Peach64

@Shagaru Well FIFA has been in the top 10 games every year since 2012, so it's a pretty big deal, even in the US. You're right that it's probably not a system seller though, in any market, as it's kind of on everything.

It's very hard to insure a package like this. To insurance companies, these games are not worth the potential eBay prices.

I still have very strong concerns over wether it's too big for the mass market to consider it a handheld. It might not matter what Nintendo want it to be.

Um... NES mini is not a console for a start. It's a very cheap android box. Secondly, who the heck is surprised it outsold the Wii U? The Wii U has spent its whole lifecycle selling less each month than machines that were previously considered flops like the Dreamcast and GameCube. That was before it's successor was revealed! So now that's happened, it's no surprise at all it was outsold by anything, least of all a very cheap box like the mini.

@OorWullie. Those numbers you mention are for Japan. This is North America. Xbox One tends to sell 5-6 as many units as Wii U does every month and about 2-3 times what the 3DS does. North America and Europe's numbers dwarf Japan. In Japan, the top selling hardware would have sold about 300k in December, its strongest month. In North America, PS4 and Xbox both do over 1.5 million.

Very much looking forward to this. Sumo have done a great job on most games they've worked on.

I don't think it's a big deal at all, as you can get these things on pretty much everything... but that fact is also what makes it kind of strange.

I'm a big fan of the aesthetics, very much got an Overwatch feel, but still very dubious about the depth of anything so heavily based on motion controls.

Pretty sure Thomas is well aware of how DF works, but they don't do comparisons to give material to fanboy Wars. The fact the two games are on vastly different hardware isn't really relevant to them. The point of it was not to figure out which 'wins'.

Just tried to order one (just to check) and it shows delivery estimate of Mar 4th which will probably end up as March 3rd. Going to hold off for a long time though. Will get Zelda on Wii U and then re-evaluate when Mario is out.

Still get Edge and Retro Gamer each month digitally. A magazine can still be relevant these days as long as there is not too much focus on news and reviews.

There is a brilliant football publication called The Blizzard that is nothing but editorial content, which means you can pick up a four year old copy and still enjoy it as much now as the day it came out. I'd love to see a games magazine attempt this. I suppose retro magazines are close.

@whodatninja Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Yakuza 0, Resident Evil VII, Tales of Berseria, Dragon Quest VIII, Gravity Rush 2, The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy XV did pretty well recently. All reviewed better than the Wii U and 3DS versions of Yarn Yoshi too...

Ogre Battle 64!

People are using the term soft launch because they feel the holiday period will be the real starting point. Nintendo will sell out at launch no matter what. The fact most people only see one worthwhile launch game and it's not even exclusive doesn't matter. Nintendo can't sell more so maybe feel no more effort is needed.

Then you're into summer, a period where gaming sales are low. We're seeing a lot of recycled content in this period, again not a whole lot of effort because it's not an important time.

Holiday is the first time they'll really trying to convince people to buy this thing. Before holiday, anyone buying a Switch would have bought one anyway, no matter what was on it, because they're big Nintendo fans. Holiday is where the real effort will begin. It's when they start putting out the great games that you can't play anywhere else.

Don't really get why people do this. Order online... usually get it the day before release.

They also thought the Wii U was going to do Wii numbers...

@impurekind it's not directly because of Brexit, but more to do with the value of the pound taking due to brexit. Any money Nintendo makes is sent back to Japan. In the first half of last year, £8 would have been about 1400 yen. Today £8 is 1150 yen. Nintendo will be making significantly less than the price they decided on.

I hope this is good. Used to love some of the Mario Sports games, but lately they've been so threadbare.

Are they purposefully trolling? I mean, even 30% off isn't great compared to the recent PSN sales, so why limit it?

Doesn't matter to me personally, but I think it's kind of important to sales. I think if the mass market see it as a console... then it might struggle to surpass the Wii U numbers. If people see it as a handheld, then it's got a chance of getting some of those 3DS people that didn't bother with a Wii U. The size of the thing might count against it being seen as the latter...

Solid position for a JRPG, particularly one that's not really a big name (DQVIII on PS2 was the first game on the series released in Europe). The DS and 3DS have really let us get into the series with the releases of IV to VII for the first time ever.

