Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@skywake Prime 4 would get lost alongside a Call of Duty game. I mean, all the talk about power is folk wanting third party games. Nintendo won't launch with too many first party titles on day one. They'll want third party support from the off and have a road map of their own games for the launch window. Nintendo fans would flock to Metroid on Switch if it's optimised. The harsh fact is, MP Remasterd sold a million units. As much as I think it's awesome, folk have no idea what Metroid is. It's not that high profile. Sensible people will be glad to play Prime 4 without having to buy a new console to do so. If it's the best looking Switch game yet, then that would put it close to looking like a PS4 game. And some have yet to be convinced about jumping to next gen PS5 lol. So I think this issue looks after itself.

@skywake The issue is that Metroid is nowhere near "big 3". "Big 15" is more like it, and that's generous.
It's somewhere between Kirby and F Zero in terms of sales data.

@GrailUK
To be clear, profiling millions of sales as if they were a single person is a tad silly. There will certainly be people picking it up who don't fit the bill. But I'm not sure the target audience for Metroid is even remotely close to CoD either. It's a different kind of game entirely

I mean they're both certainly targeting the "wow graphics and fps" gamer in a way that Mario certainly doesn't. But one game is the gaming equivalent of Alien, literally, and the other is more like.... Pearl Harbour. There's certainly AV spec enthusiasm for both but one is a nerdy audience who's making technical critiques about framerate, HDR implementations, frame persistence and so on. The other audience is more "my GPU has more GFLOPS and that validates my manhood"

Again, not all. But generally that's the broad audience we're talking about

@Euler
I'm not talking big 3 in terms of sales. If we were it'd be Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and probably 2D Mario edit: probably Smash Bros than 2D Mario lately I guess

@Euler Metroid is comfortably in the middle of the big 30 😆

I tend to think of Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda as the big 3 IP.

hmm... what does slightly inaccurate slightly out of date Wikipedia say about sales:

1.Mario (826.38 million) if you combine sub-franchises.
1a. Super Mario (396.80 million)
1b. Mario Kart (166.41 million)
1c. Mario Party (68.87 million)
1d. Mario Sports (59.57 million)
1e. Mario RPGs (28.84 million)
(all active on Switch)

2. Pokémon (480.00 million)
(active on Switch)

3. Wii Series (215.44 million)
(technically active though new name)

4. The Legend of Zelda (163.34 million)
(active)

5. Animal Crossing (78.98 million)
(active)

6. Super Smash Bros (73.74 million)
(active)

7. Donkey Kong (65.00 million)
(active...sort of)

8. Kirby (50.76 million)
(active)

9. Game & Watch (43.40 million)
(active... sort of)

10. Brain Age (35.51 million)
(edit: active / not in every country)

11. Yoshi (29.34 million)
(active)

12. Splatoon (29.22 million)
(active)

13. Nintendogs (28.65 million)
(inactive)

14. Duck Hunt (28.31 million)
(inactive)

15. Luigi's Mansion (23.10 million)
(active)

16. Wario (22.81 million)
(active - at least one sub-franchise)

17. Metroid (21.45 million)
(active)

18. Fire Emblem (20.70 million)
(active)

19. Ring Fit Adventure (15.38 million)
(active)

20. Tomodachi (13.49 million)
(inactive)

21. Star Fox (11.67 million)
(inactive)

22. Big Brain Academy (11.43 million)
(active)

23. Pikmin (10.45 million)
(active)

24. Xenoblade Chronicles (8.74 million)
(active)

25. Clubhouse Games (7.21 million)
(active)

26. Excite (6.02 million)
(inactive)

27. Style Savvy (5.87 million)
(inactive)

28. F-Zero (5.85 million)
(technically active sort of?)

29. Nintendo Land (5.21 million)
(inactive)

30. Rhythm Heaven (5.18 million)
(inactive)

The inactive ones give us a nice list to choose from for next resurrected IP. My direct bingo card already has Rhythm heaven.

