Remembering the Nintendo Switch Pre-Launch Hype
The Nintendo Switch is turning six years old this year. Where did all the time go?
The console’s sales have been consistently strong and they aren’t slowing down. Even so, I’d like to see Nintendo announce a successor soon, because—well, it’s been six years! And a Switch with improved graphics would be cool. They don’t need to make something radically different. Just make a “Switch 2” with improved hardware, and I’m sure people will buy it.
Of course, it’s anyone’s guess what Nintendo will actually do—they rarely seem to do what’s obvious. And right now there really aren’t any solid rumors about the next console, other than that the long-rumored “Switch Pro” has been cancelled (likely due to the chip shortages).
Regardless, whenever actual news arrives, that should be a fun time. But I think my hunger for new announcements has me thinking back to years ago when the Switch was first announced.
So I’m going to indulge in some reminiscing, because the introduction of the Switch was an exciting time. But more than just reminisce, I’m also going to talk about why exactly the Switch was such a success from the very beginning—in stark contrast from the previous generation.
Before the Switch
In fall 2016, Nintendo fans were waiting anxiously. It had been a tough few years for Nintendo. After the Wii had become a worldwide sales phenomenon that hit its peak in 2009, its successor the Wii U, which launched in 2012, failed to recapture the public’s attention the same way. There are many factors which could be blamed for this.
Nintendo’s initial messaging regarding the system confused the public by highlighting “the new controller” without showing the new console itself (at least not in the foreground), leaving many with the impression that the tablet controller was merely an add-on for the Wii. The name Wii U certainly didn’t add clarity, either.
Developers found the console’s CPU to be underpowered, failing to outmatch even the Xbox 360 (which launched in 2005). The hardware didn’t impress users either: at launch, you had to wait over a minute after turning the console on just to get to the main menu and start up a game (though this was improved in later updates).
Games with potential to be hits were slow to arrive. And although any fan will testify that there were great games on Wii U, these games weren’t what you’d call system-sellers—games which attract so much attention that they singlehandedly seem to give life to a console, such as Halo: Combat Evolved, for example.
Above all else though, I believe Wii U failed commercially because Nintendo made a tablet controller but never figured out how to tell us why we should want it.
With Wii Sports, Nintendo showed players instantly why the Wii Remote was fun. Instant, pick-up-and-play fun anyone could understand.
Nintendo Land, a game featuring Nintendo-themed mini-games and bundled with the Deluxe Set of the Wii U, was perhaps Nintendo’s attempt at doing the same for the new console. But to play its funnest games required gathering a couple (ideally four) friends or family members and getting out the old Wii Remotes. And these games, though simple, did require more explanation than tennis or bowling. For these reasons, the game was never going to have the same wide appeal as Wii Sports. (But I truly remember it being some of the funnest multiplayer I’ve ever experienced).
Of course, the Wii U had a great feature where you could play games off the TV, on the tablet controller. It’s strange to me that commercials didn’t highlight this feature more. Instead seemingly every commercial we got in the US emphasized the “fun with family” angle and often spoke directly to children and their parents.
It’s worth noting that during these years, Nintendo’s other system, the 3DS (a handheld console) was doing fine. It wasn’t the smash hit that the original DS was, but it was selling well. However, that system alone wasn’t enough to keep Nintendo profitable, and by 2016, many fans had grown frustrated by a slower output of quality games.
Unveiling the Switch
Nintendo had to turn the ship around. Throughout 2016, fans waited for the company to drop news on their next console, which Nintendo had referred to as NX. The company was quiet most of the year, though they revealed that summer that the new Zelda for Wii U was also going to be on NX. Rumors got out soon after showing that NX would be a hybrid of handheld and TV console.
I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I know Wii U wasn’t exactly the premium console experience, but I had this feeling like we were losing something if their new console was really a handheld.
But then, one day in October 2016, Nintendo put up a trailer online. No press conference or big presentation. Just a trailer. And I was no longer worried.
The first trailer for Nintendo Switch felt like we were seeing a new Nintendo. Fast-paced. Bold. Cool music. No narration or text on screen to explain stuff. All you see in the trailer are young adults living fun lives, and Nintendo Switch fits into those lives perfectly. You can play at home, or on the go. Hold it on your hand, or set it on a table.
In retrospect, Nintendo didn’t actually keep this type of marketing going for a very long time. I feel like today we’re back to marketing that focuses almost entirely on the game itself—which is perfectly good and a thousand times better than whatever was going on in the Wii U era..
But for creating a first impression of the Switch, I think this approach was extremely smart. The Wii U must have seemed, to the majority of people who knew of its existence at all, like a mere toy for children. To change the perception of the brand, Nintendo had to come out swinging and show some cool-looking adults enjoying their new product. These adults are not embarrassed in the least bit to play Nintendo in public.
