The Switch 2 is one year old and Nintendo is in trouble.
Hello you exceptionally perfect Patreon people!
I hope that all of you are currently living their highest high life, that everything you touch this month ends up becoming a glorious success and that the next person that is unnecessarily mean to you, ends up getting an exceptionally nasty hiccup that lasts for months!
The videos about the history of Don’t Jump Contraptions in Mario Maker and about beating Mario Galaxy coinless are out and I’m quite happy with how both turned out!
There will actually be a bit more Mario Maker and challenge runs in the coming weeks which already brings us to our first point!
In case you are worrying: Don’t!
I have not forgotten the videos about the history of fuzzies nor the video about Nintendo overdoing it with approachability that you wonderful people voted for a while back!
I’m already drafting the outline for the fuzzy video (which means I’m still trying to figure out what to talk about in it) and I actually already have prepared a good bunch of notes for the approachability video but I feel that a video like this needs a big recent Nintendo release that actually suffers from that problem to bring it all together.
Which neatly brings us to today's hot topic.
Not many big recent Nintendo releases, are there?
So the Switch 2 celebrates its one year anniversary next Friday, which is a phenomenal time to take a look back at the console's first year.
And at least in my opinion Nintendo doesn’t have much reason to celebrate.
The Switch 2 enters its second year in a very complicated situation.
But one thing after the other.
Let’s start with the good news.
The Switch 2’s console sales in its first year are pretty impressive!
So far the console sold roughly 20 million units, which is more than the original Switch sold in its first year (roughly 18 million), more than the PS5 sold in its first year (roughly 18 million), roughly as much as the PS4 sold in its first year (20 million) and already more than the Wii U sold in its lifetime (less than 14 million).
The Switch and the PS4 ended up becoming two of the best selling consoles of all time and the Switch 2 is already matching or even outpacing their sales numbers - so on the surface everything looks great doesn’t it?
And yet, let’s take a look at this chart.
This is how Nintendo’s stock price behaved the past year.
And as we can clearly see: Number go down.
A lot actually!
Nintendo lost almost half its value since the launch of the Switch 2 and is right now worth about 42% less than they were right before the launch.
Which confronts us with a bit of a mystery, doesn’t it?
On the one hand the Switch 2 is on track to become one of the best selling consoles of all times and on the other hand Nintendo’s stock price is collapsing.
What in all the financial fuzzies' names is going on here?
The answer?
Well, the answer is hidden in another little chart here.
This here is a list of the best selling Switch 2 games.
What do we notice when looking at this chart?
Well, the first thing we notice is that there is something missing, isn’t there?
Where is Metroid Prime 4 and where is Mario Tennis Fever, afterall both games released a while back?
An excellent question!
To understand their mysterious disappearance we actually have to answer another question entirely!
Where the heck do these sales numbers even come from in the first place?
How do we know how many copies specific games have actually sold?
The thing is the following.
Nintendo, is a publicly traded company - a plot twist that the stock price chart before already was foreshadowing.
And publicly traded companies are heavily regulated.
They have, for example, to publicly publish their entire earnings each quarter.
In these financial reports companies have to tell us how much money they have made recently and declare where this money actually came from.
And as luck would have it, gaming companies usually make their money by selling games, which is why we have a very good idea of the sales numbers of all the games that are published by the big publicly traded companies (like Nintendo, Capcom, Bandai Namco, CD Project Red, Take Two, Microsoft, Sony and a bunch more).
As soon as a company is publicly traded their sales numbers are pretty much open source.
Which brings us back to the mystery of how many copies Mario Tennis Fever or Metroid Prime 4 have sold.
You see - Nintendo traditionally reports the sales of games as soon as they sold north of a million copies.
The fact that they have not reported the sales numbers for Prime 4 or the new Mario Tennis tells us that these games have not yet sold a million copies.
Metroid 4 is also missing from the list of the best selling original Switch games which … yeah, Prime 4 seems to be selling exceptionally terrible.
But it is not only these two games that aren’t selling that hot.
It’s all their games.
Not a single Nintendo game seems to be selling nearly as much as their evil twin did on the original Switch.