@00Wyvern I hope so I was never a fan of the Wii U as a concept, but the Switch is something I find very appealing. I don't care it's not as powerful as a PS4 or Xbox One. Personally all I want from Nintendo is gimmick-free, traditional gaming. I wouldn't like to judge how it's going to pan out before E3 though.

@00Wyvern Splatoon and 3D World exist on the Wii U too and didn't really help. I mean sales went up with Splatoon, but not in any meaningful way. It was still selling worse month by month than other 'flopped' consoles like the Gamecube and Dreamcast were. They have to be holding stuff back for E3, and a couple of games between Splatoon 2 and Mario Odyssey would make the line-up seem much fuller than it does now.

I know people don't like to talk about other consoles, but this year this PS4 is going to have Gravity Rush 2, Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Resident Evil 7, Yakuza 0, Tales of Berseria, Nioh, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Nier: Automata, Mass Effect: Andromeda, South Park The Fractured But Whole, Tekken 7, Persona 5, Yooka-Laylee, Injustice 2, Detroit: Become Human, Gran Turismo Sport, Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, Red Dead Redemption 2, Destiny II, Star Wars Battlefront II, Shenmue III (Maybe) and so many more. There's so much choice, it's easy to pick up a new game every month even when you don't like every title. With Nintendo's line up, it's still kind of... even if you like everything they release, you're still only getting about 4 big games all year.

Again, it could all change with E3. Nintendo studio's output seems very low for a good few years now, and they could easily have a whole pile of games saved up for E3 that are coming out in 2017.

I think the success of the Switch is much harder to predict than any other previous hardware. It all depends on wether the market see it as a home console or a portable. It doesn't really matter what Nintendo want it to be. If they market it as a portable but consumers feel it's too big, then it won't be see as a portable.

As a home console, I could see it just repeating the Wii U numbers again as the machine and the library just seem like a seamless continuation of the Wii U. Maybe even worse than the Wii U when you consider how Nintendo's core fan base seems to have been shrinking with every machine since the 80s. However, if the market see it as a portable, it's going to pick up more of that 3DS user base and will easily outsell the Wii U.

Right now, I think the launch will be a sell out as always, then 7 months of struggle, before it picks up with the holiday boost and Mario. Nintendo are lucky though because they have time to completely turn around the perception of the machine. If they come out at E3 and show us Pikmin 4, releasing this year, a new game from Retro releasing this year, and a few other surprises, the whole picture looks COMPLETELY different

Not sure how anyone could really argument against this point. All these companies exist to make money, even Nintendo. Nintendo can justify a loss on something like Bayonetta or Xenoblade Chronicles X, and say that making those titles available makes the Wii U a more attractive purchase.

It's insane to expect companies like Ubisoft to go ahead with a project they know will lose money (like Rayman Legends) in order to help Nintendo out. These companies have decided to be publishers so they can work under a model of each project being judged for itself. They could all put together consoles quite easily themselves, they know these machines inside out, but they don't because they don't want that hassle.

Nintendo still carries the reputation of how horrible they were to publishers AND retailers back in the 80s and early 90s, but none of these companies want Nintendo to fail, as another successful console is another market for them, but they're not going to lose money to help them out.

If anything, some publishers gave Nintendo more of a chance than the others. Ubisoft was there with TWO exclusives on launch day, and even if you completely discount Rabbids Land, ZombiU was a proper game, built for the Wii U. Did they give Xbone or PS4 any exclusives for launch? Nope, all they gave them was upscaled PS3/360 ports, but those sold and ensured Ubisoft pushed ahead with putting games on the machines.

All the big sports games got their chance on Wii U at launch. Madden, FIFA, NBA 2k were all there. They weren't gimped, they were equal to the 360/PS3 versions (PS4 or Xbone didn't exist back then remember). They all sold poorly so the obvious decision gets made to not invest in making new engines run on the Wii U, and the console gets legacy versions from there on.

Personally I never saw the appeal. Admittedly I have zero interest in fan art which seems a big part of it, but it was impossible to actually discuss things on there.