@FishyS
I'd argue there are more ways a game can be "big" than just pure sales. The way I've described it before is to say that there are some games that people buy for consoles and other games that people buy consoles for. And Metroid Prime, even though it's far from a best seller, is still firmly in the latter category

It's like how everyone who picked up the Switch has to get Mario Kart. It's just straight up an essential Nintendo game that if you have a Nintendo console you have to get. But I wouldn't say that Mario Kart is the game that people buy the Switch for. At least nowhere near the same degree that they did for Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild and later on Animal Crossing

To put it another way, put your mind in the space of buying a new TV. What would convince you to upgrade? Probably a new movie release on some streaming service or maybe a huge sporting event right? The Olympics are coming around, without question we're going to see advertisements pushing buying a new set to watch the Olympics on. Those are the reasons why people buy a new TV

But what people buy the TV for and what they use it for are not the same. Pretty much every single one of those people will also login to YouTube and watch some dude ramble on some random junk. Or watch the news. Or watch some janky old soap-opera. But even though that's the case all of these things are not motivators to buy a new set. These are just the things people do on the TV they have. Nobody is walking upto the TV sales rep and saying "Home and Away is about to start again and I'm looking at buying a new TV for it". No, they're saying "the AFL Grand Final is next week and my team is in it for the first time in 10 years".

Same thing with gaming. A new Metroid, Mario or Zelda? These are like the Olympics of Nintendo franchises. These are the games that you drop into a trailer reel and get people motivated to buy new hardware. Even if they don't buy those games, those games are games that sell hardware. And then when they have the hardware? They'll pick up the Mario Karts, the 2D Marios and the Kirbys

@ProPAIN Ah gotcha! Thanks for letting me know!

@skywake I'd still say Pokemon is a giant system seller, probably moreso than Mario, Zelda, or Metroid. So many people buy systems specifically for that series.

Animal Crossing was, at least in my experience, also a huge system seller this gen. Most of my friends with Switches got them for New Horizons.

@skywake Not for a particular game, but Pokemon is also a massive seller of hardware. Half the people I know at work got a Switch mainly because their children wanted to play one of the Pokemon games after watching the tv show and owning a zillion Pokemon plushies. A lot of children grow up breathing Pokemon fumes (at least in my part of the world). Specific Pokemon games don't necessarily sell hardware, but the existence of Pokemon does.

I agree with your general point that most of the franchises are not hardware sellers. It changes over time, but at the moment I would say Mario (I am combining all of Mario sub-franchises), Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Possibly Smash are all hardware sellers (Smash sells hardware because it is a virus — your friends play Smash so you must also obtain Smash). Those also happen to correspond to most of the best sellers and has the 3 Nintendo IPs with probably the biggest name recognition.

I would assume very few people buy hardware purely because they like Fire Emblem or Donkey Kong.

I wouldn't have personally thought to add Metroid to the hardware-seller list in general except in special cases such as a Switch 2 showcase of nice graphics, but I'll take your word for it — I admit great ignorance as someone who has never played the 3D Metroid games. I always have a bit of cognizant dissonance between the fact that the series has so much hype in places like this but I am not convinced I know anyone in real life who has ever heard of Metroid Prime 😆

@link3710I I didn't see you had already replied, but I very much agree re:Pokemon. Animal Crossing is an interesting case because for Switch it has been a hardware seller, but it is unclear if that will stick with the next generation since the circumstances will be very different.

@NinChocolate To some degree Zelda was like that. Obviously Zelda was already much more famous than Metroid, but it still truly skyrocketed during the Switch era. I could imagine a lot of Nintendo IPs having the capability of going through a BotW moment — Nintendo tends to make series with a lot of potential.

@link3710 @FishyS
I would argue that Pokemon and Animal Crossing are in somewhat of a different class. Yes they move hardware, probably better than any other franchises, but they almost move hardware in spite of the hardware. Of course a fair chunk of that audience would turn up on day 1 if that was the only option but they're less likely to buy multiple games and more likely to go for a cheaper SKU of the hardware if available

Even before you look forward to Switch 2 I feel like with Tears of the Kingdom they pushed the OLED SKU as part of its marketing and a prominent limited edition. And Metroid Dread launched alongside the Switch OLED itself. While Pokemon and Animal Crossing have, generally, been tied to Switch Lite SKUs. Of course when you get as big as some of these games they appeal to all sorts but, as @FishyS said, Pokemon is a game you buy hardware for so your kid can play it

