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Forums - Nintendo - What game contributed the most to Switch's record breaking success

 

Which contributed the most in your assessment?

BOTW 26 50.00%
 
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 14 26.92%
 
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 7 13.46%
 
Other 5 9.62%
 
Total:52
Kyuu on 05 May 2026
HoloDust said:
Kyuu said:

The Switch and MK8D would have been massively successful regardless of BotW. The Wii U failed because it was expensive, weak, stationary, had a relatively poor game library, and Nintendo was still supporting 3DS which was still getting all these Pokemon games among countless other titles.

BotW obviously contributed to its success, but not nearly as much as MK8D. MK8D by itself is also insignificant when compared to all the combined factors that made the console a huge success. Wii U wouldn't have sold tens of millions more units if BotW was released exclusively on it. Instead, the game would have failed to exceed 8 million copies sold, because the console was fundamentally poor and nothing could save it.

You could argue the same thing for MK8 - it sold ~8.5M on WiiU.

BotW (as much as I don't really like it as Zelda fan) as a launch title is exactly what Switch needed - open world romp for "Skyrim generation", that massively expands IP's audience and brings in lot of new fans (just like TES went from 9M to 60M with Skyrim).

But yeah, all combined factors lead to a perfect storm of sorts.

If BotW were released exclusively on the Wii U, and Nintendo continued to produce Wii U hardware, MK8 would have sold a lot more than 8.5 million copies. If MK8 was never ported to Switch, that would have also added several million copies sold. In the scenario a Wii U exclusive BotW sells 8 million, I'd guess a Wii U exclusive MK8 would sell over 16 million, and the hardware could exceed 30 million.

But of course Nintendo made the right call and reset everything with the Switch instead of trying to shove the Wii U down people's throats. At that time, most vocal core fans were pissed with many thinking Nintendo was done for lol.



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sc94597 on 05 May 2026

I think the other thing that probably helped Switch the most and is helping Switch 2 is people want portable platforms. 

The two systems that are comparable to the Switch in sales are the PS2 (which was also often bought as a DVD player/media entertainment system and had heavy discounts) and Nintendo DS. The 3DS had product launch mistakes which hampered its potential and momentum. If Nintendo launched it well, it probably would've sold more than 100 million, which is fair given it had some competition, even if weak competition. 70-100 million is roughly the baseline for Nintendo handhelds in more recent decades. 

The Switch was basically able to capitalize on portable gaming popularity while also being a good home console too and capturing both audiences. It had a great game library as well, and given all of that it is not a surprise it and the Switch 2 are big successes. 

As long as a steady stream of games release on these platforms they can sell well by hitting  fundamentals.