The Nintendo Switch 2 announced today and it immediately made me nostalgic for the launch of the original Switch that arrived in 2017.
Nintendo revealed its previous device, the Nintendo Switch, back on October 20, 2016 in a Nintendo Direct. It was in a weak position, due to the poor sales of the Nintendo Wii U, which sold only 13.56 million units compared to the success of the previous Nintendo Wii, which sold more than 101.6 million units.
This time, the reveal came in the form of a Nintendo Direct video lasting two minutes and 21 seconds, and he had no voice. It was released at the groggy time of 5am Pacific time today. A few years from now, I think we will all remember this moment as something special. It was a very high moment, no doubt watched worldwide due to leaks, and at least we got the official name confirmed: the Nintendo Switch 2. But if you looking for much more, it is a problem as you have to wait for the next release in a very long and slow marketing striptease.
Back in 2017, the overall game console industry was in good shape. The Sony PlayStation 4 was selling strong, and Microsoft was struggling to keep up with the Xbox One. The world of Nintendo cartoons and low res games seemed to be finally struggling with the race to high-end 3D graphics with the other game consoles.
I've been covering the game industry every day since 1996, and every console launch is always a cultural moment. I am nostalgic for the times of launches like the Nintendo GameCube, the original Xbox, the PlayStation 2 and almost every console that has been introduced since. I miss those days when the reveals happened at live events like E3, and the sales were announced before the midnight show at stores.
Among the big games for the Switch launch were 1-2-Switch, a bunch of small games; The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild; Just Dance 2017; Skye: Imaginators; Super Bomberman 3; I am Setsuna; Snipperclips; Knight of Shovels: Treasure Trove; Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment; and fast RMX. The Zelda title was the most memorable, while the 1-2-Switch had cute games like Quick Draw that showed how special the Switch was with the motion detection gunfight game.
The Switch was officially launched on March 3, 2017, and it was a huge success. The Switch was aimed at a broad demographic of gamers through multiple uses on the TV and on the go. It became Nintendo's best-selling game console with over 146 million units sold and 1.3 billion games to date.
No one needed to write anything about how weak the game industry was. Fast forward to now. Matthew Ball, CEO of Epyllion and industry visionary, dropped a 220 page slide deck that explained why the game industry has slowed down in the last 2.5 years as companies struggle with 34,000 layoffs among game companies.
Venture capital is down, mobile gaming growth has stalled, the pandemic boom has slowed, and the industry has shrunk at a time when some other industries are still growing. For this year, it may be up to the Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto VI to save game sales.
Last time, Nintendo had Zelda and now it will have a Mario Kart game, involving as many as 24 players in a race. The next news comes in the Nintendo Direct presentation on April 2nd.
Nintendo said it will have a public Switch 2 hands-on tour in North America:
- New York, April 4-6, 2025
- Los Angeles, April 11-13, 2025
- Dallas, April 25-27, 2025
- Toronto, April 25-27, 2025
Ball said in his deck so far that Switch sales have mostly benefited Nintendo. Switch users buy 25% to 33% less games than PlayStation / Xbox owners, and more than half of the sales of Nintendo games against 10% on PS / Xbox. It is dominated by the sales of titles like Mario Kart 8 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023).
The Switch's sales are not from net new players, but from cannibalizing lounge console and handheld sales. Both PlayStation and Xbox Series X/S sales are down after 49 months of sales. The Switch 2 needs to sell a lot to make up for these problems.
Now Nintendo has to convince us if there is enough new here. For the Switch 2 to win, it will have to contend with the Steam Deck, which, as a type of PC, has helped the PC gain market share in recent years over the consoles. And Steam's largest player base right now in Asia and in China in particular, Ball said.
One of the challenges is the flood in the market of new games. Steam now introduces as many new games in a year as in the lifetime of a Nintendo console.
Nintendo left a lot of questions open, as it did not reveal any specifications. He showed how Nintendo's Joy-Con controllers can now magnetically attach to the sides of the console, which is a hybrid TV and handheld device again. It also featured a slightly larger screen and a stronger stand. It's coming sometime in 2025. Hopefully we'll find out more about the price and timing at the next event.
As stated earlier, I'm very interested to know if the specs for the Switch 2 will make cross-platform game development more difficult or easier. The hardware for the Switch 2 will likely be similar in capacity to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and the Steam Deck. That means companies don't have to create completely different versions of a game to run a title on the Switch 2.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Switch 2 is another huge hit. But we will find out in the coming months as the titles are revealed and how special the Switch 2 is explained.
At the same time, I think nostalgically back to the fun days of 2017 when the last device came out.
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