Topic: Current Switch 2 line-up not good enough?

I mostly agree. Mario Kart and the various spinoffs will be enough for the non early adopters; that crowd doesn't need some enormous exclusive fancy looking holiday game.

I would agree, however, most people do care about "bigger number go brr" and I would say what your saying is even less true for Pokemon. I also don't like that Scarlett/Violet sold as well as they did with the obvious QC issues. But it was the newest Pokemon, so people bought it. I mean we're talking about Pokemon here, this is the franchise that attracts more limited edition consoles than pretty much any other franchise on any platform

People will buy new hardware for this whether you think it makes sense or not. There's a reason why there's a Switch 2 bundle with this game. Nintendo are not stupid, they know this is going to move units

I actually agree with them here. Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors are niche subseries for their larger series. A new Zelda or a sequel to Kirby and the Forgotten Land would move more units than the two we're getting.

@ElRoberico This. A main series Kirby platformer and a main series Zelda game (new ones, not S2Es of Forgotten Land, BotW, and TotK) would be big deals that could sell massive numbers and drive system sales. Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors are niche spinoffs that won't sell as much, likely neither of them will crack 5 million in sales and probably few people are buying Switch 2s to play those games.

Has anything, other than maybe Mario Kart, broken 5 million units sold on Switch 2 at all?

Almost certainly not... considering only around 7 million (plus or minus) Switch 2s have been sold, you are asking for a near-100% buy rate for a game. It's honestly impressive even Mario Kart is that high, although I suppose that means most people bought the bundle.

S2 version of Pokemon or Bananza certainly have a chance of hitting 5 million during the holidays but we likely won't know until next year.

Edit: As a fun data point, no Switch 1 game had sold 5 million copies by Oct 2017, not even BotW or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

I believe the Only Kirby games which have ever passed 5 million are Kirby's Dream Land and Forgotten Land, so I agree with @Bolt_Strike that Kirby Air Riders won't hit 5 million. I assume the goal is to beat the sales of the GameCube Air Ride. But, yeah, almost no one will buy a Switch 1 just for one of the spinoffs. People will buy Switch 2 for Mario Kart, Bananza, Pokemon (the bundle), potentially Prime 4, and some will just buy a Switch 2 because of the overall number of games and to get an upgrade rather than primarily for any specific game.

@FishyS You know what I think will help Air Riders do a lot better than the NGC game? Sakauri. Yeah, he worked on the first game, but he absolutely cultivated an audience showing his passion for gaming between his own YouTube channel and the Smash breakdowns he did with every character. There will definitely people who will buy Air Riders after they get their Switch 2s. It may not break the bank at launch, but it might have a massive shelf life.

@ElRoberico @FishyS True, but we've seen early Switch 1 games like BotW, MK8D, and Mario Odyssey sell evergreen numbers and accumulate higher and higher sales over time. It's feasible that titles like MKW and Bananza could do the same. Yeah, nothing is over 5 million right now other than MKW, but after the holiday? After 2026? 2027? I could definitely see Bananza passing 5 million for example (Z-A will too, but I'm less sure it'll sell 5 million on Switch 2 alone). But I don't think Air Riders and Age of Imprisonment will pass 5 million even if they had all of the time in the world. The appeal just isn't there the same way as a MKW or Bananza.

@Bolt_Strike I think this is why I'm curious about next year. I know Fire Emblem is kinda niche, but there are people who are just Three Houses fans who are already freaking out about Fortune's Weave. Mario Tennis is perfect for causal fans, and it looks like it's doing more to appeal to hardcore fans too. Pokopia is going to be insane for the cozy gamers. It feels like Nintendo is doing an extreme version of targeting their niches to get them to adopt the Switch 2.

But yeah, I do think it lacks that one super necessary game like Odyssey of BOTW that will drive sales. It'll get there in software eventually.

@Bolt_Strike For Age of Imprisonment, I think it depends on how good the game is. Age of Calamity hit 4 million, with most of that the first year and then a few hundred thousand more after the expansion pass came out. 5 million for the new game isn't inconceivable but it would have to show how it is different than the previous games as well as being very good.

@ElRoberico @FishyS Fire Emblem and Hyrule Warriors are on the cusp of 5 million, but if they couldn't it hit on Switch 1, they most likely won't hit it on Switch 2. Switch 2 won't surpass Switch 1, between the economic situation and the lack of novelty it won't quite match the appeal. Ultimately I think their genres simply aren't broadly appealing enough. Tennis is somewhat of a niche sport and the reaction to Fever seems to be "Yup, that's a Mario Tennis game" so again I don't think it'll surpass Aces' 4.5 million. Pokopia is the only game mentioned that has a chance. It's a new spinoff so there's no track record, but both Pokemon and cozy life sim games are broadly appealing, so I wouldn't be shocked to see that game pass 5 million (hell it might even pass 10).

Are those numbers just physical games? I can never remember if Nintendo reports digital sales or not.

@ElRoberico
Hyrule warriors: age of calamity sold over 4 million copies. And this is in the age of reporting between physical and digital sales being murky at best. Accuracy for overall sales numbers is most likely on the lower end.

But even lowballing it, 4 mil isn’t niche.

Who knows how much air riders can do. But multiple millions isn’t out of the question purely because it’s early in the console and people are just looking to pick up new games.

On the official Nintendo quarterly sales reports, they list physical, digital, and even digital that comes with console bundles (that's why Mario Kart's sales are so freaking high 🤣)

@ShieldHero I'm assuming you mean MK8D, right?

@rallydefault Age of Calamity's sales are definitely low for Zelda, but high for a Warriors game. That's already a niche genre since there's apparently a massively vocal group of people who don't like them.

You're correct, I should've specified since World exists 🤣.

@ElRoberico I mean, you can find haters that complain about one genre or another, but those are usually vocal minorities. For example, we've all seen complaints about open world games, Pokemon games, NSMB, and CoD, but those games all sell 10s of millions of copies.

I think the real reason Warriors games are niche is because it's just not a casual friendly genre because it's tactics focused. Tactics games (at least from my experience) tend to have a higher skill floor and I could see kids and others that aren't 189 IQ chessmasters potentially struggling to figure out how to win in a game like Hyrule Warriors. So I think it's more a genre problem. I think you can also put Fire Emblem in that same bucket, Fire Emblem tends to hit a similar sales range, those two IPs are probably hitting similar audiences and appealing to the same kinds of gamers.

@ElRoberico
That doesn’t really play out, though. I’m saying 4 million is 4 million, and that’s not niche no matter how you cut it.

BotW and Tears were insane, right? Absolutely crazy. But would it shock you to know that Skyward Sword on the Wii, a console with a massive install base, sold under 4 million? Does that make Skyward Sword niche?

So yea, it’s not a mainline Zelda. But it’s the Zelda franchise. And the last game in the same series sold more than the last mainline Zelda before the BotW era.

in my opinion, age of Imprisonment is a huge, big-franchise first-party holiday title. It’s gonna sell insanely well.