Topic: The Super Nintendo Switch Launch Games Speculation Thread

@Bolt_Strike @MarioBrickLayer I was meaning for example new 3D Mario in September 2025 (on the 40th anniversary month itself) and then Mario Kart in November 2025.

As for the launch window, the Lego Animal Crossing announcement despite the franchise being in a quiet spot (e.g. New Horizons content ended in November 2021) gives me the impression a new Animal Crossing may be present. Animal Crossing + Metroid Prime 4 + tech demo game feels like a solid launch lineup then Pokemon would finish up the holiday lineup as usual (probably Gen 5 remakes) add in 1-2 other titles in between launch and Pokemon if the system launches in September/early October.

@Grumblevolcano That's a bold prediction! I wouldn't be as blunt as @Bolt_Strike but I think it would be a risk for Nintendo!

If we assume for a minute that you're right and there's no Mario at launch or 2024 holidays then Animal Crossing + Metroid Prime 4 is probably the strongest line up. Although Luigi's Mansion 4, a new top tier Pokemon game or Kirby and the Forgotten Land 2 could be interesting things to throw in the mix.

I think it's obviously going to release with a new Super Monkey Ball game...

@Grumblevolcano I don’t think anyone should read into Lego Animal Crossing. It’s more likely just the next lineup in whatever contract the two companies came to terms over. Just an easy money maker. Otherwise they’d have announced it with a plan to release around the launch of the next console. Also a new Animal Crossing as your sole big launch game (cos Metroid Prime 4 obviously won’t be), is taking a big risk. COVID is over which is what saw the last game do such insane numbers. No guarantee you’ll get anything like that for the new game. If it fails, the Switch 2 could be an utter disaster and Nintendo has nothing to fall back on.

@FragRed While not as gigantic as New Horizons, the dedicated handheld mainline Animal Crossing games were still big:

• DS (Wild World) - 11.75 million (only outsold by NSMB, MKDS, Nintendogs, 2 Brain Training games and 3 Pokemon games)
• 3DS (New Leaf) - 13.04 million (only outsold by MK7, NSMB2 and 3 Pokemon games)

As for the Lego Animal Crossing announcement, we only know it exists not when it's releasing. Could end up being that the next time more details are provided is around the time the new hardware is announced.

@Grumblevolcano That still feels like it’s not enough to put your whole launch around a very casual game and a very niche game and some old third party games which isn’t why people buy a Nintendo console. The launch should be a showcase of big exciting experiences that wouldn’t come to the previous system.

I think they'll want New 3D Mario either on launch or early in the launch window (e.g 6 months later with Odyssey); a whole year later would be stretching it for their possibly main seller. Since we think Switch 2 will be late in the year rather than early like Switch 1, it would probably make most sense to have 3D Mario out by holidays the first year to give everyone a strong reason tp pick up the console for the holidays.

Fall 2025 for Mario Kart X seems pretty plausible. Mario Kart seems like an 'easy' major 40th Mario anniversary game since they are presumably working on it anyways.

@FishyS I agree. You want a 3D Mario out as soon as possible. It’s a great way to showcase your new hardware plus it’s Nintendo’s mascot. As for the anniversary, it’s Nintendo. Wouldn’t surprise me to see some kind of limited edition release of older games again. It worked for them last time so they definitely recognise the easy money to be made while making a big deal out of the anniversary.

@FishyS @FragRed I'd agree if the upcoming lineup wasn't already so heavy on Mario:

• October 2023 - SMB Wonder
• November 2023 - SMRPG
• Holiday/Winter 2023 - MK8 Deluxe DLC wave 6
• February 2024 - Mario vs. DK
• March 2024 - Princess Peach Showtime
• Summer 2024 - Luigi's Mansion 2 HD
• 2024 - TTYD

It feels like either there'd eventually be a Mario burnout (given 2025 would also be Mario heavy due to the SMB 40th anniversary) or just a case that some of the smaller titles like TTYD flops in the outcome 3D Mario is a launch title. I'd imagine TTYD sales would be treated as a test of whether people actually want RPG mechanics in Paper Mario.

@FishyS
Mario Kart X is sounds very Final Fantasy X, lol.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah I can see there being way too much Mario coming out over the next year but I’m still thinking Animal Crossing is a bad decision to launch your new hardware if the only other game was a niche title which Prime 4 is.

I think people put way too much weight into these kinds of things. It's the XXth Anniversary of whatever game so they're going to do something for it. Or they're using their IP over here in some way which means they'll co-ordinate it with a release for the same IP over here. Pretty much never happens

Case and point with the Super Mario Bros Movie people were reading into that and saying Nintendo would release a new Mario game to line up with it. And sure, we're getting Wonder 6 months after the fact but it's 6 months after the fact and Wonder doesn't really seem to be taking any queues from the movie

With that said, I do think Animal Crossing will be a significant release that'll push units. I just don't think it's the kind of release that's going to push early adopters. The main selling point of this next hardware is going to be the additional power, it might not be the only selling point but it'll be the main one. I just don't think Animal Crossing really sells to the user who's waiting in line for that. Metroid, Mario, Zelda and even Mario Kart do. I think you save Animal Crossing for the second wave

Wind Waker with Ray Tracing. I think that's really the only way you justify not just releasing on Switch as is. Twilight Princess is a trickier one, I think you need to do far more to that game to polish up. Honestly if I was to guess I'd say if they are coming they're on Switch as is, there will be some games still landing on Switch after this thing is out. Even if it's not cross/backwards compatible, it's too large of a user base to just turn off the tap entirely

Overall I still think 3D Mario/Metroid Prime 4 are the safest bets for launch window. Also the most boring and predictable. Probably what we'll get. Personally I'd like to see something new from Platinum but I'm not holding my breath. I expect we'll also see a flood of third parties putting safe early bets on Nintendo's new hardware

It wouldn't be the biggest shock if they were both ported to the Switch next year, but given the gap to the next 3D Zelda, I think they are easy wins to bring some exclusive Zelda content to Switch 2. Plus, if they are going to be exclusive to Switch 2, surely they redo the graphics and make them both look amazing.

