Nintendo Switch becomes the fastest selling videogame console in US History

[Hawki]

Rachet & Clank is probably done, the last actual entry to the series was on PS3.

Not sure why the 2016 game doesn't count when it's a reboot. And it was released in 2016 - that's far too recent to declare the series "done."

And, Uncharted? Really? It was a new IP just last-gen and it's probably done too.

That's a bit more up in the air. I think it's fair to say that Naughty Dog is done with the series, but whether the series as a whole is concluded is another matter. There is a precedent for non-Naughty Dog Uncharted games after all (e.g. Golden Abyss).

Killzone (probably done too)

There was a leak awhile back that basically confirmed that Killzone 5 is in development.

Compare that to Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, etc.

Few points:

-Calling some of those franchises "milked" is really stretching it. Metroid's had 14 games released over a 32 year period. Star Fox has had 9 games released over a 25 year period. Those are really far away from entering the realm of what I'd call "milking."

-Again, I can point to the franchises that Nintendo has ended.

-But in either case, I think that's missing the point in both cases. A game series will generally keep on going as long as it's profitable to continue it. Sony, Nintendo, whoever, how many times does a series end because it was deemed to reach its natural conclusion, and how many times did it just peter out? Going back to Killzone for example, if Shadow Fall is indeed the last game in the series, is that because Shadow Fall was a grand conclusion to the overall storyline? Or would it be because Shadow Fall wasn't as critically successful as its predecessors, in a series where I think most would agree it peaked in Killzone 2?

Honestly, the whole "milking" argument is getting irksome from both you guys. It's assinine to claim that something like The Last of Us is "milked," but I think the same could be said for numerous IPs listed here.

 

[Yoshi178]

No 3rd Party Support My Ass!!!!!!!!!

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

No 3rd Party Support My Ass!!!!!!!!!

Don't worry, I hear the shuffling of the goal posts already with claims of how this 3rd party support doesn't count or people fleeing as plates of crow come flying towards them. Plus like I've said before, Nintendo is so self-sufficient with its own IPs that 3rd parties are more icing on the cake.

A lot of it is admittedly ports and DLC, but hey, it's early in the year and there's always stuff coming out for the holidays. Dark Souls is probably the big one what with it being revealed for the Switch first. What I hope for that is they fix Blight Town's infamous frame rate issues. Also people should be telling Bamco to bring over Soul Calibur VI and Dragon Ball Fighterz. Overall, good stuff

 

[Alma Mare]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

I'd rather see the Wii U catch up to 2017, to be honest. Bought one of the bloody things in order to play Bayonetta 2, figure the series was worth supporting. Now they gate the next one behind a console that works on fucking cartridges and has a controller designed for pigmies. Lesson learned, I guess.

 

[Yoshi178]

Right on Que!!!!!!!

 

[CriticalGaming]

Even if the Wii catered to a different audience, that doesn't mean the audience should be dismissed. The Wii clearly was a system seller. And I say that as someone who doesn't even like the Wii (motion controls can go die in a fire).

Actually it does mean that it can be dismissed, because that "new" audience didn't stick around. So really they were never an audience to begin with, and bought a Wii on a whim without actually having an interest in the medium. And on top of that, these people didn't continue to expand or proceed with their interest in gaming (for the most part).

Parents got into the Wii, but didn't get into the Wii U, and their kids certainly didn't proceed to beg for the NEW Wii when the time came for that system to hit store shelves.

Why is that?

Why did nobody continue on to buy into the Wii U if the Wii was so fucking popular as the sales figures would imply?

That's the question I'm trying to get people to answer. You look at sales and assume popularity, but in this case that simply isn't the case, because the market trends didn't continue. Look at other properties like films. When a film becomes popular, the sequel comes out and typically does much better than the first movie did because it rides the wave of the first film's popularity. Now those sequels aren't always good, but that doesn't stop people from buying into them in the first couple of weeks.

So why did the wave of the Wii's "popularity" not continue with the Wii U?

My theory is that so many older people got a Wii because the selling appeal of Wii Sports, and/or Wii fit. But once they had their fill with those little things after a few weeks, these people then moved on and completely forgot about not only the Wii but gaming in general. They had their gimmicky fun and they moved on because real gaming didn't interest them. And as a result, the Wii's popularity was a falsity.

Was the Wii technically the most main stream popular system for a while? Yes, I guess. But it was so incredibly fleeting that it was little more than a blip on the radar imo. The Wii spiked, but it didn't sustain like the 360 did which was a system that continued to sell at a fairly steady rate throughout it's lifecycle.

