The Nintendo Switch is poised to become the highest selling console of all time. I honestly didn’t think that anything would dethrone the Nintendo DS or the PS2, both of which achieved their sales at a very different time, before the rise of cellphone gaming and, for the PS2, at a time when DVD adoption was in some ways more important than games.

But on the Switch’s 7^th anniversary it has slowed down but has not stopped selling and with at least a year left as Nintendo’s primary machine and undoubtably some long tail years after that, it looks like it will get there. It’s a remarkable achievement, especially coming off the Wii U, and it reflects a system perfectly designed for the time when it was released and supported with some of the best software gaming has ever seen.

So why doesn’t it seem like a bigger deal to me?

I’ve had a Switch since launch. The fan has burned out on my unit so unless it’s cold out I have to direct an external fan to prevent it from overheating but the unit still works, and so does the pro controller I picked up with it and have played almost everything with since then, spending only minimal time in portable mode.

I’ve played at least some games on the Switch every year since its release, and generally it has had a couple titles that have been favorites in all my top 10s. Breath of the Wild remains my favorite game of all time. Tears of the Kingdom was my favorite game of last year, and Mario Wonder was my third favorite; an impressive showing. Just last month I fell briefly in love with Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe, so it’s not like the system has been gathering dust for me in its latter years (though I didn’t turn it on for about a month before then.) There are lots of other games I’ve really loved on the Switch, like the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series, Mario Odyssey and 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, and the Animal Crossing game that took the world by storm. I’ve also loved some classic emulated stuff like Mario Galaxy and the fantastic Sega Ages ports, and some (temporarily) exclusive indies like Hades and Neon White (both played on the Switch and absolute top games in the years they were released.) There are a number of Switch games I still really want to play, some of which I already own, so it’s impossible for me to argue that the Switch is lacking in software.

The Switch has also had a decent cultural impact in my circles. I have three close friends who own Switches, at least if you count one who bought it for his son, and from anecdotal evidence it seems to be the console most relevant among kids. On the other hand, I don’t really see Switches played in public the way I did PSPs or DS/3DS systems, but that may be a function of its size. I know that the 3DS and Vita were much more manageable on the train for me than the Switch has been. However, it’s clear that Nintendo has not lost any of its cultural cache, as demonstrated by the incredible success of the Mario movie and the various Nintendo merchandise and apparel you see out and about. Video games are bigger than ever, and the Switch is part of that.

However, I think that part of why the Switch doesn’t ‘feel’ huge can be seen in the ways in which gaming has evolved. Among young people Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft are ascendant. Minecraft and Fortnite are on the Switch, of course, but they don’t “live” there. The same is true for the vast majority of the Switch’s third party support. If you count indies (or even if you don’t) the Switch has enjoyed more third party support than any Nintendo home console since the SNES, but almost all of those games are on other platforms and perform better there. Yeah they put Mortal Kombat 1 on the Switch, but who would ever play it there if they didn’t have to?

And this non-exclusivity also defined the Switch’s early years, which were driven largely by Wii U ports. Of course there were some amazing exclusives, like Super Mario Odyssey or Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but without the Wii U’s software lineup the Switch’s early library looks very different, with games like Arms failing to make anything like the impact that something like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (the Switch’s most successful game) did. Even though I never had a Wii U and I played those ports, this impacted my perception of the Switch’s identity.

On a similar note, the Switch hasn’t spawned a single major Nintendo IP, and is the first system not to do so, despite its long lifecycle (it will be 8 years, the longest home console cycle ever for the big N.) The Switch has a lot of big games and great games, and they’re almost all ports or sequels. To some degree that’s just where gaming is these days, but the PS4 at least spawned IP like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn. The Switch? Nintendo has barely tried.

And all that adds up to the ways in which the Switch feels more like a handheld than a home console in a lot of ways. Developers have worked miracles with it but it has been underpowered since the day it launched. It has often been a compliment to other systems rather than a primary platform for hardcore gamers, most of which have praised it mostly for the ability to play on plane flights and in hotel rooms. Nintendo has focused on it as a place to put games from its already successful franchises rather than a place to grow new IP and experiences. And it’s impossible to blame them, considering the incredible success it has had.

Part of my perception of the Switch is undoubtably that I’m getting older and no console will ever wow me the way the systems of my youth did, especially since technological innovation in games has slowed to a crawl. Part of it is my own personal indifference to the idea of handheld gaming. But I think that the Switch also represents Nintendo fully giving up on competing with “AAA” gaming and focusing on a difference slice of the market; one that I can appreciate and enjoy but that just doesn’t feel as “big” to me, for lack of a better term. Arguably they started this with the Wii, but the Switch is the culmination of that very successful strategy. And so for me it will go down as a system that I enjoyed a lot of games on and was well worth owning but that fundamentally wasn’t “for” me.