The woman in the trailer bringing her Switch to rooftop parties was the subject of plenty of online jokes, but hey, that didn’t turn out to be a problem.
Of course, when watching this trailer, I was looking closely at the console itself, and I was impressed. Compared to the bulky-looking Wii U Gamepad, the Switch looked sleek. And with its gray color scheme (though the neon red and blue turned out to be much more iconic), it looked like something asking to be taken seriously. To me, that was a good sign.
And then there were the games. There was Zelda, of course. There was also Mario Kart 8. Skyrim was shown, and so was NBA 2K. At the end, there was what was supposed to be this big Splatoon esports event at a stadium. It was a decent variety of popular titles, for such a brief trailer. But also, wait… is that a new 3D Mario game????
Oh, also, they showed the Switch a bit on The Tonight Show in December 2016. Which I also think was a good thing. It got a lot of YouTube views. But anyway.
I didn’t watch any of the live events at this time, but of course I read up on announcements afterwards.
One big reveal at the January presentation was that the Switch controllers we saw in the initial trailer would have motion controls and an infrared depth sensor. To go along with that, there was a game called 1-2-Switch where you had to milk cows, or something like that. To be honest, I became slightly dismayed by this news. It seemed to me like motion gimmicks were the sort of stuff this “new” Nintendo would want to avoid. Nobody was all that excited about motion controls anymore, after all, right?
In retrospect, I was worried for nothing. I don’t think the motion controls were ever really a selling point for anyone, but they didn’t hurt the console either—except for adding to the cost of Joy-Con. I’m glad for the gyroscope, which works great for aiming in Breath of the Wild and other games.
All that aside, there was one announcement from this event that made waves online and was very significant for me personally. Remember the little glimpse of a 3D Mario game in that first Switch trailer? It turned out the game was very much a real 3D Mario game called Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo revealed this game with a trailer featuring Mario running around a big city.
OH MY GOODNESS.
If you don’t know 3D Mario games, you gotta understand—the previous 3D Mario, Super Mario 3D World, was not what I and many others had expected. It’s a fantastic game, but instead of exploring these sandbox-like levels, you’re going through the course on a timer. For a lot of people, including myself, that’s less exciting. But Mario Odyssey looked like a return to a more ambitious, more open 3D Mario game. And based off that trailer alone, I knew I was gonna have to get a Switch by the time that game launched.
Zelda? I could play that on Wii U (and I did, initially). But I needed a Switch for that Mario game, man.
What else did they announce at that presentation, anyway? Shin Megami Tensei V? That finally came out in 2021. I didn’t know what that series was at the time. Things change. Oh, also, Splatoon 2 was there, as well as ARMS. So Nintendo was certainly lining games up for a strong first year for the Switch, compared to Wii U’s first year.
Of course, the first Switch game, we already knew, was Breath of the Wild, and Nintendo showed a new, epic trailer for it at the presentation. My goodness, this game looked good. It gave me high hopes for the game’s story…which were not quite met in the end, of course, but I mean, this was also the first time a Zelda game had full voice acting, so that was cool (no, those other games don’t count). Story aside, it’s a masterpiece game, one of my favorites of all time—but before the world actually got to play the game a few months later, this trailer just got the hype levels so high.
So, looking back, you can clearly see how things were looking up for the Switch. Although there weren’t too many launch games, the console was launching with a new Zelda game that looked incredible and was potentially a system seller (obviously with hindsight, we know it was). A new 3D Mario game would release by the end of the year. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would be there soon after launch. Splatoon 2 and ARMS in the summer. The library already looked solid.
Looking at factors besides games, it’s notable that the chip powering the system is based on Nvidia’s Tegra family of SOCs. Because this hardware is highly similar to other mobile chips Nvidia produces, it is likely that this choice, compared to previous Nintendo consoles, led to easier, less expensive production for Nintendo, and possibly made game development easier for third-party studios as well.
Nintendo seemed to be avoiding all the mistakes they had made with the Wii U’s launch. Wii U technically did have more games available at launch, yet none of them were system-sellers: there was a new 2D Mario, Nintendo Land, and a handful of third-party games, many of which had already released on other consoles. It was unclear, early on, when unannounced other games like a new 3D Mario, Mario Kart, or Zelda would arrive—the waits turned out to be long, in many cases. And for its capabilities, Wii U was relatively expensive. The tablet controller added a lot to the price tag, and the system needed to be backwards compatible with Wii—the need for those features combined with the need to sell for a reasonable price is probably how Nintendo ended up settling for a CPU that compares poorly against Xbox 360.
