As a lifelong Nintendo fan – heck, Nintendo games are the reason I started gaming in the first place – I desperately wanted to be excited about the Nintendo Switch. After being thoroughly unfazed by the Wii U, I was delighted by the Switch’s impressive debut video, which showcased AAA-level software and a clear message about what the new machine is capable of. I’ll be preordering, and I hope it succeeds. That being said, I believe the Switch is the make-or-break console for Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer.
In golf terms, Nintendo is out of mulligans.
While Nintendo continues to sit on a Scrooge McDuck-like silo filled with metaphorical gold, the pile isn’t quite as high as it once was.
The historic game company has always marched to the beat of its own drum, and that iconoclastic attitude has long served it well, from the DS and 3DS to the Wii. And while Nintendo continues to sit on a Scrooge McDuck-like silo filled with metaphorical gold, the pile isn’t quite as high as it once was. The Wii fell off a cliff after its incredible run out of the gate. In recent years, the Wii U has struggled in all respects, and the company is no longer immune to market forces.
The Wii U’s failings have been well-documented. Third-party support is nearly non-existent, and while the console does have some great first party games, we’ve had far fewer of them than we’re used to on a major Nintendo platform. No Metroid, no Zelda, and just one entry each for Mario, Smash, and Mario Kart. Meanwhile, the 3DS has been highly successful, though its once-impenetrable beachhead of market dominance has been eroded by smartphones, which continue to progress in power, ubiquity, and affordability.
Nintendo wasted no time and immediately showcased three of its biggest guns for Switch.
And though the future of Nintendo’s portable-only business has yet to be determined, for now the Switch seems to be the Big N’s one-stop shop for both its living room and portable markets. In essence, it’s putting all of its eggs in a single Switch basket. Perhaps that’s why Nintendo wasted no time and immediately showcased three of its biggest guns for Switch: Zelda, a new and seemingly mainline 3D Mario, and Mario Kart. That’s in addition to more adult-skewing third-party franchises like Skyrim and NBA 2K.
Though rumors about Switch’s specs suggest that it will again leave Nintendo with the least-powerful console on the market, those same rumors also put it approximately on-par with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. If that holds true, it gives Nintendo a much better chance of having a consistent level of third-party support for at least a few years, given Sony and Microsoft’s respective pledges to continue supporting their 2013 consoles for the foreseeable future.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild could easily sell 15-20 million copies on PlayStation 4 and another 10+ million on Xbox One.
That bodes well for the Switch’s odds of success, which is good because I doubt even Nintendo can afford another Wii U-level flop, particularly when shareholders – Nintendo is a publicly traded company in Japan, after all – will likely start getting restless and want to see the company return to its mega-profit ways. And what looks better to shareholders: making a small amount of money on hardware and then selling 2-3 million copies of Zelda for that hardware? Or selling 15-25 million copies of that same Zelda game for competitors’ hardware?
Because that’s exactly what could happen. Make no mistake: Nintendo is no Sega. So long as the company retains its immensely talented internal development staff and its stable of beloved franchises, it would be a third-party game-maker to be reckoned with. The incredibly promising, refreshingly modern The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could easily sell 15-20 million copies on PlayStation 4 and another 10+ million on Xbox One. Think about what kind of historic event the debut of each major Nintendo franchise on the Sony and Nintendo consoles would be.
Both gamers and Nintendo shareholders alike stand to win by seeing Mario, Zelda, Metroid, et al be developed for more powerful consoles with larger installed bases.
In fact, the recent announcement of Super Mario Run for iOS maybe a sign that Nintendo is testing the waters for a possible multiplatform future. Over 20 million people signed up to be notified when the game is available. Those numbers dwarf anything Nintendo can do on their own platforms, and shareholders will be watching that product closely.
I hope the Switch is a rousing success that firmly reestablishes Nintendo as the third major player in the console market, rather than the third wheel it often feels like now. That is what’s healthiest for the industry. But if the Switch doesn’t fare any better than the Wii U, there’s a legitimate chance that we might all be playing Mario and Zelda games on our PS4 Pros and Xbox Scorpios in 2020. And that might not be such a bad thing. While the end of Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer would be a substantial emotional loss to those of us who grew up with the company, both gamers and Nintendo shareholders alike stand to win by seeing Mario, Zelda, Metroid, et al be developed for more powerful consoles with larger installed bases. For now, Nintendo holds its fate in its own hands.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.
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