So yeah, in terms of actually driving new hardware sales? I'd still put Metroid in the top 3 alongside Mario and Zelda. And again, when I say that I'm not talking about raw software sales volumes. I'm talking about its ability to build a perception of "this hardware has compelling software" for the kinds of people who will be queuing up to buy a premium piece of hardware

It's kinda like.... if there was a new Pokemon game next year that was on Switch and Switch 2? Even with Switch 2 out the more popular bundle would probably still be the one with the Switch Lite. And the median buyer for that is probably some kid's Mum picking it up at Target. Meanwhile if Metroid Prime 4 was on both nobody is picking up a Switch Lite for it. While there will definitely be less of them the person getting Metroid Prime 4 is queuing up for the midnight launch, picking up the Pro Controller and throwing another couple of games in their cart while they're there

I think it's important for Nintendo to get as many quality exclusives on the new console in the first year or two as they can and ideally a good range of different sorts of games with different appeals. Prime 4 isn't going to be a huge seller like Mario or Pokemon but I think what it would contribute to the new console's image would be more valuable long term squeezing a few extra software sales out of the Switch.

@BenAV To be fair, there is a very real possibility that MercurySteam's next Metroid game will be ready for the Switch successor next year. There was around 4 years of development between Samus Returns and Dread, and that's with COVID impacting development. I doubt working with the extra power of the new system will push development time past the 4-year mark - it's a 2D game, after all. So long-term, Prime 4 might make more sense as a Switch release this year, with Metroid 6 launching as a year 1 Switch 2 game.

@PikaPhantom
Or, alternatively, with the work already put into assets for Metroid Dread the development effort required to make another 2D Metroid would be relatively low. And I don't see what major advantage you'd get pushing such a game to Switch 2 given the original looked great and ran at 900p/60fps stable docked and 720p/60fps portable

Surely the more logical way to go, if there was to be a 2D Metroid game and Prime 4 this year and next, would be to make the 2D game release this year on Switch and have the, inevitably more demanding, Prime 4 next year and cross-gen. And even if the timing was swapped I'd think it'd make sense to have Prime 4 get a patch for Switch 2 enhancement and said 2D Metroid to release next year as a post-Switch 2 release Switch game

..... that's not to say that a 2D Metroid or similar kind of game couldn't benefit from the hardware advancements Switch 2 will bring. It wouldn't be a bad thing to see stuff like HDR support, higher than 1080p resolutions or possible 120Hz modes for example. Maybe even some limited RT. It's just that these kinds of games are already extremely comfortably within the capabilities of the existing Switch hardware. Prime 4 by comparison will be almost surely pushing up against the limitations of the Switch

@skywake I agree with that. Plus I think a big 3D game (if done well) just makes for a more impressive selling point for a new system than a 2D game would, even if the software sales might not necessarily reflect that. Not sure how likely it is that they'd even want to release two Metroid games that close together to begin with though.

@skywake That's fair, but we really can't say for certain until we know how Metroid Prime 4 is designed and what its scope is. If Metroid Prime Remastered is any indication - and it probably will be, as it'll be built on Retro's proprietary engine - it will likely hit 60fps at 600p handheld and 900p docked while looking excellent...unless the design is a lot more open, that is. It's also very difficult to say what Nintendo's strategy is going to be going forward. In the past, all their consoles have received little to no support after their successors have launched, and the 3DS was the only handheld to really see long-term support (lasting around 2 years). And that was presumably just because Nintendo was worried about how the Switch might perform and wanted to ensure it had some crutch to lean on should its new system flop. There's been all this speculation about cross-generation games and Nintendo releasing games on the first Switch long-term, but that's just because we've seen that from the competition, and Nintendo often doesn't fall in line with Sony and Microsoft. Granted, the Switch has more steam than basically any other Nintendo platform has had in its final years, so we'll see, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're very quick to make things exclusive to the successor.

@PikaPhantom
I'm not entirely sure that it's true to say that Nintendo's platforms have had "little to no support" after their successors launched. I mean there are examples for sure, notably the Wii and Wii U, but in both of those cases the platforms were in a state of sharp sales decline well before the successor launched.

