As sophomore slumps go, the Nintendo Switch's wasn't so bad.
When the Switch burst onto the scene in 2017, it could seemingly do no wrong. It was the new kid on the block: young and cool, with an air of mystery and excitement. So it goes with most new game consoles. In 2018, Switch hit the ol' sophomore slump, with lesser games and ports filling its lineup as we continue to wait for the next batch of all-new megahits. This, too, is typical of consoles. While the Switch didn't have many home runs in 2018, it did have some doubles and triples.
How do you follow up a year in which new Zelda and Mario games were not only met with critical acclaim, but were widely considered to have radically reinvented their series for the better? If you're Nintendo, you follow it up with, well, a lot of Wii U ports and less-ambitious sequels. Until the one-two punch of Pokémon and Smash at the very end of the year, that is.
...
There are now over 1,400 games on the Switch, from indie darlings to the biggest triple-A productions. Which is good, because Nintendo's output for the year hasn't been especially consistent.
This year's most anticipated Nintendo games—Super Mario Party, Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee and Pikachu, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—all came out in the last three months of 2018. Up to that point, big Nintendo titles had been middling. After an explosive 2017 in which Nintendo fired off Zelda, Mario Kart, Splatoon 2, and Mario Odyssey in rapid succession, the bulk of 2018 was less AAA and more single-A, if not B, games.
...
All in all, 2018 wasn't a huge year for first-party Switch games, except for the last few months.
Trickling through the spaces between those bigger games was a steady flow of ports. There were so many it was almost comical, saturating the Switch store with incredible indie and AAA games from years past. Big-budget games from Diablo III to Dragon Ball FighterZ to Fortnite to Warframeto Dark Souls all landed on the Switch, most of the time with technically solid ports. Yet while the Switch store is expanding into all sorts of genres, it's giving a new audience access to competitive titles without giving them the same competitive edge as peers on, say, PC. It's always going to be harder to master a fighting game like Dragon Ball FighterZ or a shooter like Fortnite on a handheld console, and especially when that handheld console doesn't have a LAN adapter built in.
...
Switch Online is Nintendo's first paid online service, and optimistic Switch owners hoped that that if Nintendo was going to charge for an online service, they might do a better job with it than they had in the past. No such luck. The Switch's online service still failed to let people easily connect and play each other. It doesn't let you send messages to your friends through the Switch. You can't hook up a mic. If you want to link up with your friends for a round of Smash, you're going to have to organize yourselves on Discord or another outside app. In other words, Switch Online kinda sucks, and the fact that it's only $20 instead of $60 doesn't fully mitigate that.
...
Currently, Nintendo has attached 2019 release dates to New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion 3, Yoshi's Crafted World, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Daemon X Machina, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and of course the next core Pokémon game. Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4 don't have release dates yet, but either or both could make it into 2019. And with Nintendo of America's top exec all but confirming that we'll see games from more of Nintendo's classic consoles arrive on Switch Online's library, hopefully that'll also happen sooner rather than later. We'd love to start playing Super NES, Nintendo 64, and (dare we dream?) Game Boy games on our Switches.
Even though Switch is succeeding with core gamers, Nintendo has yet to land a Switch version of the casual-friendly, money-making megahits it had with Wii Fit or Wii Music. There's a lot of money in those casual gamers, so look for Nintendo to throw a few more lines into that deep blue ocean in 2019. However that fishing expedition turns out, Nintendo's 2019 lineup doesn't seem like it'll leave anyone with much to complain about.
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SOURCE
Unlike their PlayStation article which I heavily disagree with, I don't find much to complain for the Switch one. The year was a step down from 2017 on the whole, and I wish it hadn't been, but all said and done, it wasn't half bad, I am happy with how it went, and next year looks great.
When the Switch burst onto the scene in 2017, it could seemingly do no wrong. It was the new kid on the block: young and cool, with an air of mystery and excitement. So it goes with most new game consoles. In 2018, Switch hit the ol' sophomore slump, with lesser games and ports filling its lineup as we continue to wait for the next batch of all-new megahits. This, too, is typical of consoles. While the Switch didn't have many home runs in 2018, it did have some doubles and triples.
How do you follow up a year in which new Zelda and Mario games were not only met with critical acclaim, but were widely considered to have radically reinvented their series for the better? If you're Nintendo, you follow it up with, well, a lot of Wii U ports and less-ambitious sequels. Until the one-two punch of Pokémon and Smash at the very end of the year, that is.
...
There are now over 1,400 games on the Switch, from indie darlings to the biggest triple-A productions. Which is good, because Nintendo's output for the year hasn't been especially consistent.
This year's most anticipated Nintendo games—Super Mario Party, Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee and Pikachu, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—all came out in the last three months of 2018. Up to that point, big Nintendo titles had been middling. After an explosive 2017 in which Nintendo fired off Zelda, Mario Kart, Splatoon 2, and Mario Odyssey in rapid succession, the bulk of 2018 was less AAA and more single-A, if not B, games.
...
All in all, 2018 wasn't a huge year for first-party Switch games, except for the last few months.
Trickling through the spaces between those bigger games was a steady flow of ports. There were so many it was almost comical, saturating the Switch store with incredible indie and AAA games from years past. Big-budget games from Diablo III to Dragon Ball FighterZ to Fortnite to Warframeto Dark Souls all landed on the Switch, most of the time with technically solid ports. Yet while the Switch store is expanding into all sorts of genres, it's giving a new audience access to competitive titles without giving them the same competitive edge as peers on, say, PC. It's always going to be harder to master a fighting game like Dragon Ball FighterZ or a shooter like Fortnite on a handheld console, and especially when that handheld console doesn't have a LAN adapter built in.
...
Switch Online is Nintendo's first paid online service, and optimistic Switch owners hoped that that if Nintendo was going to charge for an online service, they might do a better job with it than they had in the past. No such luck. The Switch's online service still failed to let people easily connect and play each other. It doesn't let you send messages to your friends through the Switch. You can't hook up a mic. If you want to link up with your friends for a round of Smash, you're going to have to organize yourselves on Discord or another outside app. In other words, Switch Online kinda sucks, and the fact that it's only $20 instead of $60 doesn't fully mitigate that.
...
Currently, Nintendo has attached 2019 release dates to New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion 3, Yoshi's Crafted World, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Daemon X Machina, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and of course the next core Pokémon game. Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4 don't have release dates yet, but either or both could make it into 2019. And with Nintendo of America's top exec all but confirming that we'll see games from more of Nintendo's classic consoles arrive on Switch Online's library, hopefully that'll also happen sooner rather than later. We'd love to start playing Super NES, Nintendo 64, and (dare we dream?) Game Boy games on our Switches.
Even though Switch is succeeding with core gamers, Nintendo has yet to land a Switch version of the casual-friendly, money-making megahits it had with Wii Fit or Wii Music. There's a lot of money in those casual gamers, so look for Nintendo to throw a few more lines into that deep blue ocean in 2019. However that fishing expedition turns out, Nintendo's 2019 lineup doesn't seem like it'll leave anyone with much to complain about.
---
SOURCE
Unlike their PlayStation article which I heavily disagree with, I don't find much to complain for the Switch one. The year was a step down from 2017 on the whole, and I wish it hadn't been, but all said and done, it wasn't half bad, I am happy with how it went, and next year looks great.
