It's hard to believe that the Nintendo Switch has been out for almost five years. Time really has flown, and the years have been very kind to the Switch. After an initial stumble at launch, with few games to play, fans were hesitant to jump on board with the Switch. While the core concept was innovative and brilliant, after the disappointment of the Wii U, fans were still skeptical.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, soon joined by Super Mario: Odyssey, and eventually Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, all showcased the excellence of the console and everything that it was capable of. Although most consoles have a life cycle of around five years, despite the Nintendo Switch is certainly nowhere near next-gen capabilities, the Switch is far from finished.
Nintendo Had a Very Good Year
To put it simply, Nintendo has had a very good financial year. In November, the company released their earnings for the last six months, and every first-party Switch release between March 2021, and September 2021 showed extremely strong results.
Titles like New Pokemon Snap sold 2.19 million units, Zelda: Skyward Sword HD sold 3.60 million, and even Mario Golf: Super Rush, which was considered to be a bit of a downgrade from previous entries in the series, sold 1.94 million units. Nintendo also saw a great deal of profit from their back catalogue, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons selling another 2.22 million units, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling another 3.34 million units, bringing the total number of copies sold to a whopping 38.74 million units.
On top of these already-staggering statistics, Nintendo also released Metroid Dread last year, along with its brand new OLED Switch model. While the numbers aren't exact, a The Verge interview with Doug Bowser confirmed that Metroid Dread sold more than 854,000 units in the US alone, which is the biggest launch for any Metroid game in series history.
Again, while the numbers aren't set in stone just yet, the Switch OLED has presumably sold quite a bit, with many gamers still finding it difficult to snag the console for retail price. There's no denying that Nintendo has had a pretty incredible year when it comes to sales.
On top of this, the quality of the experiences offered last year were pretty great. The aforementioned Metroid Dread blew fans' incredibly high expectations out of the water, somehow delivering on over 12 years of speculation and hype. Dread gave both newcomers and long-time fans a genuinely excellent Metroid title that moves the franchise into the future, while still retaining all of the charm that made the original 2D Metroids so beloved in the first place.
The Switch also saw the return of Mario last year, with the remastered Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury going above and beyond to bring a whole new expansion to the original game. Super Mario 3D World was not just using the Switch and its new audience as a chance to cash in, but providing a great new experience for all players along with the remaster.
Mario Party Superstars and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl brought some old Nintendo classics to the Switch, giving them a new lick of paint and some gameplay tweaks. A new WarioWare released last year, bringing the beloved microgame franchise to the Switch and introducing a co-op mechanic that is right at home on the system. Monster Hunter Rise also came out last year, giving fans of the series a portable entry that took the best parts of Monster Hunter World, and refined them to the work on the handheld.
While 2021 may have been a great financial year for the company, players also got a pretty great deal last year. Fan-favorite franchises made a return, and some brand new games became cemented at the top of the Switch's library, and that's not even to mention the excellent range of indie games that graced the eShop last year.
Nintendo Switch: More To Come In 2022
After five years, and with a year as lucrative as 2021 for the company, it would only make sense that Nintendo would want to bring an end to the Switch, and introduce its next console. However, at the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Nintendo's 2022 calendar is already pretty stacked, with January seeing the release of the intriguing new step in the Pokemon franchise, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and a whole host of new games heading to the console throughout the year. The Advance Wars remakes are releasing sometime in Spring, as is the first fully 3D Kirby game, Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Along with those, the Switch is also receiving various versions of hotly anticipated upcoming third-party titles, like Dying Light 2, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and Marvel's Midnight Suns. While some versions will use the cloud, and are sure to be a bit of a technical downgrade, past ports like Doom and The Witcher 3 show just what the console is still capable of.
Of course, there's also some huge first-party releases that are set to come out at some stage this year, like the long-awaited Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel, Splatoon 3, Bayonetta 3, and Mario + Rabbids: Spark of Hope. Maybe 2022 will finally be the year that Metroid Prime 4 is released. Regardless, this year is set to be just as incredible as last year in terms of Switch releases, if not more so, and the need for a new Nintendo console just isn't there for many current fans.
Nintendo Isn't Slowing Down Its Online Service
If there's any evidence that shows that Nintendo isn't finished with the Switch just yet, it's the Switch Online service. While it's been criticized over the years for its price in relation to the quality of the service, Switch Online is still used by many Switch owners, even if they don't play online games all that much.
Upon its initial release, Nintendo revealed that Switch Online subscribers would have access to a decent selection of classic NES and SNES games, each with their own unique tweaks and quality of life improvements. A few months ago, Nintendo announced an expansion to its service, offering a small selection of Nintendo 64 games and Sega Genesis titles on top of the NES and SNES lineup for an extra fee.
Though it's certainly not perfect, this new expansion pack does infer that Nintendo is willing to add to the existing service, which does imply that the Switch is far from done. Fan speculation is running rampant right now on what N64 games could be added to the service, and whether or not other Nintendo consoles could have their library ported to the Switch. All of this hype surrounding the idea of a virtual console, along with Nintendo's future slate of games, all seem to suggest that the Nintendo Switch is far from a dying console.