Topic: Is The Switch 2 Worth It???

@OmnitronVariant False, what it does is tell us the likelihood that an individual might be interested in that game. For example, it's far more likely that a Switch owner is going to be one of the 69.56 million people that owned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe than one of the 1.09 million people that owned Metroid Prime Remastered. Sales gives us a more macroeconomic view of the question by showing us what the whole fanbase prefers. Now is that a 1:1 correlation for each individual? Of course not. There is most likely at least one gaming preference that differs from the popular opinions and trends (high selling games that an individual likes, low selling games that an individual likes). But looking at popularity and trends can give us insight into how the fanbase collectively is answering this question and what Nintendo can do to change the narrative.

So I keep telling people. But that hasn't stopped people using sales figures as a bat to beat it with in this thread when it suits. Including yourself, on multiple occasions. Literally your entire bit is that it's horrible but you're forced to keep buying stuff for it because, woe is you, you can't find a buyer for it because it's so unpopular

@rallydefault

Quite the trick having a 14 year old account!

@FishyS
lol indeed!

I've looked at the VGChartz figures for December which admittedly are mainly estimates but they tend to be within 10% of real figures, mostly within 5% I think. US market had the Switch 2 beating PS5 in December by 40,000 units approx and I thought it was expected to be more than this but it is a decent number but the PS5 is selling fantastic numbers for a system with already have a high level of saturation in the market. Obviously in Europe Switch 2 numbers are not great and getting towards half that of PS5 numbers but then Switch 2 is priced highest in Europe. However it is expected 2026 will be a very bad year for technology sales especially games consoles because of the hyper inflation in RAM and NAND chips so price increases are coming for all consoles probably. This is a crucial year for Nintendo to build it's userbase and they have been given a real challenge. It's funny how people interpret the sales figures, some say a huge success for Switch 2 and others say way below expected sales based on a comparison with the original Switch launch numbers.

What I find most interesting is in all three major markets the Switch 1 in December sold around 200,000 units give or take. Even though the markets are all very different, USA 350 million, Europe 750 million and Japan 120 million it all filtered down to similar figures.

I think it was a poor decision to price so highly for launch in Europe, they could have sold more at a fairer price and built a better foundation in Europe and with prices likely to increase the adoption rate will slow even more. Normally Europe buys more Switch units than Japan but if it continues the way its going Europe will have sold significantly less Switch 2 consoles than Japan this generation. If Nintendo increases prices in Europe for Switch 2 this year sales could collapse too if they continue to want a much higher margin in Europe. You aren't going to get casual gamers if the price is close to £500/550 euros or even over that. The games are super expensive too in comparison. Also to achieve those figures in Europe there has been widespread discounting of 5-15% which means it is not a must have item. Many retailers have a lot more stock than they were expecting. Demand well below expectations.

So yes I feel the whole market is a bit negative and Nintendo may have a very bad year selling the Switch 2 so Nintendo will have to absorb these component increases and financially see a huge drop in margin and profits or price high and see the sales figures collapse. What else can they do? There are rumours of a early Switch 2 Lite model and I guess this could be their thinking. Get a model out in the market to appeal to casual gamers. Surely a OLED model is off the table now for a long time, they aren't going to want to produce a console that is even more expensive.

My fear in regards to sales numbers is just that we'll continue to see "cross-gen" games that don't fully utilise the Switch 2's hardware. Not inherently bad of course; many games will be fine like that. But I really hope Nintendo dares to make the next mainline Zelda and/or Mario S2 exclusive to really show us what it can do.

dude. Just because we choose something you clearly do not like, dont assume we are sheep. Its quite insulting and you are not the wisdom of all things

@OmnitronVariant
I actually agree with this (wow) and have been saying: the time for cross-gen is over. The big stuff from here on out should be Switch 2 exclusive.

We still have Tomodachi and Rhythm Heaven for Switch 1 this year, but let that be the end of the “big” stuff. Focus on your new machine now.