@MitchVogel I wouldn't say it's dying, but constantly selling more software each year is a pretty standard claim for any piece of hardware that's not yet been replaced? In 2016 there were more 3DS owners than 2015 so you'd guess they would obviously sell more software? It's only once those machines are put away that the software sales start to go down.

Ultimately Nintendo will decide when the 3DS is done. I wonder would something like the next game in the Mario and Luigi series automatically get made for Switch now? They could have easily just put FE: Echoes on Switch so I wonder if they do intend to keep prompting the 3DS. E3 will give us a better idea if the 3DS will continue beyond this year.

@AlphaJaguar I don't think this game is crowd funded? I can't see any mention of it.

It's sad that we have to worry about Wii U multiplayer severs going down. Xbox 360 and PS3 have them up and running still. Nintendo do like to shut things off pretty early though.

Price is a big factor for people. A PS4 with 2 games can be had for 40% less than the Switch launches for without a game. People will say it's a new console, you can't expect it to be cheap, but people are looking at how you can get a more powerful console with a bigger library for a lot less money. £80 is 2 brand new games you could be getting with that PS4 instead.

I also don't see how anyone can defend that launch line up. Zelda looks amazing but will be on Wii U, and that's the only thing on day 1 that's not shovelware. If you're happy paying £330 to play the game instead of just spending £40 to get it on the console you already own then good for you, it's your money, but don't expect many to agree it's worth it.

These two points alone are HUGE downers for many people. People will hold off, wait for a price drop, wait for a bigger library, and suddenly the Switch is in the same situation as Wii U.

I doubt anyone is still reading, but here is the US Top 10 for 2016. Pretty much identical to the UK chart but 3 sports games instead of 1

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Activision Blizzard)
Battlefield 1 (EA)
Tom Clancy’s The Division (Ubisoft)
NBA 2K17 (Take-Two)
Madden NFL 17 (EA)
Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two)
Overwatch (Activision Blizzard)
Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Activision Blizzard)
FIFA 17 (EA)
Final Fantasy XV (Square Enix)

I thought the gameplay looked great, but why is it so poor graphically? Even an iPhone 5 can outpace a 3DS in terms of specs, so there's no excuse for the bland, 2D visuals.

Great way to get another game out there by reusing an engine and maps, characters and plot. Very smart decision!

With how much they're pushing the series, surely the Radiant games HAVE to be in line for some kind of re-release? It's a huge shame new fans pretty much have no way to play these.

Now there's a reason to buy a Switch! Will probably pick up the console the day this comes out, along with Splatoon 2 and Mario Odyssey (maybe Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will even be out!)

I know it's a long shot, but I'd love to see them do something like a Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn HD Remaster Collection. I (like many others) only got into Fire Emblem with the release of Awakening. By that point every other release in the West was rare and fairly expensive. I lucked out with the GBA games on VC, and for Radiant Dawn, had to pay the price of a new release for a used copy, that was fine. Path of Radiance costs more used than a Gamecube did on day of launch however, and I can't ever pay that much for a game. Let us play it, Nintendo!

Awakenings and Fates did better than ever, but they're still quite a way off a 'big name' IP at this point. If Nintendo really wanted to push it, you'd think making past games easier to play would be high on the agenda.

I think it's becoming quite clear that Sun and Moon aren't going to match X and Y in sales despite there being nearly double the 3DS units out there compared to 2013. Something to chew over for those that think Nintendo on mobile is purely in order to promote their dedicated games.

That's a very clear downgrade to my eyes, but is that down to a bad port rather than hardware? Look at what happens to the window arches on Switch. Pretty sure it can handle curved lines. These images don't even look as good as the PS3 version of the original.

And sadly it shows why so much of the industry is going mobile. Nintendo's AAA games probably cost more than ten times as much to make, and would be lucky to get 10% of this revenue.

No wonder the translator lost his way in that epic ramble. Always excited for more Suda51 games.

I love Fates but would struggle to see the point. It's not a big name system sells despite it being bigger than ever, and any FE fan will already have it on 3DS.

Get working on the next one instead!

