Long term readers of this site will know that I've had my ups and downs with Nintendo. The emotional rollercoaster is all borne out of love, of course; just because you love someone or something doesn't mean you can't tell them when you think they're going wrong.
Allow me to remind you of this thing here; I wasn't sold by the messaging surrounding the Switch in the run-up to its release. That started to change as the launch approached, and when I finally got hold of one it literally blew my trousers off. They landed in a tramp's lap!
Alright, it helped that I had Zelda: Breath of the Wild to play on it... but I got what Nintendo was trying to do with Switch. I got the local multiplayer focus of the hardware... and it felt refreshingly at odds with Sony and Microsoft's approach.
However, regardless of what the hardware can do, every console lives and dies on its games. I, like others, criticised the Switch launch line-up, but those criticisms fell away as we all realised just how good Breath of the Wild was. With hindsight, I was potentially blinded by it - and I suspect I'm not alone in that. Now we're sort of post-Zelda, and having to deal with the hangover.
It was never going to last forever, of course; just as many of us are grinding to a conclusion on BotW, Nintendo has unveiled its Switch line-up for the rest of the year.
Underwhelming barely covers it.
Allow me to remind you of this thing here; I wasn't sold by the messaging surrounding the Switch in the run-up to its release. That started to change as the launch approached, and when I finally got hold of one it literally blew my trousers off. They landed in a tramp's lap!
Alright, it helped that I had Zelda: Breath of the Wild to play on it... but I got what Nintendo was trying to do with Switch. I got the local multiplayer focus of the hardware... and it felt refreshingly at odds with Sony and Microsoft's approach.
However, regardless of what the hardware can do, every console lives and dies on its games. I, like others, criticised the Switch launch line-up, but those criticisms fell away as we all realised just how good Breath of the Wild was. With hindsight, I was potentially blinded by it - and I suspect I'm not alone in that. Now we're sort of post-Zelda, and having to deal with the hangover.
It was never going to last forever, of course; just as many of us are grinding to a conclusion on BotW, Nintendo has unveiled its Switch line-up for the rest of the year.
Underwhelming barely covers it.
THE GAMES
The big games confirmed for Switch include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Arms, Splatoon 2, and - obviously - Minecraft and FIFA. Here's the thing: Mario Kart 8 has already been available for the Wii U, Splatoon 2 is essentially Wii U version of Splatoon with all the DLC, Minecraft is available on everything from your phone to your thorax, and Arms looks fun but feels like a have-a-quick-go-here-and-there multiplayer nonsense.
And that's about it for triple-A games. We're probably getting Super Mario Odyssey later in the year, but what's worrying is that the most of the other games named are either pretty niche or re-released "special editions".
Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers doesn't have the strength of brand that it once did, Disgaea 5 Complete is going to appeal to nobody but the hardest of the hardcore... but Namco Museum, Sine Mora EX, BattleChasers: Nightwar, Sonic Forces, Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition, Payday 2, and bloody six year-old Skyrim are unlikely to enflame the sort of mass audience that you want buying your new console.
Of course, there could be more big, original, games to come this year, but it seems strange that Nintendo isn't revealing them. The company has always kept its nude playing cards close to its chest, but that seems like a peculiar strategy when it has a brand new console which it still needs to get people excited about. Breath of the Wild is incredible, but it's finite. It's one game.
It feels like Nintendo's line-up is appealing to a niche audience, not the traditionally broad Nintendo family audience. The number of old games it's listing is - frankly - bizarre. Has any new machine ever released with such a number of "special editions" and quirky Japanese RPGs? It feels like a peculiar way to sell make-or-break hardware.
The big games confirmed for Switch include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Arms, Splatoon 2, and - obviously - Minecraft and FIFA. Here's the thing: Mario Kart 8 has already been available for the Wii U, Splatoon 2 is essentially Wii U version of Splatoon with all the DLC, Minecraft is available on everything from your phone to your thorax, and Arms looks fun but feels like a have-a-quick-go-here-and-there multiplayer nonsense.
And that's about it for triple-A games. We're probably getting Super Mario Odyssey later in the year, but what's worrying is that the most of the other games named are either pretty niche or re-released "special editions".
Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers doesn't have the strength of brand that it once did, Disgaea 5 Complete is going to appeal to nobody but the hardest of the hardcore... but Namco Museum, Sine Mora EX, BattleChasers: Nightwar, Sonic Forces, Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition, Payday 2, and bloody six year-old Skyrim are unlikely to enflame the sort of mass audience that you want buying your new console.
