Nintendo Switch Was The Console With The Most Game Releases In 2023

Yeah but I'll bet a fair share of that number were those godawful sub-shovelware games like that Last of Us knock-off.

tbh this is nothing to be proud of. Nintendo used to control and cultivate their releases with some degree of care, but with Switch those holds and measures were completely abandoned. Now it is garbage shovelware 'Hentai Highschool' type releases and other junk by the hour. Like an open sewer streaming through into the 'New Releases' tab. It is what it is but it is hardly something to boast about [wags finger at Nintendo]

Came here to say what the other guys said.

Steam launched more than 14,000 games? Shame that 13,900 of them are asset flips or actual trash.

@smithyo when did they ever do that? wiiware was full of shovel ware, as were the physical releases.
even during nes-gba their game library were full of crap licences games.

@smithyo yeah — it can make browsing through a sale an absolute chore at times

Yet over half of that figure is shovelware, I check the store weekly for the new releases and maybe 3-4 games per month look actually decent.

@Raifteiri the shovelware with Nintendo really picked up pace with the DS. before that there was stuff. but it was vastly less. i played a hecka lot of 3DS, i mean of course shovelware, but it is like 100 times less than what hits the Switch.

@Raifteiri yeah, I dug my SP, but for every Golden Sun there were like five Shrek games

@smithyo Imo, the Wii and Ps1 were the absolute worst, followed by the ds, but I have to say switch might be overtaking all three at this juncture. Nobody can ever compete with the ds for LICENSCED shovelware though.

yeah scrolling through the endless shovelware porn games on the eShop shows Nintendos Seal of Quality really matters.

And of those 2,360 I bought 7.

And of those 14,000 I bought 0. I didn’t add single steam game to my library this past year.

Quantity over quality, right?

@Andee Are you saying PlayStation and other consoles don't have shovelware? Personally I would say the Switch had quite a good year considering how old the thing is. Plenty of good game releases.

anybody saying Nintendo has always been like this doesnt remember the "quality over quantity" era.

@UltraZelda64 no, I'm saying that the GBA in particular seemed to have a glut of licensed garbage from films and cartoons that were popular around the early 2000s

I hope they tackle those crappy Eshop releases on the switch 2. Or make a special tab for those types of releases, for those who actually enjoy those. To better organise it.
A tab for all first/second party releases. Big third party releases. And a tab for indie quality games.
And also a overal tab for people who just want to scroll through everything lol.

@DonkeyBrainKing So. Many. Anime. Hentai. Games.

@Poodlestargenerica the DS was indeed king for licensed shovelware lol.

I am surprised you say PS1 though. PS1 is my main thing. PAL region had like whatt between 1300-1400 titles total with some people out there having collected the full set. I would say most of those tiotles (at least 1000 of them) are not 'shovelware' as we think of that term now. PS2 on the other hand had a far vaster library and shovel ware content (although not too bad considering how massive the PS2 was)

@AnnoyingFrenzy
There is 100's of developers making games exclusively for PC including Sega for example.
Sega releases the praised Total War series and Dawn of War among others exclusively for PC and always did.
PC have lots of major series, racing games, simulations, flight sims, adventure games etc. which never gets ported to any console. 99% of RTS games isn't coming to consoles either.

Point is. Switch is no different vs Steam when it comes to amount of shovelware.

As others mentioned here already, it's a drag to browse eShop on Switch when there is 80% shovelware and asset flips.
Nintendo care about quantity, not quality.

@smithyo The only way that Nintendo used to control releases on their systems was via censorship and making sure they functioned as required. They have never played a role in deciding the quality of games on any of their platforms.

All three consoles have shovelware just like Steam. The problem is, the way Sony, Microsoft and Valve run their online stores pushes all of it to the bottom and highlights the big games when browsing so you don’t see it. That likely means you asset flip “developers” are less likely to put their crap on PlayStation or Xbox but on the eShop where it goes right to the top, makes sense to just chuck it all there.

