So Kit and Krysta have released Episode 3 of their new podcast since leaving Nintendo Minute or Nintendo in general, and they have confirmed some new insight on the excellent 2017 for Switch. In https://youtu.be/FDBbqGhJUvk starting at the 39:23 mark or so, they explain that most games they had in development for Wii U were either moved to the Switch or outright canceled, which explains why 2015 was very abysmal and 2016 was downright awful for the Wii U!
And since the Switch was consolidating their handheld and console development, it also meant more games overall for 1 system, which has honestly been true for most of Switch’s lifespan. There’s been more games to play each year than either 3DS and especially Wii U got any individual year of their lifespans! This year is also proof of more games on 1 system.
Now this might seem super obvious for some, but you would be surprised at how many people I’ve seen in this sub question why Nintendo hasn’t been able to “match” 2017 in terms of output or even quality and why they seemed to “peak” so early in the Switch’s life. That was due to a culmination of basically cutting short game’s development times like Mario Tennis Ultra Smash and Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival in 2015 and flat out almost releasing nothing in 2016. So this explains the high volume of downright bad titles in 2015 and 2016.
I’ve even seen people say Nintendo is lazy or they rest on their laurels when their successful, which is downright wrong. It’s a bit hard to top a year that came after 2 bad years of delayed titles or cancelations. Not only that, 2022 is even stronger than 2017 arguably, and they’re more successful than ever with a 103+ million selling system. Completely negates the lazy or “too successful to try” arguments!
And before people question why 2022 looks so good for Nintendo, that is a culmination of delayed titles from 2020 and 2021 (last year) due to COVID and being crammed into this one year. So basically similar to why 2017 looked so good.
So if you ever wonder why a year like 2017 happens so rarely, it has to be due to delaying lots of titles for a specific given reason and cramming them into one year. Looking at Nintendo’s history, systems like the Gamecube or N64 don’t have a “standout” year because everything came out in equal intervals, although the Gamecube did suffer large droughts in games as well, so there’s that.
Do you think it was great Nintendo basically threw in the towel in 2015-2016 for an impressive 2017? And do you think focusing on 1 system has actually made for an increased output on 1 system instead of individual handheld and console lineups?