Nintendo’s comeback year

If there’s one thing 2017 nailed, it’s gaming. The sheer quantity of high-quality games that came out this year is truly astounding. It’s hard to believe that Nier: Automata, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Cuphead, Prey, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins all came out this year. There were even a whole slew of smaller hits like Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and What Remains of Edith Finch. But if there’s one thing that peaked in this year’s gaming headlines, it’s the biggest console release of the year: the Nintendo Switch.

I watched the original announcement trailer of the Switch with my co-workers and we all had the same reaction. “Ugh, another gimmicky motion-controlled thing targeted at kids,” or “Oh yeah like anyone’s ever going to use all these detachable configurations of the system.” Many of us grew up playing systems like the N64, the Gameboy, the DS, and the Gamecube. We were still big fans of Nintendo’s franchises and systems. There was a part of us hoping that Nintendo would step up their game to truly compete with Microsoft and Sony’s consoles, and this reveal trailer seemed like a big misstep. And then they showed the trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

That’s when opinions started to change. That’s when people started seeing this for what it actually is. Nintendo was betting big on the system. Releasing such a hotly anticipated and prized franchise as a launch title for the console was a bold move. And a really good one at that. Needless to say, the system sold a ton in its first few months. Many Zelda fans and early adopters got the system and were having the time of their lives in what would later go on to win Game of the Year from every major gaming publication. This quick mass adoption is what served as the catalyst for the widespread success of the Switch.

So many people having the console in its first few months of release meant that YouTube was flooded with video reviews of people sharing first impressions and experiences they’ve had with the console. It meant that you would see people on the subway or in airports gaming on the go. It immediately made its portability value proposition extremely clear for anyone who was on the fence about getting it. Moreover, everyone who owned it loved it. People couldn’t stop fawning over how great it was to be playing on the way back from work and then immediately dock it on their TV at home to continue playing seamlessly. Nintendo’s promise of “play anywhere, play any way you want” seemed to actually be working.

Over the next few months, many indie studios and publishers ported their games to the Switch. This included highly-rated AAA publisher Bethesda who ported over Skyrim, DOOM, and the coming-soon Wolfenstein II. These were franchises that players had poured hundreds and thousands of hours into on their consoles or PCs at home. Now, being able to play these on-the-go seemed like such a godsent.

And then came Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo promised that this was a “core” Mario game that would reinvent many mechanics of the gameplay. And boy it did. It took something so familiar and completely re-worked the gameplay to be much more engaging, surprising, and fun. This is what sealed the deal for people still on the fence about getting the Switch. Breath of the Wild and Odyssey were being widely praised as two of the greatest video games ever made, and the Switch is where you can play them.

Looking to 2018, Nintendo has quite a list of first party franchises coming: Metroid Prime 4, Kirby, Pokémon, and possibly even Smash Bros. I have no doubt that the company will go on to sell tons of systems deep into next year with this sort of lineup in the works. And let’s not ignore the fun co-op multiplayer games like 1-2 Switch, Overcooked, ARMS, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, etc. The eShop is flooded with these and many families are having a blast playing them all together. It’s strange to think that a system that can run a game like Breath of the Wild so well can also double as a milking game where two players compete by intensely staring into each others’ eyes and moving the joycons up and down.

For all the crap Nintendo has gotten over the past decade or so in its post-Wii years for not adopting mobile and for failing to keep pace with the gaming industry’s evolving trends, they came back in full force. They merged handhelds and consoles with one system. They re-invented consumer expectations of what “gaming” is by allowing players to take games with them. They essentially created their own market to sell a brand new system. This is nothing short of amazing. For a company that was completely out of the limelight in 2015 and was broadly seen as a failing competitor to Microsoft and Sony, the original gaming giant is now back and bigger than ever.

I’ve personally poured hundreds of hours into Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey combined. They are a fresh diversion from the cluttered landscape of online gaming on the PC and consoles riddled with microtransactions and loot boxes designed to keep you playing. Instead, the Nintendo games prioritize gameplay and fun above all else. If the game is enjoyable, people will play. Perhaps this is what draws me towards the Switch so much and I can see myself playing it well into 2020, especially if Pokémon actually ends up releasing next year (pls Nintendo).