If we ignore the sales of Mario Kart for a second (since it was aggressively bundled with the console) there is not a single game that sold 5 million copies so far.
Banaza is the best selling game so far with 4.5 million copies sold.
If we compare these sales numbers to the early software sales of the original Switch then … well then we better grab a fire extinguisher - because those sales were fire in comparison.
After just 9 months Breath of the Wild had already sold almost 7 million copies, Splatoon 2 had sold almost 5 million, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had sold over 7 million and Mario Odyssey (which was only 3 months old at that point) had already sold more than 9 million games!
However, at that time not even 15 million Switch consoles were in circulation!
People were just buying way more games on the original Switch than they are on the second one which is a massive problem for Nintendo.
Just take a look at the following example!
If we add together all the games Nintendo has sold so far on the Switch 2 we end up with roughly 30 Million software sales.
But Super Mario Odyssey alone sold 30.5 Million on the original Switch.
Mario Kart 8 sold over 70 million.
So why are people no longer buying as many Nintendo games as before?
Well, let me share a small story with you.
Just yesterday evening I was chatting with my wife about this very problem and she raised a very good point.
I quote: “It’s just, Nintendo released such strange games early. Like, releasing a Donkey Kong game before releasing a Mario game, is like releasing a game about Yoshi before there is a Zelda game on the console … It’s just weird.”
And I was like, “Honey, I’ve got news for you.”
Which already brings us to Nintendo’s upcoming games line up.
…
There is none.
…
They just released Yoshi and the Forgotten Book to thunderous silence and there is only a single Nintendo game scheduled for release this year ahead.
A new Fire Emblem game.
Other than that we only know that new Pokemon games are coming in 2027 … and … that’s it.
The entire line up of exclusive Switch 2 games in the first 18 months of the console are a Donkey Kong game, a Pokemon spin-off, a Kirby racing game that was released right next to a Mario Kart, a Hyrule Warriors game, a Mario Tennis and a Yoshi game.
Which is just … weird.
Those are all either risky new spin offs, or absolute C Tier Nintendo franchises.
With nothing on the horizon to really look forward to.
The Switch 2 launched with an exceptionally mediocre line-up and the mediocre software sales are a logical result of this.
Here’s the thing however.
The next year is critical for the Switch 2’s long term success.
The console sales that happen during the first mainly come from hard-core fans that are buying the console anyway.
But for the console generation to be a success they need to get the console into the hands of people that are not necessarily their core audience.
They have to get parents to buy the console for their kids, they have to get people that grew up with a Nintendo console to pull the trigger out of nostalgia and get 70 year old people to buy one to stay in touch with the youths.
But these people are incredibly picky about what games they play and very price sensitive.
Granny is just not going to spend 500 coins to play Fire Emblem or the new Yoshi game.
Traditionally the second year would be the time to do a small price discount and to sell the console bundled with one of the blockbuster games (think of the original Switch for 299 with Mario Odyssey).
Bundles like this are what allows a console to really break into the mainstream.
Yet we are lightyears away from anything like this.
Nintendo is even raising prices going forward. (Which isn’t their fault, it’s because of RAM shortage, but it is certainly not helping nonetheless.)
So yeah, as of right now, I think Nintendo is heading into a terribly difficult second year for the console if they don't have a massive pile of secret games hidden somewhere in the sewers below their headquarters.
What does all of this mean for all of us?
Well, not much really!
At that point it’s almost tradition for Nintendo to fumble a console release after acing one, and historically Nintendo is a lot more fun with their back against the wall than the other way around - so in the long run I’m not too worried.
But short term it looks like this wall is slowly creeping up to Nintendo’s back.
Awesome!
So that was all that I wanted to waffle about today.
Before we wrap this up: A gigantic thank you to all you wonderful people for your wonderful support.
You wonderful folks are really making a difference here and I can’t thank you enough!
Thank you so much and see you soon!
The Switch 2 is one year old and Nintendo is in trouble. (YouTube)
Comments (10)
Ceave...you make my day brotha.
