There was also a leak about a year ago that claimed that this game was done, playtesting results were awful, and they were trying to figure out what to do with it.
When they silently dropped a trailer 2 weeks before release and a few days before a Nintendo Direct, I was convinced the leak was true, and that this would be a disaster.
“Okay” reviews are a huge surprise.
The weird thing is that it seems late for Nintendo to still be working on R&D for the Switch 2. This is probably less than a year from announcement. At this point, I would expect them to be hammering out agreements with suppliers, so the hardware should be more-or-less done.
Then again, I have no idea what the timeline is like for console development.
Assuming any of this is legit:
Is it possible that the “Switch 2” has a hybrid version like the Switch, a handheld version like the Switch Lite, and a home console version? (Or even just hybrid and home console versions, with a handheld to come later?)
These could all run the same software with very similar hardware, but the home console would either be cheaper or offer higher resolutions and/or framerates than the docked hybrid console.
Customers might get confused, but this is arguably more straightforward than the current lineup.
The downside is that developers would need to handle 3 different configurations (handheld, docked, and home).
The Switch is turning Nintendo franchises into sales machines.
The top selling Zelda games are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Nothing else comes close. The Link’s Awakening remake and Skyward Sword remaster also outsold the originals.
Animal Crossing New Horizons outsold the rest of the series by a factor of 3.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 sold more copies than the previous two combined.
Metroid Dread is the best-selling Metroid game of all-time.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the best-selling Kirby game, and Kirby Star Allies is #3.
Fire Emblem Three Houses is the best-selling Fire Emblem game.
It’s not unreasonable to think that Pikmin 4 could be a breakout for the franchise.
This far exceeded my expectations:
But the bad news:
Right. People who grew up with video games as a normal thing (30-35 or younger) think that video games are socially acceptable at any age.
People above that age probably have a “cutoff” of teens or 20s.
I think that a new Zelda is years away, but the Switch’s successor will come out next year or early 2025 at the latest.
I do expect Mario Kart 9 and a new 3D Mario at launch.
I think they’ll release a Tears of the Kingdom “Deluxe” a few months later (similar to what they did with Mario Kart 8 on the Switch). Enough people want a higher-res TotK that it’s worth making, but banking on an upscaled port as a launch title isn’t something they’d do.