The Switch turns 6 years old today, so here’s an infographic I made about how long each Nintendo console lasted before its successor.
The Switch turns 6 years old today, so here’s an infographic I made about how long each Nintendo console lasted before its successor.
by JonLeung
33 Comments
JonLeung
Turning six years old is significant because no Nintendo console has previously lasted this long in North America before being replaced by a successor – the longest before was the Wii, which was replaced by the Wii U after 5 years and 365 days (which isn’t quite six years, because 2012 was a leap year, which I always have to explain every time I share this image that I made at the end of 2021).
In any case, it’s been 2191 days for those of us who have had it from launch, and still no concrete information on its successor. Will we get word about the eighth main Nintendo console soon?
jbraden
Where’s that infamous Virtual Boy?!
It would be cool to see a handheld version of this since the Switch is a hybrid.
phishhead94
I feel like I’m in the minority, but I don’t want a true Switch successor. I’d rather just have a stronger Switch. I think it does so many things well and has an outstanding library. It feels like it’s really hitting its stride and things are getting better each year.
LightsaberCrayon
The current Switch will clock out at 6 years and 261 days.
Source: My uncle works at the place where they make the Gregorian calendar
Xeterios
The last Wii U game released like a week ago
PuzzleMeAJigsaw
I feel like since Switch is a hybrid – this infographics should have also included handhelds for a more accurate view on the longevity of each console.
Neocarbunkle
There was a wii game released in 2019!?
Codygon
Why is Wii listed as “5 Years 365 Days” instead of “6 Years 0 Days”?
Your-Friend-Bob
The 168 on the wiiu seems so abysmal until you realize that n64 was active for less than a year as well.
Edit: I can’t read charts
Placiibo
What about all the portable consoles? Switch is really more of a portable console but with a dock. It has a screen, battery, and is a couple gens behind in tech next to the box consoles. Thats a portable. Would be interested to see how it stacks up against Gameboy and NDS
XenobladeAndZelda
The reason we don’t have a successor yet imo… besides maybe the nes to the SNES, Nintendo has not had two majorly successful consoles in a row. They always had the handheld market to fall back on, now they don’t. Next Nintendo console should be interesting
Crow621621
If the successor had hardware that was up to snuff with the PlayStation & Xbox and had backwards compatibility with Switch games. It’d be an incredible beast of a gaming console.
zer1223
Damn, five and a half years feels like an eternity when you’re a kid but is short as hell when you’re….not. I honestly thought consoles had 7 years.
unabatedshagie
Six years and still a piss poor online service and basically no parental controls.
It can’t be that hard to do Nintendo.
arusol
Shakedown Hawaii is also available for the Wii
halloweenjon
I had no idea that we’ve officially hit the longest gap between new Nintendo consoles. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. But then again, I’m old…
The ideal Switch successor I think would be a Switch 2.0/New Switch, fully backwards compatible with both Switch 1 carts and downloads, but with considerably higher power and improved Joy Cons. That’s really all they need to do.
baconater-lover
I think the portability of the switch elevates it to a pseudo-handheld, so it’ll probably be awhile before it’s replaced. In all honesty, a technical upgrade is really all I need. Switch is fun but some games chug pretty bad and loading times can be pretty bad on some games.
I also wish they would either add way more games to their online subscription or just start charging for rereleases. I think the switch could handle literally every Nintendo game ever made and I would cough up some money for some of the older games. It seems though they wanna charge a large amount for such a small amount of games (I guess Nintendo doesn’t typically lower prices on games but still).
Yaldrik
So weird to see these numbers compared to how I “feel” these consoles lasted. It felt like the N64, GC, and Wii lasted for much longer than 5-6 years while the switch doesn’t even feel like it’s been around that long.
Toddric29
The Switch’s average sales per day is insane.
unnamed_elder_entity
Generally 5-6 year console life. Pandemic basically halted shit for at least 2 years and still slows everything. Expect Switch to go 7-8 based on that and maybe 1-2 more because it is such a success. Switch could easily be here till 2027.
Kornzta
Where does all the fucking time go?
StarFoxMcCloudX
In other words, we are well overdue for a successor, and yet we have not heard anything at all. No leaks, no rumors, nothing.
Ign0reThis
But the switch just came out like last year… right? Guys right?
thugg420
The pandemic probably slowed or intermittently halted production on their next gen console. Just a guess, we could see news by the end of this year on a new console.
hartforbj
I bet Nintendo were sweating going into the Wii. Significantly less sales every generation up to that point.
Supper_Champion
No one cares, but I still have a feeling that the Wii U did *so* badly because of the name. I will die on the hill that if it had been named the “Super Wii”, a lot more units would have been sold.
To be fair, in many ways it wasn’t a very good console, but I think a *lot* of people would have “gotten” the idea if it was named like the NES and SNES.
Nintendo already had a naming convention that denoted a new and better console by using “Super” and even though the N64 didn’t use this, we knew what it meant because 64 was a big number! The Wii, despite it’s odd name, was super successful, so if Nintendo had just gone with Super Wii, I think a whole bunch of people would have realized that it was supposed to be the next step up from the Wii.
I admit that it probably wouldn’t have been a significant enough amount to give the Wii U more longevity, but it’s just fun to think about.
alphonso28
Please make a handheld one as well!
TheCatholicScientist
If you account for Japanese titles, the time from launch to final game for the SNES is a couple of years longer.
That’s probably true for some of the others as well, though I’m not able to dig for that data right now.
jrayolson
Do handhelds next please.
DeltaFornax
A note: The SNES’ (or Super Famicom’s) final game was Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, which released in Japan only in 2000.
jasondm
The infographic doesn’t look very good. Hot pink and cyan… “strong” colors in general as backgrounds is bad. Hot pink especially behind the red text of Super Nintendo is awful, the cyan behind the WiiU logo also isn’t very good, and the N64 logo isn’t clean at all. Also, the font isn’t very “readable”.
