Welp, as much as I'd like to see the continuing success of Switch 2 software in the same vein as we had with the Switch. I actually don't foresee much better results than what we are seeing now. 

I don't think it's so much a case of one being abnormal, Switch is just a very different product in a very different market with lots of demographic changes. 

If Switch is a weird one off, then something like Tears of the Kingdom should decline back to like Skyward Sword levels, but I think it's probably safe to assume that's not happening. 

This is just the new reality, we underestimate how much demographics and market can change in 15 years, 15 years prior to the N64 was 1981 ... the difference in the market from 1981 to 1996 is radically different, 1990 to 2005 is massively different, it just stands to reason 2007/08 to 2021/22 for example would be radically different too. 

Case in point, during the Wii/DS era the popular refrain was 3D Mario will never sell as well as 2D Mario because 3D analog control is simply too complex for the casual market and thus the audience is limited. But in 2020 ... this is really not the case, you have an multiple generation of kids who are now grown up to whom 3D analog control is their first controller they ever held (Playstation or GameCube or whatever). As such, the market has changed. 

I liken it a lot to Marvel which built up several generations of kids on their product line through the 70s/80s/early 90s especially, but that laid the foundation for the MCU to become the dominant movie IP because you have multiple generations of fans stacked up on top of each and if you do that over and over and over and over again, eventually you hit a mass audience size that simply will throw previous market analytics (ie: superhero characters like Spider-Man are just for little boys in superhero pajamas) out the window. 

They don't necessarily have to be better just within the same region. 

Why would Tears of the Kingdom decline to Skyward Sword levels? Switch software sells unusually high and TOTK still benefits from that as a Switch game, plus the new paradigm of Zelda that has more appeal than the classic model ever did.

The market has indeed changed, of course. It's in a constant state of change. For now, the current trend of Nintendo games selling far more than ever before is unique to the Switch. It's the odd one out in this regard, in a positive way. It's successor will hopefully carry this on.

But it's not that Galaxy's sales were unusually low, they weren't. Software sales simply don't scale linearly with install base; this isn't a Wii thing, it applies across game systems in general. 

The PS2 for instance had an install base over 50 million bigger than the Wii, yet on PS2 only 4 games sold better than Mario Galaxy.

I got the switch oled yesterday. I'm amazed how small the overall unit is. I was expecting it to be larger when docked. It sits nicely on my desk alongside the series s and ps5

Nice, hope you enjoy it. What games did you get or are on your list to get?

I got mario kart 8, metroid prime remastered, tears of kingdom. I'll be playing zelda first once I finish ghost of tsushima dlc.

My last nintendo was a wiiu, and the only game I played on it, or got it cheap for , was to play botw.  I will probably get luigi's mansion 3, and definitely the mario games, odyssey and super mario bros delux. If I get time i'll pick up bayonetta 3.

Switch Sports about to join the 10 million plus club, and a decent start for Fire Emblem Engage and Kirby's Return to Dreamland, given the latter is the system's 4th Kirby game.
Will be very interesting to see how TOTK sells, both in terms of software numbers and boosting hardware. I'm not sure if it will sell quite as much as BOTW as sequels on the same hardware often sell less, but it should still easily top 20 million lifetime.

Anecdotal of course but the hype for Tears of the Kingdom definitely feels "real".

I was in Best Buy yesterday and a guy and his girlfriend raced into the store and grabbed the last copy of ToTK and the girlfriend was like "thank god we got here just in time", lol and the midnight launch I went to was packed.

Obviously reaching BOTW's 30 million is almost impossible given ToTK is likely not going to have 6 years to sell, but I suspect we will get Tears of the Kingdom 4K Edition with new DLC content on Switch 2.

Whereas Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask from what I recall had no where near this hype. Majora's Mask was probably bigger than SS from what I recall hype wise, but I think it launched right alongside the Playstation 2 so I remember EB Games being a total gong show (in a good way I guess) when I went to pick my Majora's Mask. 

This does feel like "Game of The Year 2023" though, it's nice when Nintendo has these because it doesn't happen quite as often as say the 90s when every year had a massive Nintendo release. 

It's gonna be a long ass wait for the next Zelda (Switch 2) game. 

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