When the dust has settled the Switch will have carved out a very important niche in video game history. It will be the biggest selling console ever (probably.) It will be the home of some of the biggest games of its time. It will represent the childhood console and object of nostalgia for a generation of kids. 15 years from now the Internet (if it still exists as it does today) will be full of “hey, remember how great the Switch was?” articles and videos. But right now, I can’t ‘feel’ that, and it makes me feel a little bit out of touch. Oh well. We all get old. At least I had Zelda.

My opinion of the Switch has always been affected by my gaming needs, i don't need a portable device, and besides the first party titles everything looks and performs better on other systems.

So as a viewer from the outside who hasn't taken part in the great first party titles, my perception of Nintendo over the last 7 years has been that of issuing legal threats against amazing fan projects, the launch of an online service that requires you use your phone for voice chat, half assed remasterings of Mario games and making them time limited for artificial scarcity, continuing to rush the development of Pokemon games leaving them unpolished and buggy, the analog drift pandemic requiring a lacklustre pro controller, and an almost complete lack of price cuts, they're still selling the original pattern of the console which has been superseded twice by a hardware update and an OLED model, for £20 less than it launched 7 years ago. If you removed the gimmicks and made a home only model without the screen, battery, detachable controllers, gyros, dock and whatever else you could probably sell it for £80, but they'd somehow find a way to charge you £200 for the privilege.

My want for a Switch is based pretty much entirely on wanting to play Bayonetta 2, if i had one i'd probably also play Mario Odyssey, Smash Bros... and that might be it.

@cikame: Well that's a very negative view on the (soon to be) most successful console of all time, though I can't really argue the point on any of those issues. We could add the pathetic lack of on board storage into the mix, and the drip feed of NSO content etc...

Also the weird cardboard Labo gimmick. That was a strange moment in Nintentime.

At this point since it looks like Switch 2 will be backwards compatible there's no real need to get one. I'm not sure I would get a new one if mine fully died (though if Switch 2 is not backwards compatible I would, because I love a fair amount of the library).

I do think it's hilarious that the one game you really want for the console is...a Wii U port. Personally, again, I do think there have been a lot of great games on it, but the Wii U ports really did define the first third/half of its life to a large degree.

It's the first Nintendo console I've bought new but I do only tend to dig it out once or two times a year. I'm grateful it gives me a chance to pick up some of Nintendo's back catalogue but I can definitely see me giving the Switch 2 a miss.

I've bought six games for the thing which is a meagre amount. Still, there will be no shortage of used copies if I ever want to build that library up with the likes of Pikmin, Xenoblade Chronicles or whatever.

One thing that I don't think gets brought up enough is how prominent the handheld market has been for Nintendo. Up until the Wii, which I argue sold so well because of the gimmick, their home consoles were on a steady decline. I was surprised to discover the Gamecube only sold like 22 million units. And the Wii U was actually a pretty neat little machine with some banger titles, even if it very much feels like a precursor to the Switch. Though I will say the extra gamepad functionality for stuff like the Zelda HD remasters was excellent. I'm (Mario)wondering if Nintendo is holding those back because they intend to implement a similar experience on the next Switch. Besides the obvious we just released TOTK and you should buy it notion.

The 3DS install base was around 80 million. I am convinced that this is one of the reasons they ditched that market in favor of unifying their whole platform since they couldn't necessarily bank on their home consoles. Which leads them to the island they live on now. And its worked out exceedingly well for them. Even if the more home console focused folks aren't as happy with it. I expect this is just what Nintendo is moving forward. You've got all your customers in one place and you don't have to develop for separate platforms. Win-Win.

The Switch may have also been a perfect storm of consolidation and timing. Many folks that were gaming in the 90's are having kids and are buying them Switches while also getting back into it themselves. We've heard countless mentions of how the Switch has given people their gaming time back because they can take it anywhere. The Switch 2 or whatever its called is going to be a huge indicator of the future for Nintendo. I think that's why they're reluctant to mention it. I'm very interested in seeing how it fares in comparison. But I do think the handheld market alone is going to boost it significantly.

Because it's just a fuck ton of ports and HD Remasters

@spacemanspiff00: I think that it's pretty clear that Nintendo, despite its marketing, does in many ways see the Switch as a handheld first. It's essentially a small tablet that can dock with the TV.