The chart here shows the wii sales by period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_sales Notice that the drop off after the first initial rush to get a wii drops to next to nothing. You're showing a growth of fractions of a % for a fairly long period.

Sadly the 360 doesn't have such a deep chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_sales but what it does say that in 2011 the 360 sales where about 40 million. Then in 2016 the system had reached 84 million worldwide sales. Which shows that the 360 sales didn't suffer the same drop off the Wii did. While the system didn't spike as hard or as quickly as the Wii, it maintained a steady stream of sales for a much longer period.

I believe this is because the people who bought into the 360 were people interested in the hobby, they played the shit out of the 360, maybe even bought a replacement or extra unit or two. Then the proceeded to get the Xbone, or the PS4 or whatever and continued pushing the hobby forward. Meanwhile, people rushed out to get a Wii (which had the typical Nintendo bullshit of false scarcity which manipulates popularity as well) and we can see in the sale charts that sales boomed for the first 18 or so months. But you can see that % of growth hit a brick wall (with 1 or 2 random spikes). So people rushed to buy a Wii in the first frenzy....but then it all stopped. Sure it continued to grow but you're talking a period of 7 years to go from 54 million to 101 million units shifted.

Playstation 4 has hit 74 million plus units in just under 4 years. The Xbone is sitting between 24-30 million units as an estimate because microsoft hasn't given out official numbers, probably because the system isn't doing well. The Switch is pushing 11-12 million units in under a year of release.

Now I believe that the Switch most certainly can beat out the Xbone because the Xbone is shit. But only if Nintendo has a way to maintain this momentum of great releases. A shitload of units will sell when we get a Pokemon game, but I don't think Metroid is going to blow anyone away in terms of hardware sales. And if Nintendo truly wants this system to be a staple, it needs to get modern 3rd party games on the system asap. Doom was an okay start, but a little too late to matter imo. I'm talking simultanious releases to the PS4/Xbone versions.

 

[Super Cyborg]

Not surprised that a number of WiiU games are being ported to Switch. A lot of them have good appeal, which I imagine those who got a Switch but not a WiiU would be interested in. Tropical Freeze adding a new character, which looks like an easy mode basically, is a nice way to entice people to rebuy, though I think Hyrule Warriors has the best deal, assuming you didn't get both the WiiU and 3DS versions + DLC. Will probably be interested in the World Ends With You game since I never played the original version. Kirby is Kirby so I know I'll enjoy that game. I already got Ys VIII on PS4, but I may get that to support Falcom so they may port more of their games.

I imagine we'll get more substantial new release type games around E3 and later on in the year. All in all, there will be plenty of games I will be interested in picking up whenever I finally get my Switch.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

...There's freakin TWEWY on the Switch. Oh. My. GOD.

The game that shared my "Best JRPG of all time" award with Crono Trigger for the past 10 years, showing its face again. Oh my GOD I'm hyped. I seriously need to land another goddamn game dev job so I can justify buying a Switch. With so many RPGs coming for it, it's a must buy for me at this point.

New story content has me interested, the fact they were able to keep the same combat system (albeit smushed onto one screen) is a relief too.

...Wait, holy shit it's been 10 years since TWEWY came out?! 0_o I feel...Old.

And Portable Dark Souls isn't bad either.

Will probably be interested in the World Ends With You game since I never played the original version.

Do iiiiit. It's one of the most bonkers cool RPGs I've ever played.

 

[McMarbles]

TWEWY's worth it for that godlike soundtrack alone.

 

[CaitSeith]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

Wait, was Dark Souls 100% portable in 2011? I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!

 

[CriticalGaming]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

Wait, was Dark Souls 100% portable in 2011? I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!

Gaming Laptops? HD gaming has been portable for years. It's just been a bigger hassle and more expensive.

 

[Randomosity]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

Wait, was Dark Souls 100% portable in 2011? I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!

Gaming Laptops? HD gaming has been portable for years. It's just been a bigger hassle and more expensive.

Calling it a bigger hassle is a bit of an understatement in my opinion. For one thing, if you actually try to push performance and graphical power out of a gaming laptop, you will find that your battery dies way too fast, so either you nerf you settings, or stay tethered to a wall. Secondly, many games practically require you to either bring a game pad or mouse, because laptop track pads are bunk. Not to mention laptops generally speaking are a quite a bit bigger and heavier than portable gaming devices (3DS, Vita, Switch or otherwise.) I can fit my Switch + Joycons in my pocket (results may vary pending pocket depth.) While I don't know any gaming laptop that I could do that with.

