 90 on average on opencritic. Winds up being three times the length of the original Poke'mon Snap.)

2nd Half of 2021

BotW2
Bayo 3
Diamond/Pearl Remakes (With a large portion of the OU Smogon Bracket brought back. All Diamond/Pearl Poke's are now usable in Sword/Shield.)

1st Half of 2022


A new game from Monolithsoft
A remake of Oracle of Ages/Seasons

2nd Half of 2022


Odyssey 2
A New Fire Emblem Game
A new game from Next Level Games

1st Half of 2023

Metroid Prime 4

2nd Half of 2023

Mario Kart 9
Splatoon 3 or something else from  the Animal Crossing/Splatoon team.
An entirely new Poke'mon game.

2024

Launch Switch 2

Edit: Oh and in between all these big releases, give us ports of Windwaker HD, Twilight Princess HD, and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

That would make no business sense for them. IPs are valuable if you keep the market aware of them. Let them go dormant for too long and they lose their sales potential. They have a number of ips they have let go dormant, which is why, I suspect, we don't see games from them anymore (like Ice Climbers, F-Zero). But the ones that are active? They are going to keep pumping games out at as quick of a pace as they can. Not to mention they make a lot more money selling their first party games than they get from third party games being sold, so it's also in their best interest to keep em coming.

Not to discredit your point at all, but I don't see how any of what you said makes sense, particularly the predicted lineup for the next three years. For one thing, based on what Nintendo has said and the huge success of Switch, a successor is almost certainly not going to be out for quite some time. But even if it were, Nintendo has never had such few releases throughout a full year. Even during the years you mentioned for Wii, there were tons of DS/3DS games released, on top of Wii support. And generally because their handhelds are so successful, they support them for a very long time with new titles. The 3DS is the most recent and best example of this, with new major games being released even after the Switch came out like Ever Oasis, WarioWare Gold, Fire Emblem Echoes, Kirby, multiple remakes, probably more I'm forgetting at the moment. (And this was at the same time Switch was getting games like BotW, Splatoon 2, Mario Odyssey, ARMS, etc.) Why would they then only release a Zelda game and literally nothing else for an entire year? Nintendo are always developing new games. We probably won't see a TON of their heavy hitters, but to me it sounds like you're saying only games like Mario and Zelda matter. We are almost certainly getting more Fire Emblem, Kirby, Monolith Soft games, and smaller scale titles as well. They have no reason to just completely stop their output and have said as much as well.

The problem with this thread is that the premise of the thread's title is not the same as the premise of the OP. We're talking about the quality of a system's year being comparable to a past system's year, but then the actual OP talks about how many games EPD will release in 2021-2023, which isn't the same thing at all. Just by mentioning games like Bayonetta 3 and TMS#FE, we can see flaws in this line of thinking. 

I mean first of all I'm not really sure 2011's year for Wii was as weak as people think it really was in actual releases. A lot of the reason it was weak is because of localization issues. Otherwise, the year would have Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Rayman Origins, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 2012, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Rhythm Heaven Fever, The Last Story, Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny, Pandora's Tower, De Blob 2, Just Dance 3, various Lego Games, and Modern Warfare 3. Out of those Pandora's Tower, The Last Story, and Rhythm Heaven Fever were made in 2011 but not localized till later. Xenoblade Chronicles is also a title that arguably would have been "pushed" into 2011 with Nintendo's current localization philosophy. It released pretty early in 2010 in Japan (June) but didn't release in Europe till 2011 (September) and didn't release in America. Considering it's a pretty big title that would require a lot of localization effort, it would probably be an early 2011 title with a worldwide release, if Nintendo of now existed back then. Now I realize a lot of those titles are not made by Nintendo, and a lot of them are also fairly niche. But notice that a lot of those kinds of games now have worldwide releases, whether or not they're made by Nintendo, sometimes those kind of games are even helped by Nintendo who publishes them outside Japan. I know it doesn't mean much to look at what Wii's 2011 could have hypothetically looked like, but it does kind of show how Switch currently is set up to have fuller years, rather than years where half of the notable releases are delayed till another year for their worldwide release (like half of the notable 2012 games were really 2011 games). 

Second of all, if a lot of the bigger titles in a year are third party, what is the issue with that? Monster Hunter Rise is going to be one of the biggest games to ever come to the Switch. Monster Hunter Stories 2 will be a nice addition. Bravely Default 2 will be a modestly big hit like the first game. No More Heroes III and Rune Factory 5 will be notable releases that definitely have their audience. Shin Megami Tensei V could be SMT's breakout game (if we don't already include IV as one ... sort of). And I'm even one of those sick, sick people who think Bayonetta 3 will probably be this year (then again I thought the same for 2020 and 2019 soooo ).

What made 2011-2012 bad was the output of those years. With better game selection, the comparison becomes invalid, whether it's first party or not. In addition, what we aren't recognizing is that the slower output of developers from the 3DS to the Switch has actually helped the Switch in some ways in it's later years. We aren't getting a brand new Monster Hunter till 4 years after the Switch's launch, whereas we got one in Japan only 2 and a half years after the 3DS's launch. Granted, that comparison doesn't make too much of a difference outside of Japan since we got 4 Ultimate almost 4 years after the 3DS's launch, but at the same time the series is way bigger now and this means there's pent-up demand late into the Switch's life that the 3DS didn't have as much of by then, at least in Japan. Same is true for stuff like Etrian Odyssey (who's Switch entry was hinted at a long time ago and won't hit the Switch till much later than IV came to the 3DS's life) and Rune Factory V and Bravely Default 2.

And this isn't even talking about the fact that Nintendo probably has a lot of stuff to announce yet to come from EPD. Or the fact that Diamond and Pearl remakes will come out this year. The Switch also has high-profile indie support that the Wii didn't have, hell Hollow Knight Silksong and Axiom Verge 2 are among my most looked forward games this year.