Switch has seen a year of drought despite the unified development team. Why?

[Sammy Samusu]

Nintendo to unify console and handheld divisions in major organizational shift (2013)
https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3881770/nintendo-to-unify-console-and-handheld-divisions-in-major

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We thought there would be no droughts now that Nintendo is focused on one platform, but 2018 proved us very wrong, it has been a horrible year for Switch in terms of first party releases and pacing.

This unification was supposed to speed up development time, but clearly that didn't work as well as expected. Nintendo has released few games in 2018 for Switch, and out of those, none managed to spark excitment because they were all smaller titles.

So what went wrong with the streamlined development? Were you expecting more from Nintendo on Switch's second year in the market? And looking forward to 2019 and beyond, should the drought fear still linger in our thoughts?

 

[Knight613]

They're still supporting the 3DS.

 

[Betty]

They're still supporting the 3DS.

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God I wish Wario Ware has come to Switch, such a waste.

 

[Anarki]

Because HD games are exponentially more demanding than 3DS games in terms of development resources

 

[nbnt]

Pokemon, Mario Party, Smash, Mario Tennis, Kirby? You're not going to get Zelda or Mario every year.

 

[bangai-o]

There was a drought?

 

[Numberfox]

Believe it or not, game development takes time.

 

[Saint-14]

Every other console owner had drought too, games take more time with each new generation.

 

[Waxy]

I don't think anything went wrong. Last year was stacked and next year appears to be as well. Even with a unified development there is still only so much they can put out. And this year we still got smash l, Mario party and a Pokemon.

 

[Anuiran]

I feel like it's a big year for Nintendo... Smash, Pokémon and Kirby are some of my favourite nintendo franchises and we get big titles in every single one?

 

[ErazorRain]

1. I don't feel it's been dry this year. Worse than 2017? Yes! But not dry.

2. Unless you rush it, games are not made in 1 or 2 years. Then you can still encounter development issues. You can't completely eliminate ALL "droughts" because of this.

 

[Lunchbox]

Agreed, I thought we would get more games not less.

 

[HMS_Pinafore]

Because it hasn't had q drought, you just don't care about the games they put out

 

[Deleted member 1413]

Fire Emblem and Yoshi got delayed likely leaving a gap in the line up.
They also had their best teams all release major titles last year so they're not going to be ready to show up a year later.

Saying there's been a drought all year is disingenuous at best, tho

 

[Noppie]

So far there were no AAA Nintendo games, but I haven't seen a drought.

 

[Bowser]

The lack of Nintendo EPD games is weird, hopefully they're working on big stuff for next year

 

[Deleted member 36708]

Pokemon, Mario Party, Smash, Mario Tennis, Kirby? You're not going to get Zelda or Mario every year.

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Sadly people expect this. 2019 seems to be a beast though. I mean they had to have a drop off considering 2017 they released two GOTY games.

 

[Dphex]

unified development is a myth

 

[Deleted member 18021]

Because you can't have BotW and Mario Odyssey every single year.

 

[ASaiyan]

Poor pacing I guess. Coupled with the delay of Yoshi and Fire Emblem.

They packed an insane number of hits into 2017. Granted, 2018 still has Mario Party, Let's Go and Smash, but 2019 is looking like another insane year. Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Yoshi. Possibly Bayonetta and Metroid on top of all that. And who knows what the third party announcements will look like...

 

[Lunchbox]

Because you can't have BotW and Mario Odyssey every single year.

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No one is expecting that and that's not what is being discussed.

 

[Deleted member 426]

They're still supporting the 3DS, so that impacts things.

 

[fiendcode]

A year of drought with 15 1st party games and 6 published 3rd party pickups. And continued 3DS support on top of that.

 

[tiebreaker]

This year isn't a drought by any means.
It just doen't look good when compared to the all firing PS4.

Remember 2014 for Playstation and Xbox? I don't.

 

[Deleted member 47843]

My guess is it's hard for the former 3DS (or Vita) devs to make the jump. A lot were small teams as they were making low resolution portable games. Hard to ask them to go make $60 HD console games that look good on both the Switch screen and big HDTVs without hiring a lot more staff. And there isn't much market for $40 midtier games anymore (though some succeed of course) as people seem to either want AAA production values at $60 or $20 or less indie games for the most part.

You'll probably get dogpiled though by people saying there's no drought. But there certainly is for people who don't care for things like Kirby, Octopath, Pokémon etc compared to 2017 with it heavy hitters.

That said, I knew what I was getting into as I only like a select few Nintendo games and Japanese third party games. Thus I'm not bothered by it as I bought it as a complementary platform and knew it would have down years of little use for me.

 

[Radishhead]

Pokemon, Mario Party, Smash, Mario Tennis, Kirby? You're not going to get Zelda or Mario every year.

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This. In terms of Nintendo games it hasn't been a drought - if you want even more support, it's the third parties that need to step their game up.

 

[NeonZ]

They're still supporting the 3DS.

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This year the 3ds has mostly gotten outsourced ports though. There were a couple of exceptions like Warioware Gold, but not much.

 

[Plinko]

The idea that Switch had a "drought" this year is asinine.

 

[hussien-11]

The problem in 2018 was with their strategy and the focus on Labo and attracting casual gamers, not with the number of releases because as a publisher they released a good number of games.

