Topic: Disappointed by the lack of new exclusives

I totally get this. It really does feel like there hasn't been a lot and that the next generation console is on the horizon. I bought my Switch for BotW and still feel it was worth it for that game alone, but over time I've been ignoring most of the 1st party releases and Switch exclusives and playing ports from previous generations and indies. I'm looking at the prospect of the next Nintendo console and questioning whether it's worth it. A PC can handle most of my gaming now and the lack of an easily accessible back catalog like the virtual console has pushed me towards emulation. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo has to make such incredible games that they can't pump out a few middling titles in between. I'd like more 2D Zeldas and Marios. They don't have to be ground-breaking. Just scratch that itch, you know?

According to Metacritic, New Horizons is the highest rated game in the series with an average score of 90 (the second highest is New Leaf with an 88 average; lowest is City Folk at 73), and according to sales figures, it continues to be a favorite among consumers with over 30-million units sold to date (New Leaf lifetime sales are less than 14-million) with a majority of those sales happening after the first six-weeks following release, so you can't dismiss its success as New Leaf nostalgia.

Face it, you represent a small the minority here.

@BlueOcean Switch is such a mixed bag in a lot of ways. From a business perspective I truly get what Nintendo did with Switch/WiiU. WiiU was a total failure, its intended market wasn't interested, they couldn't sustain it. I get the ports, I get needing to get an ROI on all those WiiU games developed and sold at a loss. Other than handing out vouchers for free stuff to suckers who bought WiiU, I get there's not much they could have done for owners of it. What I don't get is the fan defense that tries to pretend that using Switch as a "do-over" for WiiU as though it extends naturally from Wii isn't a slap in the face to WiiU owners. Or that because it's commercially viable in a business sense, we should be happy about it. Even if it was unavoidable, it at least needs to acknowledge that reality.

For WiiU owners, it feels like we've been living in the same hardware generation since 2012. And it wasn't exactly technologically impressive when it was new, either. If Sony and MS hadn't both gone really cheap on their hardware last gen it would have looked much worse.. As it is, Switch launched in 2012 as the WiiU, and the WiiU Pro came out in 2017 with a rebrand as "Switch", with Switch+ in 2021. And we know the generation will continue through year 12 at a minimum. Only Game Boy lasted as long as that. I think that's the disappointment. It feels like we've been living in the same generational ecosystem since 2012. I often confuse Splatoon 1 and 2 because it feels line one interchangeable experience on the same platform. Yet as a handheld, it remains a really solid handheld. I honestly forget you can dock it. I think of that as only a charger. And OLED makes it a better handheld (but doesn't improve anything when docked.) But if it weren't for Square, Falcom, Capcom, and Atlus, etc, I don't think I'd have played anything on it in the last 10 months until Metroid. Nintendo itself really hasn't published much of interest since 2019 unless you're all-in on ACNH.

They may remedy that. If they have a barrage of Bayo3, MP4, BotW2, Splatoon 2, etc. we may well forget about its WiiU legacy and remember the amazing last few years as the identity of the console, and remember it fondly. If they hold that stuff back for a cross-gen release cycle, I think we're going to remember Switch as starting out great and then just fizzling out. Not really unlike Wii....

@Mountain_Man There are many fans critical of ACNH. There are many fans that praise it. But of all the debate I've seen on that game, absolutely nobody compares to you in stalwart aggressive defense of it. Which is weird because on any other topic you're perfectly reasonable, but as soon as ACNH comes up you go into hulk-smash defense of it. Only jonvboy comes close, but at this point we've made our disagreement on it into a shared personal meme.

Your evaluation keeps coming back to sales data and metacritic scores, trying to prove that it was popular? Which isn't involved in the debate. And without acknowledging that those figures, and what contributes to them has really nothing to do with what is being discussed. I keep saying commercial success is not related to an evaluation of the quality of a game, and the progression or regression of a series from past entries.

And nobody has said anything about it being successful due to "New Leaf nostalgia." In fact I said quite the opposite just above. I'm not even sure what exactly you're debating at this point? You're somehow trying to use positive sales data to prove that few people are critical of the game? Could we use that same methodology to look at the low sales of Returnal and determine that few people like the game?

@NEStalgia If the Wii U was a success, the Switch may well have been a standalone Wii U Gamepad 2.0 that you could connect to your Wii U so that the unique experiences that TV + Gamepad gameplay provides could be maintained while also allowing you to play games on the Gamepad far away from your Wii U.

@Grumblevolcano LOL, yeah that really sums it up well! Maybe "NX" is the additional Gamepads that Iwata told us was going to be available for sale eventually...

The Switch is what the Wii U should have been in 2012.

@NEStalgia The whole comment is spot on but this sentence, "It feels like we've been living in the same generational ecosystem since 2012" is quite revealing.

I really dislike the Switch fans (I don't even consider them Nintendo fans) that look down on Wii U owners and/or the Wii U itself, instead of wondering what could have done Nintendo to make up for their mistakes. It's like Wii U was bad, screw their owners over but Nintendo is right and Switch is perfect. Sometimes it's like they are telling us that we're stupid because we got excited about Nintendo's first HD console.

