Kotaku: The State Of The Nintendo Switch In 2018

[xyla]

There's a specific kind of gamer that could be blown away by this year's lineup. Not as well as 2017 but still.
If you didn't own a Wii U but are primarily a Nintendo gamer, this year was pretty damn solid. There are a lot of ports of games not a lot of people played - there were some really solid 3rd party ports, from 1st person shooters to Battle Royale or GaaS games.
Add to that the end of the year game rush and you have a very solid year for a second year in a console lifecycle.

But if you have owned a PS4, XB0 or PC and have been playing for years and if you own a Wii U on top of that, that lineup gets pretty thin.
Myself, I'm somewhat in between. I had a Wii U, but I haven't played most titles like Toad or Zelda Musou - primarily had the Mario games, VC and Smash for that system. It was a solid year for me - and they went out with a blast. Smash is amazing so far and at the same heights as Zelda and Mario for me.

And the next year could be very solid in terms of Nintendo output. I'll finally play my first Animal Crossing. Can't wait.

 

[Blade Wolf]

It needs more games. More, more and more.

If you think it already has a good amount of games in 2018 then good for you, but for me I need more than that.

 

[Tesser]

If you're a Nintendo fan having previously invested in previous consoles but also have other platforms to play on (PC especially), providing everything sticks to its stated time-frame, 2019 should be a considerably better year in terms of games released. Personally I need plentiful convincing Fire Emblem is a step up from its past handheld outings as what we've seen of it thus far looks, being brutally honest, pretty mediocre; Yoshi's visuals are nice enough but I'd love for that game to offer the same variety in challenge and design as the original Yoshi's Island had; Luigi's Mansion 3, though welcome, I hope doesn't take too many pages from the second game as far as its artistic direction goes - still looks a tad too "bright" from that initial reveal trailer. And Metroid Prime 4.........yeh.

But subtracting any and all personal tastes/preferences and looking at best-case scenario from a first-party stand-point: Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, Yoshi, Pokemon, Luigi's Mansion, Metroid...that could be a decent run to help fill out the year, albeit the second half.

 

[Wiifitkid]

Had yoshi and fire emblem not been delayed it would be hard for me to understand people calling it a slow year. But those delays really hurt first party output.

That said I only play games on the switch, so I've had more stuff to play than I have time for.

 

[night814]

Was Labo considered a flop? I don't hear anything about it anymore since its launched and this article didn't mention anything either. Sometimes I forget it even launched this year.

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It's hard to quantify it since it clearly didn't sell a lot but it's also clear it was not a costly endeavor for nintendo

 

[Oscarzx n]

A reminder for the people that were dissapointed on the Switch lineup in 2018: the first 3 months of 2019 Will be full of big games, but the Switch is not getting almost anything, so the year actually begins in April with Mortal Kombat 11.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

2018 was a good year for me, but only because i got my switch this year and i played a lot of 2017 titles (and i never had a wii u so all the ports were new games to me). i think if i was only limited to 2018 games, i would have been kinda disappointed. thankfully 2019 is shaping up to be a much better year, and i've already got a few 2017/2018 games in the backlog, so i expect to enjoy the platform a lot next year too.

I don't think this is complete and some of the stuff (Like Doom Eternal) isn't 100% confirmed for 2019 yet but:

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that's a great lineup, but sayonara wild hearts isn't an exclusive. it's either timed-exclusive, or they just wanted to announce other platforms later. on their website it says "& other platforms".

 

[Zool]

As a former wiiu owner this year was beyond crap. 2019 will be good if they release Prime and Animal Crossing. Looking forward to these games.

 

[kickz]

.

You should stop making troll posts, because the article didn't say anything about drought.

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Reading comprehension is important, notice I said the main topic is about big First Party Ninty titles which 2018 lacked much of compared to 2017

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.

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[Screen Looker]

Truthfully, the worst tragedy is the Switch just got the YouTube app last month and still doesn't have Netflix. C'mon folks, if the Wii U had it, the Switch can too! Lol

 

[kickz]

Had yoshi and fire emblem not been delayed it would be hard for me to understand people calling it a slow year. But those delays really hurt first party output.

That said I only play games on the switch, so I've had more stuff to play than I have time for.

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This is true, if XenoBalade 2 got pushed to spring and those two games you mentioned stayed in 2018 then it would have definitely been a more balanced year.

The thing I am worried about is, wasn't the promise of the Switch that First Party slumps could not happen because all of Nintendo is developing for just one device?

 

[SuperFakerBros]

This is true, if XenoBalade 2 got pushed to spring and those two games you mentioned stayed in 2018 then it would have definitely been a more balanced year.