@rallydefault
Why not both? I think there's plenty of space for games that don't push the hardware and as long as the Switch 2 gets a resolution bump that's fine. But they can do that while still pushing the hardware in other titles

As an example, if they were to make another heavily artistic but inherently 2D game along the lines of a Woolly World or Wario Land? I wouldn't be opposed to that also landing on the Switch. As long as there's a higher resolution mode on Switch 2. Same deal if they had been releasing those TTYD or Super Mario RPG remakes this year

But obviously, that doesn't mean we can't have games that push the hardware further. Basically I don't expect the next new 3D Zelda to be playable on Switch, for example. But I wouldn't be at all opposed to something like Twilight Princess HD being cross-gen. And I don't think anyone really benefits from those kinds of games being Switch 2 exclusives

Obviously development doesn't work quite like this. There would be overheads supporting both. And eventually Switch will stop being supported even when Switch 2 exclusivity doesn't make that much sense. But for the Rhythm Heaven and 2D Yoshi games? I don't see what we gain from it. Other than bullet points for forum discussions such as this

@skywake
I don’t view it as a “pushing the tech” thing; I view it as a “why the heck do I need the new console?” thing.

Like I said, Switch 1 is still gonna get those two “big” first-party games this year. That’s awesome. And I agree: if the rumored HD Zelda pack comes out, that would be a cross-gen kind of thing.

But otherwise, it’s time to move on if your future is Switch 2. Don’t drag this out. Third parties will be releasing stuff on the original Switch until my daughter is in high school (she’s 7 lol) - but Nintendo themselves need to focus up on the path forward.

The longer I have this, the more it feels like the Switch pro.

@rallydefault
I'm not so convinced, I just don't think the average consumer cares anywhere near as much about this "new generation exclusive" bit as gaming forum dwellers seem to believe they do. I think of a couple of my colleagues who are professionals, highly technically proficient, very smart people. One of them purchased a Switch 2 over Christmas for their partner and got Animal Crossing for it as a "Switch 2 game". The other has been waiting for a decent sale/deal to drop and seems to be wanting to use Metroid Prime 4 as the trigger/excuse/justification

So many pages on this thread and others have been spent trying to argue that the Switch 2 needs exclusives to justify itself. And of course, it does want exclusives, has exclusives and will continue to get exclusives. And Nintendo should be pushing in that direction. But I think people are too wedded to this old console model mentality where a console needs a variety of killer apps you can't get anywhere else in order to justify itself. Because that's not where the average consumer is

The average consumer sees the Switch 2 mostly as a way to access both Switch 2 AND Switch games. And the reason they pick it over the Switch isn't necessarily because of those Switch 2 only games. They pick it over the Switch because they see the improvements the Switch 2 offers and, ultimately, see the Switch as outdated and a bit of a dead-end

When a game releases on the Switch, and especially when it has a Switch 2 Edition or some kind of Switch 2 resolution enhancement, I think the average consumer just sees that as another game they have access to. Another game on "the Switch ecosystem"

@skywake
PS5 is actually strong evidence that consoles can sell on the strength of general releases and improvements. Many games are also releasing on PS4, but consumers choose it because hey, better performance, faster load times, and a few exclusives as a bonus.

Same for Switch 2. Except a ton of exclusives, not just a few.

@skywake
I don’t see a thru line with your logic, though. You’re saying the average consumer doesn’t care about or even know about the exclusives Switch 2 may have, but you’re saying those same people will care about better graphics or framerate? I just don’t really see that.

What I’m saying really isn’t complicated: “normal” consumers aren’t gonna buy a new system if they can play the same games on the system they already own.

I feel like the average Nintendo console consumer doesn't buy consoles too often and sees a '2' and figures that is the recent one so will last longer. Plus they see a big sign in the store which says 'new mario kart' and remember that they used to have fun with mario kart.

@rallydefault
What I'm saying is that the average consumer might not even be "upgrading" so much. They'll at most be looking at it in terms of getting a new Nintendo console. Either because their existing Switch is tired or because they want to jump back into it

And for that consumer the specific of what's exclusive and what isn't doesn't matter. They just want to play a game, and the Switch 2 is the newer one

Nintendo's successes, and the Switch itself is a prominent example, pretty much flies in the face of this. If this were true the Switch would not have been the kind of runaway success that it was. The Switch was not backwards compatible, so it didn't have last gen's lineups to fall back on to build out its lineup. And while it did have third party, most of the third parties did not sell well, and certainly didn't track very high in the Switch best sellers. The highest selling third party game on Switch (Monster Hunter Rise at 8.09 million) is only the 25th best selling game on the hardware. Let that sink in, there are 24 Switch games that outsold every third party game on the Switch. What you're claming here simply is not the reality. Switch game sales data directly contradicts this.