Of course, there could be more big, original, games to come this year, but it seems strange that Nintendo isn't revealing them. The company has always kept its nude playing cards close to its chest, but that seems like a peculiar strategy when it has a brand new console which it still needs to get people excited about. Breath of the Wild is incredible, but it's finite. It's one game.
It feels like Nintendo's line-up is appealing to a niche audience, not the traditionally broad Nintendo family audience. The number of old games it's listing is - frankly - bizarre. Has any new machine ever released with such a number of "special editions" and quirky Japanese RPGs? It feels like a peculiar way to sell make-or-break hardware.
PLAYING AT
What is Nintendo playing at? There was all that talk of big third-party support... and the third-parties turn out to be mostly smaller developers, or big publishers re-releasing older games. The quality of those games is irrelevant; it's what they're doing to the perception of the Switch.
If Super Mario Odyssey turns out to be as good as Breath of the Wild it'll no doubt help sell the system, but everything else between now and then feels like filler. Arms, the one original IP Nintendo has announced, might be great, but it feels more akin to 1-2-Switch - a game designed to sell the quirkiness of the Switch, which people who already own the Switch will buy, rather than something which will drive hardware sales.
Fact is, I don't want Switch to fail. I love the philosophy behind it, that Nintendo is trying to connect people, that it's trying to say you don't need to be the most powerful to be the best. These are important, honourable, messages. Unfortunately, in order to sell its message Nintendo needs to be able to sell its machine. I only really bought into Switch once I'd played on one.
To a certain degree, early sales of the hardware have been healthy - Zelda alone has done that job. But what happens when Zelda is done and dusted, and you want the next big game... and there isn't one? Or you have to wait nine months for it?
FLASHY... AAAAH-AH!
While we can debate the merits of the PS4 and Xbox One, there's no question that both systems are overburdened with big, flashy, attractive games. Nintendo may not be competing directly with the Xbox One and PS4, but that isn't necessarily how consumers will view it.
Last week I argued that Switch would outlive the PS4 and Xbox One because it isn't playing the Most Powerful Hardware game. I still stand by that, but the system can't achieve that unless Nintendo gets its act together; at the point I wrote the article I was hopeful that Nintendo was about to unveil some major surprises. That hasn't happened. I feel a bit bereft and abandoned, to be honest.
As far as we know the only other triple-A Nintendo game we're getting this year is Super Mario Odyssey, which makes just two such games for the new system in its first nine months. That's not good enough, frankly, however enjoyable some of those smaller games are. All it's going to do is push the Switch deeper under the TV, where it'll gather dust - just as so many Wii Us did.
This is a crucial time for Nintendo, and it needs to be pulling out all the stops to prove that the Switch is more than just one game.
What is Nintendo playing at? There was all that talk of big third-party support... and the third-parties turn out to be mostly smaller developers, or big publishers re-releasing older games. The quality of those games is irrelevant; it's what they're doing to the perception of the Switch.
If Super Mario Odyssey turns out to be as good as Breath of the Wild it'll no doubt help sell the system, but everything else between now and then feels like filler. Arms, the one original IP Nintendo has announced, might be great, but it feels more akin to 1-2-Switch - a game designed to sell the quirkiness of the Switch, which people who already own the Switch will buy, rather than something which will drive hardware sales.
Fact is, I don't want Switch to fail. I love the philosophy behind it, that Nintendo is trying to connect people, that it's trying to say you don't need to be the most powerful to be the best. These are important, honourable, messages. Unfortunately, in order to sell its message Nintendo needs to be able to sell its machine. I only really bought into Switch once I'd played on one.
To a certain degree, early sales of the hardware have been healthy - Zelda alone has done that job. But what happens when Zelda is done and dusted, and you want the next big game... and there isn't one? Or you have to wait nine months for it?
FLASHY... AAAAH-AH!
While we can debate the merits of the PS4 and Xbox One, there's no question that both systems are overburdened with big, flashy, attractive games. Nintendo may not be competing directly with the Xbox One and PS4, but that isn't necessarily how consumers will view it.
Last week I argued that Switch would outlive the PS4 and Xbox One because it isn't playing the Most Powerful Hardware game. I still stand by that, but the system can't achieve that unless Nintendo gets its act together; at the point I wrote the article I was hopeful that Nintendo was about to unveil some major surprises. That hasn't happened. I feel a bit bereft and abandoned, to be honest.
As far as we know the only other triple-A Nintendo game we're getting this year is Super Mario Odyssey, which makes just two such games for the new system in its first nine months. That's not good enough, frankly, however enjoyable some of those smaller games are. All it's going to do is push the Switch deeper under the TV, where it'll gather dust - just as so many Wii Us did.
This is a crucial time for Nintendo, and it needs to be pulling out all the stops to prove that the Switch is more than just one game.
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