Part of what's interesting to me about that is how confident everyone was that cell phones were going to destroy the dedicated handheld market. Everyone has a smartphone now, and many of those smartphones can run games comparably to the Switch (maybe not in 2017, but in 2024). There are hand grips you could use etc... and people do play more mobile games than anything else, but the Switch remains very popular and will be the most popular handheld of all time. Coexistance is clearly possible! And we see with Steamdeck and its copycats that we're getting MORE handheld gaming devices, not fewer. Just not what people expected when smartphone saturation hit.

And I do think the Switch's handheld nature does make it seem outside the gaming mainstream on its own little island. At this point it can't compete graphically with any other platform going (except mobile) and it doesn't even try. And yet you can argue that TOTK is more ambitious than any other game released last year, and a greater technical feat. It certainly has more complex gameplay systems than almost any other major release...ever. It's kind of fascinating.

Switch 2 is going to be a big one. Nintendo has never managed to keep its momentum going between console generations, but its handhelds have always been huge hits, so we'll have to see which pattern it follows. I think there's an opportunity for it to build on the Switch's popularity, but I also think Nintendo's unique ability to zig left when everyone wants them to zag right could bite them if they try to do something really different. I also think they underestimate the backlash if they aren't backwards compatible.

Hmm. I'm not quite sure I agree with the premise, but if true, perhaps it's because the Switch is something of a workhorse for this generation. It's not as flashy or impressive as its rivals, but it's just so damn convenient, and along with a slew of great originals and indies, it seems like practically every game that could conceivably run on it has been ported, so that it has to my mind the best overall library of any console. I think I've put more hours into it than any other system to date.

This was definitely one of the funniest things to watch as one of the eight people who bought a Wii U. Everyone was like "Wow [insert Wii U port here] is such a great game!" and the eight of us were like "Yeah, we know. This is what we've been trying to tell you". The first few years of the Switch was basically Nintendo reselling all their Wii U games but on a console people actually bought.

I do genuinely think the Wii U is secretly one of the most influential consoles since the Xbox 360. The GamePad alone has essentially spawned the new generation of handheld/portable gaming. The Switch, Steam Deck, and all the various handheld PC thingies all follow the Wii U GamePad's form factor and functionality. The Steam Deck is basically a Wii U GamePad 2.0. The Wii U's ability to be played either on a TV or semi-portably (see Patrick playing it on a plane) seems like a direct influence on the Switch and everything that's come since.

I recently fired up my Wii U to make sure it didn't suffer from the eMMC NAND failure that's been hitting a few of the consoles (mostly those that haven't been turned on for many years. I think it's partly fixable now) and was struck by how comfy the GamePad still is. I fired up Breath of the Wild (I was one of the few who first played that game on Wii U rather than Switch. Well, if you don't count the people who played it on CEMU) and the controls immediately came back and was much comfier to play compared to on Switch portably. The Wii U GamePad has much better triggers and an actual D-pad. The back grips on it are perfect and it isn't a surprise they've shown up on almost everything that has followed.

I think one of the most telling things for me is that of all my old consoles, the Wii U is probably the one I fire up the most. I only have like 10-12 games for it but they're all bangers. I could probably emulate them all on my Steam Deck just fine but there's something about the Wii U experience be it the rounded disc edges or that GamePad that make it a console that I actually want to use.

@wollywoo: I think the workhorse idea has some merit and it also matches the handheld point, because handhelds have always been workhorses. It just doesn't 'feel' premium or like it's advancing the medium even though it actually has in some ways.

@ben_h: I almost bought a Wii U several times. I actually did order one at launch but then cancelled when I couldn't make the money work at that point. It's not necessarily something I regret given how everything shook out but I do wonder how my experiences with games would have been different during that period if I'd had one.

I think that the Wii U has been influential mostly through the Switch. It did have some forward looking features, but a lot of problems. It wasn't REALLY portable, but it was portable enough that most games didn't make great use of the second screen. It was extremely underpowered (possibly the thing that hurt it the most). Its online infrastructure wasn't great, which is a constant for Nintendo.

It also lacked any killer software at launch. A lot of people stan Nintendoland but it was no Wii Sports.

I also think it suffered from the 3DS being out there and providing everyone their Nintendo fix at the time, especially because later in the cycle Nintendo seemed to prioritize the 3DS and put out a bunch of anti-bangers like Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival on the Wii U. And even Super Mario 3D World seemed a bit superfluous when people had 3D Land already, even though they are somewhat different games.

The Wii U's ergonomics are partially informed by the fact that it didn't have to be portable the way the Switch is, and everyone loves the Gamepad, but Nintendo just wasn't able to make it a compelling enough proposition. People think the name hurt it but I think it goes a lot deeper than that.