Luckily I have unlimited data with my phone, so combining it with a hotspot and I should be able to be online anytime I need with a Switch anyway (it's brilliant for remote play on the Vita too, been scavenging for supplies in The Division on my lunches for the last week).

People here make fun of stock traders for not understanding the gaming market, but it's clear most gamers don't understand the stock market.

These traders will have shares in hundreds of companies. All they care about is whether the value of their shares will go up and down. The idea they should all hold onto their shares until Christmas is ridiculous. They can invest that money over a hundred times between now and then and earn substantial amounts.

@clevbrowns94 Why is it an unfair comparison? In the US, Microsoft and Sony outsell Nintendo by a huge margin, just like the UK. In the US, Call of Duty and sports games outsell Nintendo's big games, just like in the UK. The two markets have pretty much the exact same taste in gaming.

Zelda looks amazing, but considering we can all play it on Wii U, I don't see any reason at all to even be considering a Switch for launch. I was sure they'd have a fantastic line up this time, as it feels like so many of Nintendo's studios have barely done anything since around 2010. I figured perhaps they'd been working on Wii U games, but by early 2014, they were already moving stuff to Switch. Now that we can see it's even more bare than the 3DS and Wii U launch, it really makes you wonder what the hell is going on.

I GET that they probably want to hold things back for E3 (or maybe they don't, as lately they seem to treat E3 like the console race, as in we can't compete here, let's do our own thing, at our time), but do they really think this is enough? We keep getting told Retro has more than one team, but the only games they've produced in a decade are two side-scrolling Donkey Kong games?

I will definitely get a Switch at some point, as I get every Nintendo console, but they've made it pretty easy to hold off. I'm not mad or anything, I have plenty to play, but it's just this feeling of... what the heck you been doing, Nintendo?

You can't take anything Reggie says seriously. These days, he hardly has any decisions to make as that part of the role has all been handed back to people in Japan. His job is to put positive spin on whatever situation Nintendo are in. Just look at that nonsense about not expecting demand for the NES Mini. If you don't think anyone wants to buy a product, you don't release it. Fact is, he had no control over how many units they got, but now he has to try and explain it all.

@KappaBeta I like it more than a standard Dynasty Warriors game, but not as much as Hyrule Warriors.

It was pretty much what I expected, in that it's not some bold new era, it's just a continuation of the Wii U. The console is what they wanted the Wii U to be and it's the same kind of games we've been getting.

My biggest worries were confirmed when the first two games they choose to show were ultra casual faire. Nintendo still wants those people back so badly and put so much effort and resources into what might very well be a lost cause.

The highlight by far was Mario. It looked utterly fantastic. No more linear paths and not just the same tired level themes we've been getting for years. Gives me hope that not all is lost.

Won't be picking one up anytime soon though, especially at the UK price point. I understand exchange rate plays a part but it's too much to pay at launch when the one game I really want is not out til the end of the year.

I don't think it will affect sales, but it's definitely going to be frustrating. I just don't know how they think 32GB is good enough. The Xbox 360 launched with 20GB and that was 12 years ago.

Absolutely ridiculous price! No doubt when it flops at launch people will just say the UK hates Nintendo. 40% more than a PS4 with a game costs. Their focus still seems to be on the casual market, but the casuals won't pay this.

So many ignorant people belittling the UK market's tastes in gaming. NPD figures come out tonight and I guarantee it will be just as bad for North America. In fact, it's worse, because you usually get at least 3 sports titles in the top 10 EVERY year (Madden, FIFA, NBA2K)

@XCWarrior I very much doubt Nintendo's share in the US is much better than 8% Just check out NPD every month. PS4 and Xbone each outsell the Wii U by over 10 to 1 every single month. 3DS isn't faring much better. I think you're probably doing the exact thing you're accusing others of doing. You're in the US and your opinion is that Nintendo is doing okay, then you come online and see articles about how Nintendo is struggling in the UK. The same news comes out every month with NPD about how it's just as bad in North America but Nintendo Life won't post the numbers because NPD is meant to be for members only.

The biggest surprise in the whole thing for me is Rocket League's physical version being in the top 25 selling games. For a game that surely had a much bigger digital presence, that's a phenomenal success!