I’d recommend using colors like that on points of emphasis rather than backgrounds, and the font should be something more readable; don’t sacrifice functionality for theming.
Rathbane12
Man just Dance was so close causing some sort of inverse date setup between Wii launch and Last Wii game release.
33 Comments
Turning six years old is significant because no Nintendo console has previously lasted this long in North America before being replaced by a successor – the longest before was the Wii, which was replaced by the Wii U after 5 years and 365 days (which isn’t quite six years, because 2012 was a leap year, which I always have to explain every time I share this image that I made at the end of 2021).
In any case, it’s been 2191 days for those of us who have had it from launch, and still no concrete information on its successor. Will we get word about the eighth main Nintendo console soon?
Where’s that infamous Virtual Boy?!
It would be cool to see a handheld version of this since the Switch is a hybrid.
I feel like I’m in the minority, but I don’t want a true Switch successor. I’d rather just have a stronger Switch. I think it does so many things well and has an outstanding library. It feels like it’s really hitting its stride and things are getting better each year.
The current Switch will clock out at 6 years and 261 days.
Source: My uncle works at the place where they make the Gregorian calendar
The last Wii U game released like a week ago
I feel like since Switch is a hybrid – this infographics should have also included handhelds for a more accurate view on the longevity of each console.
There was a wii game released in 2019!?
Why is Wii listed as “5 Years 365 Days” instead of “6 Years 0 Days”?
The 168 on the wiiu seems so abysmal until you realize that n64 was active for less than a year as well.
Edit: I can’t read charts
What about all the portable consoles? Switch is really more of a portable console but with a dock. It has a screen, battery, and is a couple gens behind in tech next to the box consoles. Thats a portable. Would be interested to see how it stacks up against Gameboy and NDS
The reason we don’t have a successor yet imo… besides maybe the nes to the SNES, Nintendo has not had two majorly successful consoles in a row. They always had the handheld market to fall back on, now they don’t. Next Nintendo console should be interesting
If the successor had hardware that was up to snuff with the PlayStation & Xbox and had backwards compatibility with Switch games. It’d be an incredible beast of a gaming console.
Damn, five and a half years feels like an eternity when you’re a kid but is short as hell when you’re….not. I honestly thought consoles had 7 years.
Six years and still a piss poor online service and basically no parental controls.
It can’t be that hard to do Nintendo.
Shakedown Hawaii is also available for the Wii
I had no idea that we’ve officially hit the longest gap between new Nintendo consoles. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. But then again, I’m old…
The ideal Switch successor I think would be a Switch 2.0/New Switch, fully backwards compatible with both Switch 1 carts and downloads, but with considerably higher power and improved Joy Cons. That’s really all they need to do.
I think the portability of the switch elevates it to a pseudo-handheld, so it’ll probably be awhile before it’s replaced. In all honesty, a technical upgrade is really all I need. Switch is fun but some games chug pretty bad and loading times can be pretty bad on some games.
I also wish they would either add way more games to their online subscription or just start charging for rereleases. I think the switch could handle literally every Nintendo game ever made and I would cough up some money for some of the older games. It seems though they wanna charge a large amount for such a small amount of games (I guess Nintendo doesn’t typically lower prices on games but still).
So weird to see these numbers compared to how I “feel” these consoles lasted. It felt like the N64, GC, and Wii lasted for much longer than 5-6 years while the switch doesn’t even feel like it’s been around that long.
The Switch’s average sales per day is insane.
Generally 5-6 year console life. Pandemic basically halted shit for at least 2 years and still slows everything. Expect Switch to go 7-8 based on that and maybe 1-2 more because it is such a success. Switch could easily be here till 2027.
Where does all the fucking time go?
In other words, we are well overdue for a successor, and yet we have not heard anything at all. No leaks, no rumors, nothing.
But the switch just came out like last year… right? Guys right?
The pandemic probably slowed or intermittently halted production on their next gen console. Just a guess, we could see news by the end of this year on a new console.
I bet Nintendo were sweating going into the Wii. Significantly less sales every generation up to that point.
No one cares, but I still have a feeling that the Wii U did *so* badly because of the name. I will die on the hill that if it had been named the “Super Wii”, a lot more units would have been sold.
To be fair, in many ways it wasn’t a very good console, but I think a *lot* of people would have “gotten” the idea if it was named like the NES and SNES.
Nintendo already had a naming convention that denoted a new and better console by using “Super” and even though the N64 didn’t use this, we knew what it meant because 64 was a big number! The Wii, despite it’s odd name, was super successful, so if Nintendo had just gone with Super Wii, I think a whole bunch of people would have realized that it was supposed to be the next step up from the Wii.
I admit that it probably wouldn’t have been a significant enough amount to give the Wii U more longevity, but it’s just fun to think about.
Please make a handheld one as well!
If you account for Japanese titles, the time from launch to final game for the SNES is a couple of years longer.
That’s probably true for some of the others as well, though I’m not able to dig for that data right now.
Do handhelds next please.
A note: The SNES’ (or Super Famicom’s) final game was Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, which released in Japan only in 2000.
The infographic doesn’t look very good. Hot pink and cyan… “strong” colors in general as backgrounds is bad. Hot pink especially behind the red text of Super Nintendo is awful, the cyan behind the WiiU logo also isn’t very good, and the N64 logo isn’t clean at all. Also, the font isn’t very “readable”.
I’d recommend using colors like that on points of emphasis rather than backgrounds, and the font should be something more readable; don’t sacrifice functionality for theming.
Man just Dance was so close causing some sort of inverse date setup between Wii launch and Last Wii game release.
This font is awful to read