@__jamiie well i would argue that making sure a game functions as required is a quality thing, and that quality control used to keep things in some state of balance. Not so much now. But i get what you mean, but i mean part of my main point was the quality control thing has vanished and it is creating a hecka lot of spam junk

@UltraZelda64 Sony embraces asset flips and shovelware too.
Sony also allows 5 minute 1 button games where you unlock all trophies and platinum in 5 mins for 1-2$.

Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast didn't have much shovelware because the consoles weren't popular enough for that.

@FragRed As @JohnnyMind mentioned, they definitely need a way to filter those games out so people don't have to keep scrolling through garbage to get to the games that are actually worth playing.

@FragRed Exactly. I have never seen shovelware being promoted on Steam ever.
Valve put those games so far down the list no one can see them as you say to pretend they don't exist on steam at all.

If you wanna buy shovelware and asset flips on Steam, you need to know the exact game names, otherwise you can't find them on the store.

@Toastmaster Yup

@TheImperfectInsider Nintendo revealed in the past why they promote shovelware on top of the shop.

They want everyone to have the same opportunity to sell their games including 1 man developers.

Nintendo did this to attract a lot more Indies to their consoles.
I doubt this will change with "Switch 2", because Nintendo wanna keep all the Indies.

@Toastmaster that sounds very honorable and meritocratic and everything, but i mean lets be honest, most shovelware releases are not some honest attempt by one or 2 guys to make a worthwhile game. they come from 'developers' in India or wherever that churn out low effort junk in sufficient numbers to turn a profit.

There's clearly far too many games being released in general. A lot of those games and developers are going to really struggle to even be noticed.

@smithyo I'm generally not a big ps1 fan, and am a huge ps2 fan. I will definitely not disagree that the games have gotten more blatantly crap though.

@smithyo There is at least dedicated Switch channels on YouTube showing off these bad games so people know what not to buy, and also explains why the games is so bad.

There is Switch exclusive broken FPS games with N64 graphics running at 10 FPS with glitches every second being sold on eShop for 20$. LOL

Tons of digital garbage produced every year.

PS5 and XBox Series finally reached a point where game development takes so long that they get a couple of good first party games per year if they are lucky.

@smithyo you didn't know about Taboo: The Sixth Sense for the NES, right? A game where it read your luck through tarot cards. It was developed by Rare hahahah. When a console has that level of success, lots of shovel ware come with it. Happened to the Wii, happened to the PS2. Or you're going to shed a tear for the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" now? Hahahaha

I simply pay no attention to the shovelware. You can spot it from a mile away. I can usually tell something is shovelware by the thumbnail alone or even the name. The people who act all "offended" by the presence of shovelware on a system never cease to make me laugh.

And hey, we're living in the age of the internet. There's simply no excuse now. You can find the quality games easily and ignore the shovelware completely if you really want to. There are plenty of sites, videos, lists, etc. that showcase only the quality Switch games and completely ignores the garbage. Stop acting like shovelware legitimately hinders your gaming experience.

And also, I'm glad th shovelware is there, I like to buy it from time to time, and play them just for laughs. I'd rather have the gaming ecosystem we have, where a few ugly ducklings are allowed to exist in the pond, rather than a squeaky clean eshop where everything is the same.

@AnnoyingFrenzy percentage wise, the Switch is practically the same

As a Switch and Steamdeck owner, I am sorry to say that Switch cannot compete. It is not shovelware, it is the AAAs. The real issue is that Swich cannot run contemporary games. Steam deck is not perfect but it runs a lot of games significantly better than the Switch. On top of that, I know that a game I bought in 2010 on steam is likely to work in 2090, something I cannot say about Nintendo games. Steamdeck can also run GBA, NES SNES, GC, N64 etc without a subscription because it is a PC, illegal but true.

@Edu23XWiiU DO you have a point. is the core of your argument here that there was a trashy game on the NES that turned out to be a surprising success, and this means that there has never been quality control by Nintendo. Is that your point?

@Rainbowfire
'I simply pay no attention to the shovelware'

2 seconds later:

'And also, I'm glad the shovelware is there, I like to buy it from time to time, and play them just for laughs'

are you sure you haven't taken your avatar image to seriously?

