Hey Malstrom,
It’s almost always the games, but the Switch is the exception. The top three best selling games on Switch are Zelda BotW, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Splatoon 2.
BOTW is available on Wii U, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a remaster of a Wii U game. Splatoon 2 is not a giant leap forward above the original Splatoon on Wii U, just small tweaks and additions that only hardcore nerds who play the game would notice, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two without playing them. The Wii U actually has a Virtual Console, the Switch doesn’t even have one yet. The Wii U had multiplats right off the bat, whereas the multiplats this time are dipping their toes in slowly and only paying attention to the Switch after it was hailed as a success.
Unless portable Skyrim sold the Switch in advance (and it’ll be people rebuying Skyrim because most people who wanted to play Skyrim have done so already on the kajillion other platforms it’s on), it really comes down to people hating the Wii U Gamepad or considering it unnecessary if they couldn’t actually tell that it was a separate console.
Zelda BoW “Wow!” came out after the Wii U was removed from retailers (and did sell Wii Us despite that).
Mario Kart 8 did not come out the first year of the Wii U console. It came later. And it did sell Wii U systems.
Splatoon also came out much later on the system.
In the Console business, there is the ‘reputation factor’ which is cemented after one year. Example: Gamecube is a kiddie console with no mature games. Despite games like Resident Evil 4 or Metroid Prime on it, Gamecube got the reputation of being the ‘kiddie console’ due to the games released on it the first year. After that, Gamecube had a very, very hard time getting itself out of that reputation.
Why do you think Nintendo wanted ‘non cute’ games for their consoles to be released afterward such as Zombie U or Red Steel? This was intentional to make sure their consoles don’t get a reputation.
Here is an example for SNES first year lineup of software:
Super Mario World
F-Zero
Gradius 3
Pilotwings
SimCity
The Chessmaster
Drakkhen
Final Fight
Hyper Zone
Super R-type
U.N. Squadron
Hai’s Hole in One Golf
Populous
Super Bases Loaded
Ultraman: Towards the Future
Actraiser
John Madden Football
Paperboy 2
RPM Racing
Super Tennis
Final Fantasy 2
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Darius Twin
True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club
Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball
Super Baseball Simulator 1,000
Super Off Road
Super Castlevania
Home Alone
D-Force
Miracle Piano
Earth Defense Force
Parodius
Joe and Mac
Y’s 3
Lagoon
WWF Super Wreslemania
Sensible Soccer
Nolan Ryan’s Baseball
Lemmings
PGA Tour Golf
Pit-Fighter
Smart Ball
The Addams Family
Extra Innings
Raiden Trad
Super Adventure Island
Contra 3
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Top Gear
Rocketeer
Romance of the Three Kingdoms II
Arcana
Jack Niclaus Golf
Capcom’s MVP Foortball
Krusty’s Super Fun House
Space Foogtball: One of One
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Street Fighter 2
And so on…
SNES got the reputation for being a console for having great platformers and RPGs and porting arcade games like Street Fighter 2. But the SNES failed with sports games.Genesis took the sports game mantle and nearly toppled the SNES in the marketplace.
Reputation matters a ton.
Switch is getting the reputation for a platform for Open World games thanks to Zelda BoW “Wow!”. Skyrim, Mario Odyssey, and others are just reinforcing this.
But what is the reputation for online multiplayer for Switch? Only Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon 2 are the ones largely defining it, and it isn’t good. I’m not sure if Nintendo can fix this problem during the console’s lifespan. Even if Nintendo does so, the reputation is hardened.
Releasing Mario Kart 8, Splatoon 2, Zelda BoW “Wow!” during the first few months of Switch doesn’t prove that great games don’t sell consoles, it proves that bad reputations of released consoles prevents good games from finding the marketplace.
What games DID define the Wii U reputation for the first year?
Aside from some ports, it was Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Brothers U. Both of those games are bad games.
What if Wii U launched with Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, and Zelda BoW “Wow”? Wii U would have had a different reputation, I guarantee you of that. The console would have performed much better in the overall market.
“Console business is a momentum business,” Iwata always said. Games do sell the hardware, but you cannot reverse negative momentum caused by prior crappy first party games like Nintendo Land and NSMB U.
“Why do I not hear negative reactions about Nintendo Land and NSMB U on game review sites and gaming message forums then?”
For the same reason why you keep hearing Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine praised. Nintendo’s competitors are not scared of those games. They know those games destroyed the Nintendo console market. In fact, they want more of those games. Many of Nintendo’s competitors will talk up the bad games, while constantly saying how Nintendo shouldn’t keep making the games that DO sell hardware.
“Wii Sports is a TERRIBLE game…” *Wii sells gazillions*
“NSMB Wii is awful…” *Wii sells gazillions*
“Madworld is a masterpiece…” *game bombs*
“Mario Kart Wii is atrocious…” *Wii sells gazillions*
“Mario Galaxy is the best game ever made!” *Doesn’t sell that much*
“Skyward Sword is the perfect Zelda game!” *worst Zelda of all, almost bomba worthy*
You see how this goes. This is why I do not trust the ‘rave reviews’ for Mario Odyssey, a game which has already faded from the gaming conversations. Meanwhile, Zelda BoW “Wow!” keeps dominating. No one could deny that game, although there are some people that keep trying.
Now if all of this sounds crazy to you, remember that I was around during the Wii Era when this all took place. Maybe the conversations have de-centralized since then. But it is my experience that AAA Nintendo games that bomb are always praised to the hilt, and any Nintendo game that is effective in the market is critically marginalized. “Don’t make more of those!” Look at the reaction of Pikmin. Pikmin 1 and 2 were ineffective in the Gamecube Era, yet the media had orgasms over the announcement for Pikmin 3 (which released on the Wii U and was even more ineffective).
Why do you think it took so long for Nintendo to make an open world Zelda BoW “Wow!”? Nintendo HAD the template for Zelda BoW with Zelda 1, Zelda 2, even LTTP. The reason why is because constant critical and internet praise came for TERRIBLE Zelda games such as Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. These best of these, Twilight Princess, actually moved a ton of units, and it was then critically panned! “Don’t make more games like this,” they said.
It cannot be a coincidence that ineffective first party games (in terms of selling hardware) are praised all day by people while effective first party games are scolded and maligned.
The reason why we have Zelda BoW “Wow!” today is because a different critical reception became widespread throughout the Internet. Instead of praising the latest Aonuma Zelda, more and more people said, “Why can’t this go back to the first one where we do anything we want? We just get the sword and go?” They did not say that based off of the game reviewers of the time.