 

[Jessie]

They're still supporting the 3DS.

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You really can't blame Luigi's Mansion for the Switch drought.

The real answer is that Nintendo still has a learning curve with HD development. We'll probably have a busy 2019 or 2020 to make up for how weak this year was. They're going to need to bring their A Game to the Sony/Microsoft launches.

 

[Kyrios]

Can't see how there was a drought. Especially if you were never a WiiU owner. Plus eShop has been getting games like crazy.

I mean if you were a WiiU owner, then yeah things were a little slow on the retail side of things if you didn't buy any of the ports, but it was by no means a drought.

Plus 2019 could be massive for Switch with a lot of huge games releasing.

 

[Brazil]

What drought? That's insane. They've released something new basically every month of the year.

 

[Scum]

 

[Bob Beat]

The idea that Switch had a "drought" this year is asinine.

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That word doesn't mean what it used to mean.

 

[Deleted member 36622]

They're still supporting the 3DS.

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*

There are still studios like Grezzo committed on those 3DS games.

 

[Lunchbox]

My guess is it's hard for the former 3DS (or Vita) devs to make the jump. A lot were small teams as they were making low resolution portable games. Hard to ask them to go make $60 HD console games that look good on both the Switch screen and big HDTVs without hiring a lot more staff. And there isn't much market for $40 midtier games anymore (though some succeed of course) as people seem to either want AAA production values at $60 or $20 or less indie games for the most part.

You'll probably get dogpiled though by people saying there's no drought. But there certainly is for people who don't care for things like Kirby, Octopath, Pokémon etc compared to 2017 with it heavy hitters.

That said, I knew what I was getting into as I only like a select few Nintendo games and Japanese third party games. Thus I'm not bothered by it as I bought it as a complementary platform and knew it would have down years of little use for me.

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Low resolution games? On the Vita compared to Switch... hmm.

 

[Deleted member 18161]

Pokemon, Mario Party, Smash, Mario Tennis, Kirby? You're not going to get Zelda or Mario every year.

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It's a drought tho!!!

I'd love to see Sony or MS release five exclusive games in a year and it be called a drought lol...

2019 / Spring 2020 is looking crazy too exclusives wise -

Yoshi.
Fire Emblem.
Luigi's Mansion 3.
Animal Crossing.
Daemon X Machina.
Bayonetta 3.
Metroid Prime 4.

Probable MK8D and SMO DLC.

 

[Arkanim94]

if you thinks this year was a drought you haven't lived in the last year of the wiiU.

 

[Baladium]

Who needs a stacked 2018 for Switch when you've got the generation-defining first-party puzzle masterpiece "Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido" instead?

/s

 

[Charamiwa]

It's weird that we've seen so little of EPD this year. Do they even have a new game this year? Labo I guess, but it's definitely peculiar.

For instance, I don't understand how we don't have a brand new 2D Mario game already, or even Mario Maker 2. The previous one was 3 years ago, unless Mario Run ate up everything?

I also think an Animal Crossing game should have been ready by this year. Last one was so long ago. And again, if Splatoon 2 was the problem, then they have a manpower problem.

 

[Kinsei]

What drought? That's insane. They've released something new basically every month of the year.

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The only explanation is if the OP isn't counting Wii U ports.

 

[Bansai]

It's pretty strong on an indie front, but other than that, yeah, I agree, this year sucked hard. That's why Nintendo consoles will never be my main consoles, they're just too inconsistent content wise.

 

[Ogodei]

Every other console owner had drought too, games take more time with each new generation.

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This is important to note as far as first parties go. It took 2 years after launch for Sony first party to really get in a good place with PS4, while Microsoft on X1 fizzled after 2016 and won't be back really strong until next year.

 

[Shark]

Your expectations are unfairly high if Nintendo's year could be considered a 'drought'.

 

[stone616]

The first year and some of the second showed the fruits of their labor in abandoning the Wii U development in favor of the Switch.

Obviously after those games came out it'll take time for the next batch to be ready. Probably in between year 3-4 if we give them 2 years to ready new titles.

Add to this third party developers still aren't investing in making new original titles. You're left with small indie games and older ports to carry the lineup.

 

[bobbychalkers]

I wish there were droughts, I'm skipping Pokemon because I have too many games in my Switch backlog, let alone my PS4 library.

 

[Dreamboum]

lmao it's always the 3DS' fault.

 

[Deleted member 47843]

Low resolution games? On the Vita compared to Switch... hmm.

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It's 540p vs 720p for the Switch screen and docked games needing to get up to 900-1080p to not get slammed in reviews.

But I was more taking the 3DS devs as they're the ones that stood to benefit from consolidating to one platform. And that was a 240p screen.

 

[kambaybolongo]

Pokemon, Mario Party, Smash, Mario Tennis, Kirby? You're not going to get Zelda or Mario every year.

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Yeah that's a pretty weak lineup

 

[Deleted member 1413]

It's weird that we've seen so little of EAD this year. Do they even have a new game this year? Labo I guess, but it's definitely peculiar.

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I think basically are of EPD's studios were busy/just came off a big title.
Splatoon 2, Mario Odyssey, BOTW, ARMS, MK8D, and dlc for almost all of those.
Glad they helped 2017 launch so well, but maybe spacing things out would've been better.