The thing I am worried about is, wasn't the promise of the Switch that First Party slumps could not happen because all of Nintendo is developing for just one device?

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I don't think it was ever said that 1st/2nd party droughts would never happen again. No one in the Big 3 can do that or has managed to do that. Games take longer than ever to make and fewer major games are made nowadays, if you compare each developers output from this gen to last gen. It's just going to be less prevalent and severe, which, even in 2018, is so far the case. There were worse years than that for sure on, say, the Wii U or even the 3DS

 

[kickz]

I don't think it was ever said that 1st/2nd party droughts would never happen again. No one in the Big 3 can do that or has managed to do that. Games take longer than ever to make and fewer major games are made nowadays, if you compare each developers output from this gen to last gen. It's just going to be less prevalent and severe, which, even in 2018, is so far the case. There were worse years than that for sure on, say, the Wii U or even the 3DS

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Right, I guess my question is more to that if you combine 3DS and WiiU output should Switch be expected to match those twos combined output?
I get that modern triple AAA games take longer, but the Switch should be fine with some HD 3DS titles like Zelda Link between Worlds

 

[SuperFakerBros]

Right, I guess my question is more to that if you combine 3DS and WiiU output should Switch be expected to match those twos combined output?
I get that modern triple AAA games take longer, but the Switch should be fine with some HD 3DS titles like Zelda Link between Worlds

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Not at all. Even 2D games, like 2D Zelda and Fire Emblem, and the like will take longer, cost more, and require larger teams as they're gonna be HD games and, with that, comes higher expectations. Even 3DS games took a fair amount more resources to make than DS or GBA games. Don't get me wrong, the overall Switch output is of course going to be larger than either of Nintendo's previous systems individually, but it's not going to be as simple as the same output as their previous handheld and console games put together

 

[kickz]

Not at all. Even 2D games, like 2D Zelda and Fire Emblem, and the like will take longer, cost more, and require larger teams as they're gonna be HD games and, with that, comes higher expectations. Even 3DS games took a fair amount more resources to make than DS or GBA games. Don't get me wrong, the overall Switch output is of course going to be larger than either of Nintendo's previous systems individually, but it's not going to be as simple as the same output as their previous handheld and console games put together

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Thats fair, 2018 definitely was not it, but it will be interesting to see 2019 and beyond where exactly that pace will fall in comparison to 3DS/WiiU combined output.

That said ,2019 looks extrememly promising, and hopefully thats how they pace to go at from now on.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

The italicized font hurts. Lik

 

[jrDev]

Reading comprehension is important, notice I said the main topic is about big First Party Ninty titles which 2018 lacked much of compared to 2017

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Please don't insult my comprehension because I read this post below clearly:

Will we have another 2018 type down year in the near future?

I thought yearly droughts would be gone now that 3DS devs and Nintendo Console Devs only have one device to output to????

Isn't that the promise of a hybrid device

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Which I responded to about droughts...there were no droughts. Period.

Yeah I have been saying it all year, 2018 has been a complete shitshow.

Kirby the biggest offering in the first half of the year was complete undercooked traaaash.

But 2019 should be promising like 2017 was.

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Plus this post was troll bait because Kirby wasn't "traaaash" (like who says this and want to be taken seriously). You neglected to mention the Mario Tennis game too...

 

[SuperFakerBros]

Thats fair, 2018 definitely was not it, but it will be interesting to see 2019 and beyond where exactly that pace will fall in comparison to 3DS/WiiU combined output.

That said ,2019 looks extrememly promising, and hopefully thats how they pace to go at from now on.

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Oh absolutely, 2019 looks great and I'd imagine we'll see more 3DS teams move on to the Switch by then and 2020. Now, I do believe that we'll still have dry spells, as far as 1st/2nd party games are concerned, but they'll be less than what we've traditionally had

 

[hussien-11]

It needs more games. More, more and more.

If you think it already has a good amount of games in 2018 then good for you, but for me I need more than that.

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Maybe more "important" games, but the amount of them is unbelievable for a system this early in its life cycle.
first half of 2018 was a bit weak especially if you owned a Wii U, but second half was very strong: Fortnite, Smash, Pokemon, Mario Party, Dark Souls, Warframe, Diablo, Civ6, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Crash Bandicoot Trilogy, Katamari Damacy Reroll, awesome indie games and tons of others! I think no Nintendo system has been this varied since the Super Nintendo.

 

[JCHandsom]

"The biggest game in the universe dropped on Switch this year but with some carefully placed words I can move the goalposts to wherever I want!".

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The man speaks the truth. Call it what you want, no matter how the rest of your year looks if you drop Smash Bros it was a good/great year.