I personally don't consider gaming laptops to be very portable, to be honest.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

Wait, was Dark Souls 100% portable in 2011? I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!

Gaming Laptops? HD gaming has been portable for years. It's just been a bigger hassle and more expensive.

Calling it a bigger hassle is a bit of an understatement in my opinion. For one thing, if you actually try to push performance and graphical power out of a gaming laptop, you will find that your battery dies way too fast, so either you nerf you settings, or stay tethered to a wall. Secondly, many games practically require you to either bring a game pad or mouse, because laptop track pads are bunk. Not to mention laptops generally speaking are a quite a bit bigger and heavier than portable gaming devices (3DS, Vita, Switch or otherwise.) I can fit my Switch + Joycons in my pocket (results may vary pending pocket depth.) While I don't know any gaming laptop that I could do that with.

I personally don't consider gaming laptops to be very portable, to be honest.

I use my ASUS on a plane without any trouble. And the battery life lasts 2-3 hours or so depending on the game which is about what you get out of the Switch (maybe a little worse), so the portability of the Switch really isn't much better. Additionally, I don't know what kind of fucking pants you wear but you should give them back to MC-Hammer because I can't fit a switch into my pocket, nor would I want to do so without a case. So it is still this thing you are constantly holding.

Is a laptop bigger and heavier? Yes. But the carrying cases are much better and it is not a problem to have a nice laptop/backpack case. Making the travel aspect simple. A gamepad adds nothing to the hassle of it, especially a wireless pad, and the track pads are good enough to launch a game before swapping to pad controls.

Doesn't mean the Switch isn't a easier to use system. Especially for people who are computer-retarded, but the novelty of AAA gaming on the go is not a new thing.

 

[Alma Mare]

Oh Dark Souls! Nice. Good to see the Switch is catching up to 2011.

Wait, was Dark Souls 100% portable in 2011? I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!

Oh, yeah, I forgot that the Dark Souls experience relies heavily on being on a tablet screen in the train. I was more of the confy chair and HD screen crowd. Silly me. No, for that we had to wait for *gasp* 2012. My bad.

It was worth the wait, though. Played Dark Souls and DS2 exclusively on my old laptop. Even took it to a freaking vessel on a one month campaign. Good memories of passing the controler to a coworker mid-Fume Knight battle and let them figure what was happening to them.

Fear not. At this rate I expect DS2 to be released for the Switch around 2020. I'll keep an ear out for the sound of high-fives and "tolda ya biatches! no 3rd party support MY ASS!1" celebrations.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Don't worry, I hear the shuffling of the goal posts already with claims of how this 3rd party support doesn't count or people fleeing as plates of crow come flying towards them. Plus like I've said before, Nintendo is so self-sufficient with its own IPs that 3rd parties are more icing on the cake.

A lot of it is admittedly ports and DLC, but hey, it's early in the year and there's always stuff coming out for the holidays. Dark Souls is probably the big one what with it being revealed for the Switch first. What I hope for that is they fix Blight Town's infamous frame rate issues. Also people should be telling Bamco to bring over Soul Calibur VI and Dragon Ball Fighterz. Overall, good stuff

It's not at all moving goal posts. 3rd party support is getting basically EVERY game and will ALWAYS be getting basically every game.

On PS4, I don't have to worry about what games PS4 is getting or not getting because I'm getting pretty much every game outside of the occasional exclusivity that Microsoft pays for (like Cuphead).

How many of the following games/series ranging from AAA to indie do you think the Switch is going to get?
I'm sure there's a FEW that the Switch is getting but PS4 is getting/gotten ALL of them.

-RDR, GTA, COD, Battlefield, Battlefront, Madden, FIFA, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Souls, Dishonored, Watch Dogs, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, FarCry, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Resident Evil, Destiny, Wolfenstein, Doom, Persona, Nioh, Skull & Bones, Divinity Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Cities Skylines, Hob, Shadow Tactics, Invisible Inc., Sexy Brutale, What Remains of Edith Finch, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Rime, Prey, Deliverance Kingdom Come, Anthem, Vampyr, Ace Combat, Kingdom Hearts, Dynasty Warriors, Valkyria Chronicles, and I can keep going and going and going.

Even B-Cell's thread about most anticipated FPS (System Shock, Metro Exodus, Squadron 42, Witchfire, FarCry 5), none of those games are scheduled for the Switch while all but one are coming to PS4.

So, how is the Switch getting 3rd party support anywhere near comparable to the other systems? Why would I have to move goal posts? You can't even play Madden on the Switch so literally the Switch needs to move the goal posts because it has none. That is why Nintendo is not in competition with Playstation/Xbox/PC because a Nintendo system is always going to be a secondary gaming platform and not someone's primary platform (outside of Nintendo fanboys).