Perhaps I'm simplifying things, but I feel like a 3d Mario game is an incredibly integral part of every Nintendo console. I believe they've always been released within a year of a console's release, but the Switch 2 is a year in without even any news of one. Not to mention it's almost 10 years since Odyssey's release. I'm curious how it'll effect the Switch 2 when it eventually does release.
when I see such an astonishingly mediocre line-up of titles for the Switch 2, I only really have one thought: what are they cooking? A company of that scale is working on so many different things simultaneously. Not seeing any of that yet means it's not in the state they deem fit to present yet. As opposed to the Wii U, this console is a major success; so all the 20 million people that already own a console will jump at the opportunity to play a game that catches their interest, and that's in addition to the audience that still hasn't bought a Switch 2 for the lack of console-selling games. Seeing nothing major announced except for the vague "2026" and "2027" of Fire Emblem and Pokémon doesn't worry me all that much. Lying low if they can't afford to maintain hype for extended periods of time makes more sense than risking hype burnout to me.
Genuinely Nintendo have been making the weirdest decisions since the release of their new console, its really confusing. Like, why in earth was one of their year one releases for the console the virtual boy catalogue (literally their worst selling console) which doesn't even work without spending even more money on pieces of cardboard and plastic?? Like, why would they sell that in what's arguably the most critical year for their new console?? Furthermore, why are they choosing to drip feed announcements through random announcements in an app instead of doing a direct that naturally gathers hype for their games?? In the first year of their console? The starfox direct was literally announced like 30 mins before it happened. This makes no sense from a buisness perspective if they want people to like, y'know, buy the game?? But i digress, the main thing I'm looking forward to is the new rhythm heaven/paradise game which is releasing cheaper than usual so...
I'm honestly disappointed by the games so far. As someone who doesn't play that many games, my Switch 2 title screen is empty except for Mario Kart. I do play it and have fun, but its literally the only game on there. Hearing it has been a year since release now was kind of a shock. I would have expected more, especially a mainline mario game. The only game I'm somewhat looking forward to in the moment is the splatoon spinoff.
That was really interesting to read and I learned a few things from it. For the image showing the best-selling games, I thought a problem might be that those games are all Nintendo franchises. There is no new IP nor a non-Nintendo game, so I figured it's that hardly any other games got made or that they weren't successful, which often was a problem for Nintendo. And I wasn't even aware that I am now in the "grew up with a Nintendo console" audience. *sigh*
A Mario Galaxy video from you was like a dream come true. I would say I hope to see the same challenge in Mario Galaxy 2, but I have a feeling that it will be much harder due to the linearity of the game. But, watching the gameplay in the video, I noticed one thing noticeably lacking in the footage, and so I must ask... ...do you know how to long jump in Mario Galaxy? It would have made the final sequence in space junk speedrun significantly easier. (If you don't know: while running, quickly press crouch and A.)
I have indeed mastered the plumbing technique of the long jump! It's funny that I never long jumped in the footage but that's just a weird coincidence!
Hello Ceave and good work as always.. so, you know, to me the situation kind of makes sense and the state Nintendo is right now is well in line with one of the most relevant issues of this decade: lack of softwares. I don't think I'm wrong when I say that the PS5 did not held up to the expectations and that this generation is not as good as the previous one (I'm being kind here, I personally think this was a very bad generation). You know, it kinda baffles me hearing that a console has to be saved by a third party title (any reference to the GTA 6 situation is clearly wanted) but it's what mostly happened during this first year of the Switch 2: most releases were re-release of older games that can now run on a Nintendo's hardware or just upgrades. It's great, but that's really the reason why people trusted Nintendo and decided to be early adopters? Or it's for the tiny mouse? I think you get my point by now and I'm not exposing things many already did. It's just sad that an industry born to bring some people joy and other people money is in such a sorry state. (I very well know it can get much worse) P.S: funnily enough Nintendo price increase is the only one I kind of understand. 100$ more for a 6 years old hardware and now 200$ for a 4 years old one? Honestly, what's next?
The very little I've heard about the Yoshi game has been positive, so I wonder if it was mostly bad marketing on their part? I'm curious how the star fox release will pan out, too.