Soapbox features allow our writers and individual contributors to express their thoughts on hot topics and random things they’ve been chewing on. Today, Gavin considers what “success” looks like for systems with extremely popular antecedents…
Looking back at Nintendo’s home console hardware sales over the past four decades, the line plotted by the lifetime figures for each system shows a steady decline for the first two decades before some big electrocardiogram-style peaks of they bring us today.
A strong start with 61.91 million Famicom/NES units sold was followed by a record 49.1 million Super Famicom/Nintendos. The N64’s 32.93 million and the GameCube’s 21.74 million aren’t exactly bad, but the need to change things up was clear. The Wii did so spectacularly, with 101.63 million units to its name. Then came a dramatic dip with the Wii U (13.56 million) before the Switch brought things back to life with 141.32 million systems sold – and counting.
The handheld line is slightly less dramatic, with two peaks followed by dips: 118.69m (Game Boy + Color) to 81.51m (GBA), then up to 154.02m (DS) before slipping at 75.94m (3DS). The large ‘families’ of systems under those umbrellas muddy the waters somewhat, and with the Switch folding both handheld and home console sales into one, the future is harder to predict than ever before. From a handheld point of view, based on past trends, we need a boost, but only DS sales have surpassed the Switch (at the time of writing) and it’s easy to imagine that Nintendo has nowhere to go with ‘Switch 2’ alone.
Which would it be? good. Given the investor jargon and the financial focus that has taken hold over the past two decades, it’s easy to confuse numbers that are ‘down’ with numbers that are ‘bad’. Selling nearly 50 million Super Nintendos isn’t ‘bad’ by any reasonable metric, even if that’s over 10 million less than its predecessor. The Nintendo 64 essentially gave birth to modern 3D console gaming, but ‘lost it’ to the PlayStation. The 3DS is one of Nintendo’s best consoles – a stellar machine with an unbeatable library. The fact that it sold less than half the units of its predecessor does not make it a failure.
Nintendo is at its best when it’s doing something different
However, as fans, we are all used to a growth-focused competitive mindset whimper these days. It’s the kind of garbage that fuels the console wars. Movie fans look at a franchise’s box office, monitor opening weekend numbers and second-week declines, and wait for executive word that, yes, ticket sales were in line or above expectations and a sequel has been greenlit — and the cycle exhausting starts again. Marketing speak has gone completely over into fan circles, encouraging the use of words like ‘content’ and ‘activations’ as if this is a normal way of speaking. The onus is on consumers to engage and make noise; we are thanked profusely by the creators when a TV series is recommissioned (“We couldn’t have done it without you, fans!), which silently blames us when a good show gets canned. 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, reciprocal mess that Nintendo is constantly, carefully extricating itself from. Sometimes this makes the company’s decisions seem strange or counterproductive when there is a seemingly reasonable and no-nonsense course of action. Just make DLC tables for Mario Party! Just reconnect with the past in the link awakening engine! Just make another switch!
As frustrating as it is, it’s this rejection of received wisdom and refusal to engage in cyclical discourse that allows Nintendo to really surprise you. You don’t hear excuses on her social channels. You can’t see nice odes to the passionate, ardent fans that have nurtured her strong following for generations. (“This is Miyamoto. We hear you.”) Indeed, its attitude toward fan communities can feel cold — or actively hostile when the DMCAs start flying — but Nintendo is famous for playing the surprise game and pleasure and you don’t do that. that through constant communication and empowering only the most vocal members of the fan base to the point of entitlement.
Which brings us to the “successor to the Switch” and the tension between innovation in Nintendo’s DNA and giving people what they want. After the amazing success of the Switch, we all want more of the same. Just, you know, better. 4K, faster, with bigger better third party ports and all compatible with our existing library. I’m betting on a system that maintains the basics of the current console while adding something to break it up with what will essentially be the same hybrid handheld concept.
Nintendo has done this before, of course. Think 3DS and its optional (and underrated) autostereoscopic trick. In fact, StreetPass was arguably the key differentiator there, 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 feels inconceivable that a new Nintendo system wouldn’t be a handheld device that can connect to a TV.
But is this a lack of imagination on my part? Maybe. Perhaps there’s a better way that the boffins in Kyoto have developed to bring us the best video games: a donut with a pulse sensor in the middle; a walled holographic box with touch screen; a tube that unfolds into a game console with a screen. If Nintendo went completely off track with the Switch 2 and the result it was not a sales sensation like the Wii, the obvious conclusion would be that abandoning the tried and true Switch formula was a mistake. Then again, a 100 million selling hit like the Wii would underperform compared to the Switch.
The 3DS is a stellar machine with an unbeatable library. The fact that it sold less than half the units of its predecessor does not make it a failure.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want an iterative Switch successor as much as anyone. But I want too strange Nintendo, the company that makes pedometers and pilates rings with motion sensors and cardboard robot suits with rubber bands. I really hope the Switch 2 will have some of that off-the-wall magic that defines the company’s most imaginative offerings—something more than “just” another Switch. But also another Switch.
As we have seen, a system can be extremely successful without reinventing the wheel. Nintendo has done it in the past. Heck, look at Sony and its five PlayStations. There is no need be a basic Wii or DS-style reimagining of the hardware to deliver surprise and, indeed, delight. There is also the fact that adding a small portable console with new ideas and new peripherals is easier than with a large box under the TV.
However, jokes like we can endless Mario parties, all the Wii U double dips, and the way the same IP well comes back time after time, Nintendo is at its best when it’s doing something different. If the Switch 2 is a rehash of the current console as most of us hope, it’s unlikely to attract a fresh blue ocean of gamers. Even with its enviable and inimitable first-party games, in pure sales terms, all signs point to diminishing returns in the next generation.
Which, again, is good! The Switch doesn’t have to beat the PS2 on the all-time hardware sales charts. ‘Switch 2’ doesn’t have to be a better seller than its predecessor. If it can deliver unique experiences that move us in the same way that the 3DS managed, that will be more than enough to qualify as a resounding success.
Even if you only sell one scary 75 thousand