The Nintendo Switch at the end of its life? A mixed year 2024, eyes on the Switch 2

Game news The Nintendo Switch at the end of its life? A mixed year 2024, eyes on the Switch 2

The intention is there

On November 18, the Game Awards nominees were revealed. For the “Best Family” category, five titles are mentioned, three of which are Nintendo games: Princess Peach: Showtime!, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Super Mario Party Jamboree. In 2022 for example, of the five nominees, four were titles produced by Nintendo studios. This year that’s not quite the case. The Big N brand worked in collaboration with third parties for the production of Princess Peach Showtime! (Good-Feel), Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (GREZZO), a game also nominated in the “Action Adventure” category, or even the latest Mario & Luigi: The Brotherhood Epic (Acquire).

See Mario Party Jamboree on Amazon

If these games have the merit of existing and that they were produced by trusted studios (Good-Feel had, for example, also developed Yoshi's Crafted World), the quality of the final result is below usual. These are the Metacritic scores that say so. This year is the first time that all Nintendo games have had an average score of 76.45, which is low compared to other years. In 2023, the average of all the software released this year was 79. Result: “good games in idea, but whose execution does not follow”, notes Charlan in the JV Fast (video available at the top of article).

Ready to bounce back?

The only explanation to understand the situation: Nintendo has in fact delegated the development of these games in order to concentrate on what comes after, namely the next console. We know this from an official source (by the CEO, Shuntaro Furukawa), the machine which will take over from the Switch will be announced before the end of the Japanese firm's fiscal year, namely before March 31, for a release after this date. Since this information, it seems that the public has held back from investing in the purchase of the current console. Consequence: Nintendo revises its sales estimates downwards (12.5 million instead of 13.5 million units planned) and a drop in the number of subscribers to the Online subscription (34 million members), a first.

Purchasing or owning a Switch is not in vain, however, since the company has announced that future games will be backwards compatible. Speaking of content, for the moment, two major titles have been announced: Donkey Kong Country Returns HD and Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. Obviously, fans expect more, “it is rumored that it is out of the question to launch (the new console, editor's note) without a 3D Mario or Zelda”as Panthaa says in the Fast video. We don't really know what studios close to Nintendo are working on, such as Next Level Games (Luigi's Mansion 2 HD), HAL Laboratory (Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe) or even Masahiro Sakurai, director of Super Smash Bros. Entities and personalities who all seem to be focused on secret projects.