Soapbox: Has Nintendo Set a Precedent That ‘Switch 2’ Can’t Match?

Image: Zion Grassl / Nintendo Life

Soapbox features allow our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random things they’ve been chewing over. Today, Gavin asks what “success” looks like for systems with impossibly popular predecessors…


If we look back at Nintendo home console hardware sales over the past forty years, we can see from the lifespan figures for each system that there was a steady decline for the first two decades, followed by several huge spikes in the electrocardiogram that bring us to today.

A strong start with 61.91 million Famicom/NES units sold was followed by a whopping 49.1 million Super Famicom/Nintendo units. The N64’s 32.93 million and GameCube’s 21.74 million aren’t bad, but the need for a shake-up was clear. Wii did just that in spectacular fashion, selling 101.63 million units. It then took a dramatic dive with Wii U (13.56 million) before Switch came back to life with 141.32 million systems sold and counting.

The handheld line is a little less dramatic, with two spikes followed by drops: 118.69 million (Game Boy + Color) to 81.51 million (GBA), then up to 154.02 million (DS) before falling back to 75.94 million (3DS). The big ‘families’ of systems under those umbrellas muddies the waters somewhat, and with Switch bundling handheld and home console sales into one, the future is harder to predict than ever. On the handheld side, past trends have us expecting a spike, but only DS sales have surpassed Switch sales (at the time of writing) and it’s easy to imagine Nintendo has nowhere to go but down with ‘Switch 2’.

Nintendo system sales
Image: Nintendo Life

Which would be fineGiven the investor jargon and financial focus that has crept into fandom over the past few decades, it’s easy to mistake “declining” numbers for “bad” numbers. Selling nearly 50 million Super Nintendos isn’t “bad” by any reasonable standard, even if that’s more than 10 million fewer than its predecessor. The Nintendo 64 effectively gave birth to modern 3D console gaming, but it “lost” to the PlayStation. The 3DS is one of Nintendo’s best consoles ever – a great machine with an impeccable library. Just because it sold less than half as many units as its predecessor doesn’t make it a failure.

Nintendo is at its best when it does something different

However, as fans we have all become accustomed to a growth-oriented, competitive mentality of more These days. It’s the kind of nonsense that fuels console wars. It makes movie fans keep tabs on a franchise’s box office, watch its opening weekend numbers and second-week drop, wait for the word from execs that ticket sales were in line or above expectations and a sequel has been greenlit—and the exhausting cycle begins anew. Marketing speak has migrated fully into fandom, encouraging the use of words like “content” and “activations” as if that’s a normal way of talking. The onus is on consumers to engage and make noise; we get profuse thanks from creators when a TV series gets re-commissioned (“We couldn’t have done it without you, the fans!”), which silently blames us when a good show gets canceled. It’s not the showrunners’ fault either — they’re just as stuck in this feedback loop as the rest of us who don’t run the studio.

It’s this complicated, two-way mess that Nintendo is constantly and painstakingly extricating itself from. Sometimes it makes the company’s decisions seem crazy or counterproductive, when there’s a seemingly logical, no-brainer course of action. Just make DLC boards for Mario Party! Just remake A Link to the Past in the Link’s Awakening engine! Just make another Switch!

Switch OLED Ridley
Must be revolutionary. But also EXACTLY THE SAME. — Image: Zion Grassl / Nintendo Life

Frustrating as it can be, it’s also this rejection of received wisdom and refusal to engage in cyclical discussions that allows Nintendo to truly surprise you. You hear no excuses on their social channels. You see no flattering odes to the passionate, fervent fandom that has fueled their hardcore following for generations. (“This is Miyamoto. We hear you.”) Sure, their approach to fan communities can feel coldly corporate – or actively hostile when the DMCAs start flying – but Nintendo is notoriously in the game of surprise and delight, and you don’t do that by constantly communicating and empowering only the most vocal members of the fanbase to the point of legitimacy.

Which brings us to the “Switch successor” and the tension between the innovation in Nintendo’s DNA and giving people what they want. After the astonishing success of the Switch, we all want more of the same. Only, you know, better. 4K, faster, with bigger, better third-party ports, all backwards compatible with our existing library. My bet is on a system that retains the core tenets of the current console, but also adds something to distract from what will essentially be the same handheld hybrid concept.

Nintendo has done this before, of course. Think of the 3DS and its optional (and underrated) autostereoscopic gimmick. StreetPass, in fact, was perhaps its most important differentiator, a social innovation that couldn’t be more Nintendo-like but wrapped in a very familiar package. After seven years of such life-changing convenience, it seems inconceivable that a new Nintendo system wouldn’t be a handheld that could be tethered to a TV.

Nintendo 64
Pff, only 32 million sold. Total L-movement. — Image: Zion Grassl / Nintendo Life

But is that a lack of imagination on my part? Maybe. Maybe there’s a better way that the scientists in Kyoto have developed to deliver the best video games to us: a donut with a pulse sensor in the middle; a holographic box with touchscreen walls; a tube that unfolds into a playpad with a screen. If Nintendo went completely off track with the Switch 2 and the result was not a Wii-like sales sensation, then the obvious conclusion would be that abandoning the tried-and-true Switch formula was a mistake. But then again, a Wii-like 100 million-selling smash would be an underperformance compared to the Switch.

The 3DS is a great machine with an impeccable library. Just because it sold less than half the units of its predecessor doesn’t make it a failure.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want an iterative Switch successor just like everyone else. But I also love foreign Nintendo, the company that makes pedometers, motion-sensitive Pilates hoops, and cardboard robot suits with rubber bands. I’m really hoping Switch 2 has some of the strange magic that defines the company’s most imaginative offerings — something more than “just” another Switch. But also another Switch.

As we’ve seen, a system can be hugely successful without reinventing the wheel. Nintendo has done that in the past. Just look at Sony and its five PlayStations. There’s no need to be a fundamental reinvention of the Wii- or DS-style hardware that delivers surprise and, indeed, delight. There’s also the fact that it’s easier to expand a small, portable console with new ideas and new peripherals than with a huge big box under the TV.

But as much as we can joke about countless things, Mario partiesGiven all the Wii U double-dips, and how the same IP keeps coming back for more, Nintendo is at its best when it’s doing things differently. If Switch 2 is as much of an iterative overhaul of the current console as most of us hope, it’s unlikely to appeal to a fresh blue ocean of players. Even with its enviable, inimitable first-party games, in pure sales terms, all signs point to diminishing returns over the next generation.

New 3DS StreetPass
Image: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life

Which, again, is fine! Switch doesn’t need to beat PS2 in the all-time hardware sales charts. ‘Switch 2’ doesn’t need to outshine its predecessor. If it can deliver unique experiences that move us the same way the 3DS did, that’s more than enough to qualify as an emphatic success.

Even if it’s just a miserable 75 million


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