The classic example being pretty much every Pokemon game. But even further back if you look at the SNES after the N64 launched in Japan it still got Harvest Moon, Donkey Kong Country 3, Dragon Quest 3, Super Punch-Out and Kirby's Dream Land 3. They even released the Super Gameboy 2 in Japan a good 18months after the N64 was out

Also I would counter the argument that the reason people think this is the approach they'll take is because they're taking what Sony and MS are doing. I certainly don't take anything from Sony or MS' strategy here where I think this is the way this transition will go. I'm mostly just thinking they'll take that route because of sales and hardware architecture.

On the first point, Nintendo projects sales of 13.5mill units this year and I don't think it's that crazy a forecast. Which is a clear decline but it's still about as good as the 3DS was doing in terms of raw numbers at its peak in 2012/13. In 2016, when Switch was announced, 3DS was sitting at under 8mill. The 3DS was certainly unusual in terms of how well it was doing when its eventual successor was announced but, on paper, that's even more true for Switch. Even if Switch sales drop by half post Switch 2 in the first year it's probably still doing about as well as 3DS was in 2016 BEFORE the Switch launched

On the second point, well, the Switch couldn't play 3DS games. And I'm not just talking backwards compatibility here, although that is a side effect. It's just an entirely incompatible architecture. In terms of how architecturally similar a new piece of hardware is to the one that came before? The Switch -> Switch 2 transition is going to be comfortably one of the easiest transitions. I'd only put GC -> Wii, GB -> GBC, DS -> DSi and 3DS -> New 3DS as less significant. If you want to release a game on Switch and Switch 2? You release a Switch game and then maybe do a patch and some additional QA. For most other console transitions we're talking about porting the entire game

It will be a transition, there will be Switch 2 only games, and the performance jump itself will be significant. But if you can make a game that runs comfortably within the limitations of the Switch there's, in theory, really no reason why you wouldn't release it on Switch. And as such I think there will almost surely be games released for Switch for a good while after the Switch 2 is out. Even if the sales did suddenly drop sub 1mill as soon as Switch 2 is out, which it surely won't

@skywake All very fair points. I guess we'll just need to wait and see. I do wonder if Nintendo may want to use Shiver to scale down a few Switch 2 games for the Switch that would be more difficult to pull off, sorta akin to how they tasked NST with bringing Super Mario Maker and Captain Toad to 3DS. But I think they're going to really focus on ensuring the new system has a healthy lineup of true exclusives early on, instead of having most games be cross-generation. It's worth noting that we have evidence the Switch successor is incorporating a few more buttons as well (mainly on the back of the Joy-Con) as well as features like a microphone - depending on how they're used, that might render some games incompatible even if they could in theory be downgraded for Switch. Nintendogs in particular seems like it'd fit that criteria

@PikaPhantom
Probably depends on what the game is and how quick Switch 2 starts to gain momentum. I'm not entirely sure if they'd bother scaling games down from Switch 2 for Switch but I could imagine certain games continuing to target a Switch spec. The more niche, casual and easy to run the game is? The more likely it'll release just on Switch

To make a bit of a point if I was to classify Nintendo's 2023 release in terms of where I think they would've landed if Switch 2 had launched in early 2023? Tears of the Kingdom and Pikmin 4 are surely Switch 2 only. At most in that alternate timeline TotK becomes a cross-gen release with Switch 2 getting the clearly better version. Super Mario Wonder and Super Mario RPG probably land on Switch still, presumably with the later getting a more stable framerate on Switch 2. Metroid Prime Remastered.... possibly still Switch also... possibly... I'm not entirely convinced of that one. Presumably said alternate reality also gets Mario Kart 9 as Switch 2 only instead of the Mario Kart 8 booster course and I would expect a fair bit more third party interest

@FishyS Counting DK as an active franchise is questionable though hopefully the June Direct changes that by announcing a DK game. Also a Brain Age game released for Switch in January 2020 (Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch), it just didn't release in the US.

@Croctopus My guess is that Nintendo asked him for Super Smash Bros on Switch’s Successor. This makes me hopeful that Sakurai will return for Super Smash Bros. 6.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if if Nintendo asked a little while ago and the game is currently in early/pre-development. There’s always the possibility this will could essentially work as a SSBU Deluxe, or at least use the same engine.