Where are the games, Nintendo?

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I'm a longtime game fan Nintendo. Getting to know Metroid Prime At the beginning of the zero, I did not miss a single console of the company and always found something interesting on them. But at the end of 2020, looking like dust with Nintendo Switch , I could not help but wonder: where are the new items? What went wrong?

Let's start with dry numbers. In 2020, Nintendo had only eight physical releases. More than half of them are the rejection of the junk: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #fe Encore, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Super Mario 3D All-STARS And Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Only three games are new, and even then one of them – Clubhouse Games – This is a set of classic entertainment like Majong, playing cards, chess, darts, golf and others like them. Only two remain. Animal Crossing: New Horizons And Paper Mario: The Origami King – All that Nintendo was able to offer Switch users for a whole year.

Here it can be argued that quality is more important than quantity – and this is undoubtedly true. Only earlier Nintendo always knew how to support both, and on two consoles at the same time. And sometimes on three! In 2005, after launch DS , on the outburst GBA There were more Nintendo projects than on Switch In 2020! But then the company continued to release excellent games for both DS and Gamecube. Moreover, in such quantity and assortment that everyone would find something to his taste.

It is not difficult to understand how much such a drought is an unprecedented one: it is enough to compare the number of releases in the fourth year of the life cycle of each of the Nintendo consoles. So, on Switch until the beginning of March, when four will hit her, it will only come out Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – Another reprint with Wii U. Together with it you will get eight games per year, of which there are only two – full and new. For comparison: on Wii U , Which https://the-vic-gb-casino.co.uk/ after four years was already considered a failure and almost dead, ten games have come out during the same period, of which seven were large and new. On 3DS – About the same.

By irony, it is the ports from WII U who now make up a considerable part of the Switch library

In 2020, Switch has turned into what has been for a long time Vita : portable indie machine abandoned by its platform holder. ESHOP is clogged with small games: ORI And " Blood enmity »Here they are adjacent to crafts, from which digital platforms with poor curations are cracking Steam And Google Play Market. At the same time, large publishers do not seek to release their blockbusters on Switch – with rare exceptions, which, however, appear there with a huge delay. It is difficult to imagine a person who will wait for the release Doom Eternal on the hybrid console – or the one who, after passing the senior version, will also want to take the bordered younger.

Nintendo console sales have always been tasted by the games of Nintendo itself – and other publishers helped with exclusives only when the consoles became hits, as Nes , SNES , WII … or Switch. Now Nintendo seemed to take a break – and third -party companies are in no hurry to use the chance.

And this is especially alarming, because Switch is actually the only living Japanese console. Microsoft I could not conquer Asia, and the gaming unit Sony Already actually based in California – and it is censored by other people's releases with all the severity of modern progressive inquisition. In addition in 2020, a rumor ran out that Sony plans to reduce his Japanese studios, and as if the creator had left for this from it Silent Hill And Gravity rush Keitiro Toyama, leading designer Gravity rush Dzyuny Okura, producer The Last Guardian Cazunobo Sato and producer Bloodborne Toriyuki Toriyama. PS5 Sold in Japan badly, unlike Switch.

And not that Nintendo did not use the lack of competition at all. Monster Hunter Rise, The new part of the most popular game series in Japan will be an exclusive Switch. Square Enix continues to support the platforms with large n cheap role -playing: earlier Octopath Traveler, Now Bravelly Default 2. Platinum Games I pleased her fans Astral Chain And promises Bayonetta 3. Atlus The devil already knows how many years threatened to release Shin Megami Tensei v.

The monstrous lack of fresh large Switch games is very sharply emphasized by how much time we are already waiting for the promised. Bayonetta 3, SMT V and Metroid Prime 4 were declared literally on the launch of the console, but still no hearing or spirit about them. Since then, only SMT V has been discouraged by one trailer in mid-2020. And when there is already a sequel Breath of the Wild?

You know what else is missing for Switch? Patigams – Games for parties that were traditionally so good on Nintendo consoles. How many such projects the company has produced over the past four years? Two: Excellent Super Mario Party And mediocre 1-2-Switch. Even in the segment where Nintendo ate the dog, she has nothing to offer people that year when everyone was sitting home!

The most ironic in this situation is that the lack of games does not interfere with Switch sales. There is such a meme from Mario Party : "Luigi wins without doing absolutely nothing". Luigi here clearly personifies Nintendo. For the 2020th, Switch was sold in about the same way as all PlayStation and Xbox combined. Mario Kart 8 , Poruted from Wii U to Switch in 2017, every year it beats its own sales records. And this, for a second, is a game already 2014.

So Nintendo can be understood: why should she release something except the super-necessary Animal Crossing, which will feed the whole company? Only now from understanding does not become easier. Previously, Nintendo was a magnificent publisher, pleasing to both the quantity and the quality of his releases. She regularly offered the expected sequels and impressive rethinking of classical franchises, and something completely new-especially in the era of revolutionary DS and WII. But then she stopped surprising with 3DS and WII U, then chopped down two directions in one with Switch-and in 2020 she practically stopped releasing games.

And I, as a long -standing fan, cannot help but upset me. Where are the games, Nintendo?

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