Shovelware exists on all gaming platforms it's just that Nintendo is the flavor of the day with it huge sales and software offering that others NintenDoomed fandom can't fathom why it's so successful of a Hybrid console they can't wrap their tunnel vision around. Maybe when they can understand the Switch concept maybe they have real concerns.

@Switch_Pro Yeah. Only 16 Xbox exclusives for 2024 is revealed so far, and there is only 11 months left to reveal more.

@Savage_Joe Yup

Got a oled steam deck for Xmas from the Mrs and steam has opened my eyed to whats out there 😳 not ashamed to say there's been a couple of NSFW games downloaded and they're pretty awesome 🤣

@SwitchForce not sure I agree, the switch fan base seem to be particularly into the indie scene so these 'lesser' games definitely have a market and there's money to be made...

@SwitchForce True, except for Microsoft which is the only one who bans asset flips etc. on Xbox.
If you can get 1000G in 5 minutes on Xbox, those "games" is banned too by MS as they are not games. Sony still allows these in 2024.
"Platinum trophy" in 5 minutes for 1-2$.

I don't understand why some of these 1$ Sony Indies designed for Platinum Trophy even exist on Switch, because Switch don't have a achievement system.

i dont get why people are so mad about the amount of games on the eshop. I get it, there's a lot of asset-flip garbage. But asset flip shovelware always has been and always will be hilarious! They definitely need to have some sort of team to filter out all the hentai visual novels, but other than that, im not sure i want to see all the low-quality garbage go. Though it makes it hard to forgive when scrolling THROUGH the garbage to get to the good stuff takes a million years since nintendo cant make a non-laggy eshop

We had loads of shovelware on the NES, the only difference was it cost $50 bucks instead of $2

My bank account could tell. I haven’t been this far behind on purchases since I was a broke college student. My wishlist is screaming in agony.

The Switch is about to have its seventh birthday, but it’s about to enter its /eighth/ year.

and with the most bad scam games that make it worse for the well crafted games to stand out.

@Nintendo_Thumb the NES was not even close to the Switch when it comes to shovelware

Something something shovelware...

@smithyo When I said I pay no attention to it, I meant in the sense that I don't feel offended or bothered by its existence.
That I could easily ignore it if I so choose, since it's so easy to recognize (at least to me it is). Hope I cleared that up.

I gotta say, even if they're not games from 2023, I started to get games that otherwise I probably wouldn't have thought about getting or would've dismissed almost immediately. Suika Game being a prime example of this, and then followed by Q Remastered, Trombone Champ and Traffix.

So in a sense I'm glad Nintendo embraces indies, but then again, I already know what I'm looking for and just search it using the search bar or by checking my wishlist. I try to avoid the main pages and lists as much as possible.

@epicgamner Yeah, that's my only real issue with it, which is why I check the 'Recent Releases' section daily. That way, I only have to scroll down a little bit to see what's new, then I'm done.

Steam may get more shovelware than Switch, but when I'm browsing a sale, I can count on Steam doing a much better job at highlighting the quality stuff than the Eshop ever does.

Not so sure why it bothers some there is a lot of choice on the Switch e-Shop, I think a lot of this stems from the fact, that it's many games that they do not personally see any value in.

The Switch has a very broad demographic and more choice is always a good thing, and trancends any individuals own personal preferences.

@-wc-

It is crazy to me that Nintendo 64 had like 294 games released in its lifetime in the US, but the Switch gets 7-8x that in it's 6th YEAR lol.

@Toastmaster I said GOOD exclusives.

@smithyo my point is, tons of games always come to successful consoles, the demand is there. And, without shovelware, we wouldn't have got games like Big Rigs, so, go shovelware!

@Deljo Your trying to put Indie makers whom make good games into "Shovelware" trash games. There is a difference even in Indie game makers there are good and bad ones.

@Switch_Pro I can see where you come from.

I'm old enough to remember the days when no games came to Nintendo systems, so although I know the majority is shovelware, at least developers are bothering to port to Nintendo.

Let the good times continue with Super Switch.