 

[Yoshi178]

Oh, yeah, I forgot that the Dark Souls experience relies heavily on being on a tablet screen in the train. I was more of the confy chair and HD screen crowd. Silly me. No, for that we had to wait for *gasp* 2012. My bad.

good thing Switch gives you the option to do both then isn't it? rather than just having you always tethered to the HD TV screen and unable to ever leave your house when gaming.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Compare that to Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, etc.

Few points:

-Calling some of those franchises "milked" is really stretching it. Metroid's had 14 games released over a 32 year period. Star Fox has had 9 games released over a 25 year period. Those are really far away from entering the realm of what I'd call "milking."

-Again, I can point to the franchises that Nintendo has ended.

-But in either case, I think that's missing the point in both cases. A game series will generally keep on going as long as it's profitable to continue it. Sony, Nintendo, whoever, how many times does a series end because it was deemed to reach its natural conclusion, and how many times did it just peter out? Going back to Killzone for example, if Shadow Fall is indeed the last game in the series, is that because Shadow Fall was a grand conclusion to the overall storyline? Or would it be because Shadow Fall wasn't as critically successful as its predecessors, in a series where I think most would agree it peaked in Killzone 2?

Honestly, the whole "milking" argument is getting irksome from both you guys. It's assinine to claim that something like The Last of Us is "milked," but I think the same could be said for numerous IPs listed here.

I agree that milking was a poor choice of words. It's more so that I know I'll get a mix of familiar and new with Sony while Nintendo is carried every gen by its 20+ year old franchises.

 

[Alma Mare]

Oh, yeah, I forgot that the Dark Souls experience relies heavily on being on a tablet screen in the train. I was more of the confy chair and HD screen crowd. Silly me. No, for that we had to wait for *gasp* 2012. My bad.

good thing Switch gives you the option to do both then isn't it? rather than just having you always tethered to the HD TV screen and unable to ever leave your house when gaming.

Yup. So does my laptop. To great effect, I might add.
Not that any of this matters. All this talk about taking your HD AAA gaming to the train or the bus, and I doubt you could fill said bus with people who actually care. I live on the second largest city in my country. I ride the train frequently and the subway every freaking day. I've NEVER seen a Switch. People buy the thing for the games. It has a nice handful of great games and a shitload of filler. Why people are praising the filler is odd, to say the least.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Speaking of opinions. Here's a Jim Sterling Video about ports on the Switch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff3SNG-B_I

 

[Hawki]

Actually it does mean that it can be dismissed, because that "new" audience didn't stick around. So really they were never an audience to begin with, and bought a Wii on a whim without actually having an interest in the medium. And on top of that, these people didn't continue to expand or proceed with their interest in gaming (for the most part).

You're making a lot of assumptions there, and kind of bordering on elitism. It's a given that a lot of the Wii's sales came from Wii Sports/Fit/Whatever. I'm not into those games, but I'm not going to sneer at those who are.

Parents got into the Wii, but didn't get into the Wii U, and their kids certainly didn't proceed to beg for the NEW Wii when the time came for that system to hit store shelves.

Why is that?

Why did nobody continue on to buy into the Wii U if the Wii was so fucking popular as the sales figures would imply?

Main theory I've seen floating around is that the Wii U was marketed poorly, not to mention that its name by itself caused confusion with those who'd bought the Wii, not sure what the difference was. That, and the Wii U was lacking in software. There's a precedent for this kind of drop off - look at Sega's consoles for instance. Just because one console is successful doesn't mean that the next is going to be.

My theory is that so many older people got a Wii because the selling appeal of Wii Sports, and/or Wii fit. But once they had their fill with those little things after a few weeks, these people then moved on and completely forgot about not only the Wii but gaming in general. They had their gimmicky fun and they moved on because real gaming didn't interest them. And as a result, the Wii's popularity was a falsity.

Ah yes. "Real gaming."

Christ.

PS4 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Wii Stuff

Wall of text here. And, yeah, fine, the Xbox 360 has a more steady run (don't know about scarcity of the Wii, I was never without the option of getting a Wii, I just didn't until it went down as far as it would in price), but at the end of the day, the Wii still sold more, outpacing its rivals by over 20 million). I don't think it matters when those units were sold. Generally speaking, if something's hot, most of its sales are going to come from its initial release - blockbuster films for instance get most of their audience in the first few weeks, and then those numbers steadily decrease.