Switch was released in the same generation as Wii U and Wii U was already dated in 2012 because it was released one year before Xbox One and PS4 and its hardware was just slightly better than Xbox 360. We got some decent Xbox 360/PS3 ports but more expensive, somewhat better than the so-called "impossible" 360p25fps Xbox One/PS4 ports Switch has been granted. Switch uses another architecture but if we don't behave like fanboys and watch DF's videos, it's so far behind PS4 and Xbox One. So, you could say that Switch is stuck on technology that is just ahead of 2005's Xbox 360 but in mobile form. In software terms, we're stuck on the Wii U generation with these ports and a few new games (see page 3 and add Sushi Strike if you wish). Nothing wrong with it but why did Nintendo asked us to merge our NNID and Nintendo accounts if we got absolutely nothing for purchasing the Wii U games. Wii U and Switch belong to the same generation, Wii U was killed by Nintendo early on and yet Nintendo expect us to buy it, buy new controllers because the Wii and Wii U controllers don't work anymore, buy the same games again instead of allowing us to upgrade since some of them have extra content and, at the same time, providing next to nothing new for us. If any other company had done this, it would be cut to pieces but, because it's Nintendo, it's our fault, and we should be grateful for what they're doing, whatever it is.

@BlueOcean Idk if people are saying your stupid for buying it, because if no one got the wii U nintendo wouldn't have Fixed there mistakes, but is it bad to say that the wii u is worse then the switch? or switch is better? idk I can't say, Never had one.

@Snatcher That is not what I was discussing but, anyway, Wii U is not better or worse, it just came first and tried the off-TV idea with Xbox 360 hardware. It was horribly presented by Iwata as a Wii accessory and the name was equally wrong. Switch came after it and did the same but with mobile technology and smart marketing.

@BlueOcean Oh, ok I think I mixed up what you wrote, my bad LMAO. 😅

You claim that New Horizons is "a very divisive and controversial AC game". I point to objective data that disproves your claim ("very divisive and controversial" games don't receive widespread critical acclaim and dwarf their predecessors in sales). All you can do in response is sling insults and handwave away any facts that contradict your subjective opinion. I'm not sure what else there is to discuss at this point since you are making this needlessly personal.

@NEStalgia
ACNH is the best Animal Crossing game i have ever played. 😏 👍

@Snatcher No problem 😉.

@Snatcher If a console is defined by it's library, then if you like the Switch, you like the WiiU. 70% the same library as far as major 1st party exclusives are concerned. The problem wasn't Nintendo games on WiiU, in fact I'd say Nintendo was really a lot more spot-on with their WiiU games than Switch so far. It's just that it had near-zero third party because no publisher was going to do the work for the PPC architecture for the meager return from a failed console. Most of those games probably lost money due to the low install base, but as a customer, it was largely the same experience for Nintendo's games.

@BlueOcean I mean the one thing Switch did do well, was it basically took the whole entire WiiU console and stuffed the entire thing into a portable self-powered slate. That technically really was impressive for 2017. A little weak compared to modern phones now of course, but as a 3DS/Vita successor, Switch is kind of amazing. As a WiiU and even GCN successor.....it really isn't. Even compared to Steam Deck, the new OLED model is like less than half the price and has a bigger, better screen....that really is kind of slick. But I think the original idea of it being a "home console hybrid" while true, doesn't hold up anymore. Tech moved on in home console space, and Switch is very clearly a handheld you can dock, not trying to compete with consoles anymore. The OLED model really makes that clear. It's an upgraded handheld for more money. Same docked experience.

If you treat it like it's the newest Game Boy, it's a nice machine. If you treat it like it's a new console, it's pretty dire. In a way maybe it fell victim to the same problem as Vita. Trying to shoehorn "console games" onto a handheld doesn't work so well. A unique handheld library does much better. And look at what's best on it? MH:Rise, SMTV, 2D Metroid, Animal Crossing. Games that have thrived mostly on handhelds of late. As a console, now that I think about it, it's been a stand-in replacement model of WiiU. But they also kind of stopped releasing "console-type" games other than Splatoon.

I do kind of get the lack of BC. Because the media is incompatible, physical games are naturally incompatible, and the architectures is different. An upgrade path would be nice, but it would need something like MS did where you can send in your games and convert them to digital licenses. And Sony did the same with PS3 to PS4 (you can subscript to Now!) And the ponies never touched them on that one either....so it's not only Nintendo that gets a pass. But I also do feel like something really should have been done. Iwata was fairly aware of trying to make amends with fans and keeping loyalty. The new management is pure suits who decided they just don't need to. It's really the same complaints i have about Jim Ryan, though. He's looking over Nintendo's shoulder and copying their homework every chance he gets.

@Mountain_Man "very divisive and controversial" games don't receive widespread critical acclaim and dwarf their predecessors in sales)."

The Last of Us: Part II says "hi". It's actually not a dissimilar situation at all between those titles.

@BlueOcean I do need to catch up on this topic so I can talk with yall.

@NEStalgia I agree with you on that, Game wise, But not Device wise, I think (From what I have seen because I have never owned a wii u) The switch is just all around the better device as it takes the wii u, and upgrades it.

@Snatcher Yep of course Switch being a Wii U Pro that was released four years later improved the off-TV concept but I think you have to read what I said again 😅.

Dunno, Resident Evil 6 sold 11 Million copies, making it the 2nd best selling RE game ( more than RE4) yet people usually think it's one of the worse entries.

Also metacritic is often influenced by hype. Skyward Sword received plenty of perfect 10/10 scores at launch, yet it is often considered the worst 3D Zelda. This is exemplified by the lower 81 score for the Switch Re-Release, which, in the absence of hype, obviously provoked more critical reviews of the game.

Just gonna drop my thoughts here.

Tho I do Kinda have to side with the topics name, I wouldn't say the switch is lacking per say, But it probably feels like that thanks to all the wii U ports, which makes up a lot of the consoles First party Library, in my opinion. Tho like I said i'm just going off the forums name, and saying my thoughts.