In terms of what the sales data is REALLY telling us, here are some more well-founded conclusions we can draw in terms of what's driving sales:

1. New, original tentpole games are king. Compare any kind of new game to a re-release of some kind (a Wii U port, a remake/remaster, etc.) and the new game sells more. Often times, but not always, main series games outsell spinoffs too (there's one glaring exception to this though and that's Mario Kart outsells the Mario platformers). Furthermore, 8 of the Top 10 are new, original games (MK8D being #1 is an oddity, but that seems to be saying more than Mario Kart is unstoppable rather than Wii U ports being a viable substitute). The big megatons are the games people are buying.

2. The earlier the better. 7 of the Top 10 best selling games on the Switch came before the pandemic, having them on the market longer seemed to give them time to amass higher and higher sales totals. Furthermore, if you compare IPs that had multiple entries (for example, BotW vs. TotK or Splatoon 2 vs. Splatoon 3), the earlier entry usually sold more (again not always, SV just barely outsold SwSh), but for the most part this pattern holds (and you can generally see this pattern hold on older consoles as well, I first noticed this with Galaxy 1 vs. Galaxy 2 for example).

3. Ambition matters. Looking at some IPs that had different entries in different formats, the more ambition one outsold the less ambitious one. For example, 3D entries outsold 2D entries (see: Mario Odyssey vs. Mario Wonder or Kirby and the Forgotten Land vs. Kirby Star Allies), or if a game got larger/more open, that sold more than a smaller, more linear game (this may be the reason behind SV being an exception to the multiple entries trend, SV was slightly more appealing because it was open world).

So yeah, this is why the discussion about games is important. The sales data and past history suggests that the Switch took off early because of having big tentpole releases early, while with the Switch 2 they're trying to hold us off with S2Es for some of these big tentpole IPs and sales trends suggest this will not work. The sales just won't pick up (or to put it in microeconomic terms since that's what you prefer, the average Nintendo gamer just won't find enough to justify a Switch 2 purchase) until Nintendo brings out the big guns, no way around it. And the longer they take to do so, the worse off Nintendo will be this gen.

Except it did because those games were quickly ported. And arguably the success of something like the GameBoy, historically, was in no small part due to the weight of its library across iterations (GB/GBC/GBA)

A similar thing holds for the huge momentum Steam has on PC. And I would even argue the problem with the XBox brand isn't a specific console it's more that people don't have an attachment to that ecosystem

This isn't the 90s, people don't buy gaming consoles. They buy into a broader library across generations. When you talk about console exclusives you're way behind the times and well behind where consumers are at

I'm looking at the known upcoming **Nintendo** games (not multiplatform third-party) for Switch 2 and there's not a single major release. No, Pokopia isn't a major releases. I was going to say neither is Yoshi but it's not even on there anyway.

I know we live in the age when someone will demand "statistics" and "facts" the moment their own viewpoint is challenged, but I'm just looking at what's upcoming from Nintendo's own website: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/games/coming-soon

This is what I mean when I say this reminds me of Wii U. I was there. I've been here since the Game Boy. This is a weird situation.

@OmnitronVariant
Well you could've said the same thing at multiple points over the last several years. Nintendo hasn't been outlining their long term release schedule for quite a while now. The idea that this is "like the Wii U" is kinda amusing because, as someone who was also there, back then they announced stuff WAY earlier. They were outlining the entire 2014 lineup in January, they were teasing BotW at E3 that year which was still years off. Presumably all in an effort to try and pull out all the stops to get some sales going

Also Mario Tennis Fever is most definitely a major first party release. Although if you wish to qualify it as "not major" for arbitrary reasons like you're doing with Pokopia also I'm not sure what to add. Mario Tennis Aces was super mediocre, sure, but it still moved 4.5mill units. More than Pikmin 4, Metroid Dread, Arms. I would say it qualifies. And this is before we consider the releases for Switch, which also count, and likely unannounced titles for the tail end of this year

Anyways, this idea of painting the Switch 2 as some kind of history repeating Wii U situation is getting a bit old. It's amusing the knots people will tie themselves into to try and support this delusion