Wii U owners are a passionate lot, and obviously the success of so many of its games on Switch (to the point where Switch's #1 game is a Wii U port) shows that it had a lot of great software. It also birthed Splatoon and Mario Maker, which weren't technically ported to Switch but represent Nintendo's last 2 recent "blue sky" bangers.

Oh definitely. There were a lot of downsides to the Wii U (Having two separate power bricks was quite annoying as was the GamePad's poor battery life) and it was fairly expensive for what it was, which was why I joked about only eight people buying it. I didn't get a Wii U until much, much later into the console's life and even then I had a hard time justifying buying it. It didn't help that the 3DS had an extremely strong library of similar-ish Nintendo games along with a ton of third party exclusives, all for much cheaper per game than the full $60 Wii U games tended to sell for (and being Nintendo, these games never went on sale). Once I bought it I realized that it was fantastic but even I, a person who had owned every Nintendo console and handheld up until that point, was hesitant about buying it because of the lack of a library of games.

The Wii U was almost too ambitious for what it was. It had a ton of features that have become a lot more popular since but at the time nobody knew what to do with the thing. Even a lot of Nintendo's games struggled to use the GamePad's features at all, which was bizarre given Nintendo's experience developing dual screen games for the DS and 3DS. For every Splatoon that came up with a feature (in that game's case, gyro aiming) that would become massively popular later, there were ten games that either didn't use any GamePad features or just used the screen as a map.

A big reason I said the Wii U is so influential is not necessarily just the Switch itself (though obviously the Switch took many of the Wii U's concepts and did a better job of it) but because of the booming handheld PC market. The thing that has to be emphasized about the GamePad is that you have to use it to understand why it's beloved. Much like the Steam Deck, the GamePad looks bulky and heavy but is actually extremely light for what it is, and because of how they set it up ergonomically, you don't notice the size since it's comfortable to grip. A lot of these modern handheld PCs essentially borrowed the Wii U GamePad's grip and trigger setup almost exactly for this reason. If one tried to do a Steam Deck-sized console but with Switch ergonomics it would wreck your hands quickly.

Anyhow, this thread's about the Switch so I'll stop talking about the Wii U. I think the Switch was one of the first consoles that proved that you could make something actually portable that also could run games in a way that looked good enough. It's not a console that has ever wowed me in the way others have, but it's been a reliable way of playing games for any context in a way few consoles are. It's the multi-tool of consoles. It's not great at any one thing but it does everything well enough that it can be relied on. I think that's a huge part of why it has done so well. It's an easy buy for parents who want a console that just works portably or hooked to a TV and has all the games their kids want.

One thing i've found listening to streamers and Youtubers about their love of the Switch is that they are often just as enamoured with the Steam Deck.

Despite being a bit larger than what i would consider a handheld portable system, it still fills an apparent need to play games portably or in bed, i played a lot of DS in bed and have fond memories of warm and cozy gaming, but i literally fall asleep within 5 minutes these days.

All I can say is that the console feels so much different compared to the Gaming PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X from my experience, judging that quite a lot of third-party multi-platform games are not available on the Switch such as Assetto Corsa Competizione, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.

Also, it's designed to have an affordable price by making it hybrid, and many fun factors by having many fun games to choose from (Regardless of party, genres and sub-genres).

Anyway, I would like to respect your opinion & experience with this console so far and it's a pretty interesting story so far.

"...the Switch hasn’t spawned a single major Nintendo IP, and is the first system not to do so..."

I don't know about this one. ARMS wasn't a runaway success, but it moved a couple million copies and got a character in Smash Bros. I think we'll see this series again on Switch 2.

Also, Ring Fit Adventure was a runaway success, even with a single use peripheral required.

@judaspete: Arms is not a major IP. You can argue that it wasn't a total failure, but it has no attention anywhere, and having a character in Smash does not define an IP as being major. Smash features Mr. Game 'N Watch and ROB the Robot. Arms got a character in because it's one of Nintendo's only other fighting games and it was contemporary, but there's a reason we've seen 2 Splatoon games on Switch and only one Arms.

Ring Fit Adventure is a better argument. I put it as part of the "Fit" IP along with Wii Fit and a bunch of other Nintendo Fitness games like Fitness boxing etc... You can make the argument that it's its own IP or perhaps a spinoff, but I think that's a matter of how you define things. I agree it's a big hit and will see sequels, I just don't think it's a new IP. It's not like the characters from it are showing up anywhere. I don't even think they have Amiibo.