I'm expecting EA to release Madden, NHL 2025, EAFC, Ubisoft to release one of the recent Assassins Creed game and Rockstar to Port Red Dead Redemption 2.

To be fair, you don’t need to do much work with the visuals for Wind Waker due to being cel shaded, they don’t age nearly as badly as Twilight Princess has. Just improve the lighting more than the Wii U version. Not sure how you’d use ray tracing though but maybe that’s how you improve the lighting.

As @skywake said, Twilight Princess does need a lot more work. The textures and models would require a significant change to bring it up to par for Switch hardware let alone Switch 2. Something akin to how Prime Remastered was done.

However I do agree it makes far more sense to release these as separate remasters for Switch 2 every other year to help with the lack of any new 3D Zelda until whatever follow up to TotK happens to be, gets a release.

@Grumblevolcano Nintendo doesn't put too much stock in planning major games around the anniversaries, they usually have smaller projects around then if anything. Release dates for major games tend to have more to do with how long it's been since the last entry than anything. If they're doing something for the 40th, it might be another collection or remaster or something.

Many of those "Mario" entries are so radically different from mainline Mario that I don't think people care. A few of them don't even have Mario at all. I think the "Mario burnout" is overblown here, this is a diverse range of games of different genres, it just happens to have one insanely popular mascot in most of those games.

Animal Crossing does feel like it's not too far away, but the main thing that gives me pause when it comes to Animal Crossing being a launch title is that the same team that works on Animal Crossing just worked on Splatoon 3. Splatoon 3 just came out last year and even has DLC into next year. I don't think they'd be able to turn around an Animal Crossing in 2 years. Animal Crossing looks more like a 2025/2026 entry.

@MarioBrickLayer I considered mentioning Luigi's Mansion 4, it does feel like that's coming relatively soon. But the Dark Moon remaster makes me question if it's really that soon, I don't think they would release a Dark Moon remaster if 4 is coming in 2024 or even 2025.

Kirby might be a Year 2 entry with Forgotten Land just releasing in 2022. I'm not sure if they'll do another 3D game though, they might go back to 2D and trade off between 2D and 3D.

@skywake Really feels like we're due for Astral Chain 2 any day now (although I think technically Nintendo owns the IP so it's not really "third party" it's just developed by a third party company). That's a Platinum game we might see early.

@Bolt_Strike @skywake Yeah I think Switch 2 is a September/October 2024 launch with 3D Mario, Metroid Prime 4, and a new semi-casual IP like 1-2 Switch and Nintendo Land will make up the holiday/launch lineup, as well as the next Pokemon in November on Switch 1.

Mario Kart I think is March/April 2025. They need a tentpole spring title and I don't think they're gonna want to wait any longer to have their marquee multiplayer game out. They'll have something else over summer and then they'll have 2D Zelda, Mario Party, and Pokémon Gen 10 for their fall/holiday 2025 lineup.

Animal Crossing will be March 2026. Perfect spring game, and a little over 3 years from Splatoon 3's launch so it lines up I think.

@IceClimbers Conventionally you would think Gen 10 Pokemon would be 2025 because they consistently only spend 3 years on new generations, but between 2026 being the 30th anniversary (and I know I and many others just finished saying that anniversaries don't matter, but Game Freak does tend to pay attention to anniversaries for Pokemon as there's usually a new generation launching on an anniversary year) and complaints about not spending enough dev time on Pokemon, they might consider waiting until 2026. 2026 would also line up with typical Pokemon release patterns, as the first new generation is typically Year 3 (see: DP was 2006 in Japan, XY was 2013, SwSh was 2019).

@Bolt_Strike I feel if it's one or the other, Splatoon would be prioritized over Animal Crossing and we'd see either:

• Splatoon 3 support extended past 2 years (the timing of Side Order makes it seem like that could happen)
• Splatoon 4 in like 2026

Splatoon, Mario Kart and Smash are the big trio of Nintendo competitive games present together so I'm sure we'd see all 3 in some form within like 2 years of Switch 2's launch.

@Grumblevolcano Well Animal Crossing seems to sell more than Splatoon and Mario Kart is likely early, so it might make sense to hold off on Splatoon 4 for a bit. Splatoon and Mario Kart are more inclined to cannibalize each other than some of the other games you've been suggesting, so it might make sense to go for Animal Crossing, which is a very different genre from anything else expected to release early, and save Splatoon for a time when they don't have as many big competitive multiplayer games (the big three competitive IPs should probably just be spread out to different years in an ideal schedule). In the meantime, it might make more sense to ride out 3 until people lose interest or see if another team might be interested in working on a Splatoon spinoff for Switch 2.

With the talk recently of Nintendo becoming an entertainment business I wonder if they would coordinate the release of Splatoon 4 with a movie or TV show? After Mario and Zelda I think Splatoon is a good candidate for them.

I also wonder if we'll see a Zelda movie around the same time as the next new 3D Zelda game.