But once again, I return to what I believe to be the biggest factor of all: the sales pitch for Wii U was unconvincing to most people, from its birth to its death. Fans like to talk about, “You can have a map on your controller while you play the game!” Ok, that’s nice. I can look down instead of pausing. Is that a reason to buy a new console?
The sales pitch for the Switch, on the other hand, has always been: you like fun Nintendo games. Play them on your TV. Or play them on this handheld. It’s the Switch.
Even though everything was looking good after this January show, I didn’t want to be too optimistic, so the only prediction I made at the time was that the Switch would outsell the Wii U. Because that was a low bar. And well, I was right, but not only has it outsold Wii U, it’s outsold a whole lot of other consoles.
The funny thing is, on the Internet there are always going to be children who want to do something called “the console wars.” Nothing new. But I remember in January 2017 I’d be on an IGN article or YouTube or something and kids in the comments would be like, “The Nintendo Switch is doomed! It’s gonna sell even less than the Wii U!” Heck, I think there were even YouTubers who made similarly pessimistic predictions. Within a year, though, it was clear that none of these people knew what they were talking about.
See, if you’d been on the Wii U train like us poor souls, you would’ve noticed how different the Switch marketing felt. I mean seriously, putting all these points of comparison aside, the Switch reveal simply felt totally different from the previous five years of Nintendo. On that feeling alone, you had reason to be optimistic.
The Switch Era Begins
Leading up to the launch of the Switch, in February 2017, Nintendo made a Super Bowl commercial. This was another sign that they were really going all-out with marketing this system. They were putting serious money down, even using a new song from that one inexplicably popular band, Imagine Dragons. The commercial, like the initial trailer, again went with the “show, don’t tell” method—and what they showed was young people playing Zelda on the Switch while living their young people lives. Impressive.
Oh and I don’t remember when exactly this was first revealed, but the game boxes for Switch are these cute little rectangles! I like them.
I do remember when I first heard Breath of the Wild would be on this tiny cartridge, I was like…whoa…gigantic game…on a tiny little cartridge. Crazy.
Anyway. Finally, in March 2017, the system launched. And uh, I didn’t get one at launch, so I’m not sure what I can even say about it.
I did get one a couple months later though. And if you’ve used a Switch at any time since then—well, the experience really hasn’t changed much at all. Compared to the Wii U, the touch screen was much better—both visually and in terms of usability. The menu felt a hundred times faster, too. Sure, there was no more menu music, so we did lose some of the charm, but if we can only have either charm or speed, I’ll take the speed.
Sure, at launch, some people’s consoles experienced major problems, but these issues weren’t all that widespread. Overall, the Nintendo Switch launch was smooth, and people were buying.
The Impact of Breath of the Wild
Since I didn’t actually have a Switch at launch, though, the biggest thing I remember is when reviews for Breath of the Wild dropped and they were incredibly positive. I wouldn’t get to play the game for myself until the following month, but it just felt good that after more than five years, a huge game that seemed like the Zelda of my dreams had turned out so good. You could feel the excitement buzzing through the nerd world.
It’s pretty obvious Breath of the Wild convinced a lot of people to buy the Switch. But you know, the Switch isn’t the first Nintendo console to launch with a Zelda game that had originally been intended for the console’s predecessor. The Wii launched with Twilight Princess, which was first developed as a Gamecube game.
Yet it seems like the impacts of the two games on the consoles’ overall fates are very different. That might have to do with both the games and the consoles themselves. Breath of the Wild was an innovative game that significantly shook up the structure of both Zelda and the open-world genre. Twilight Princess was a good game, but it was highly derivative of previous 3D Zelda titles. That might be partially why positive word-of-mouth for the game wasn’t enough to keep the Wii going for as long as the Switch has.
But more significant than that, I think, is that conversations around the Wii always circled back to the Wii Remote, no matter what. The Wii Remote is what sold the Wii to millions who’d never bought a game console before, but it’s also what made the console unappealing to many gaming enthusiasts, who were more than happy to keep playing Xbox 360 and PS3 during those years. And those are the people who buy lots of games.
By returning to the more standard button layout with Switch, one barrier is gone, and gamers can just enjoy a great game like Breath of the Wild without having to worry about the game asking you to waggle the Wii Remote (well, there are a couple tilt control puzzles, actually, but don’t let those undermine my point).
But then, what about the “we bought Wii Sports and then just used the Wii for Netflix” crowd? Aren’t they being left behind? Well, it seems clear that Nintendo’s Wii-era strategy of trying to ease Wii Sports owners into more challenging games, which you can see in games like Super Mario Galaxy 2,2 didn’t actually succeed at converting a significant number of them into "gamers."
Perhaps what draws people to experiences like Wii Sports and Wii Fit is simply different altogether from what draws people to Zelda and other action-adventure games. Some people may simply never take an interest in one or the other. I’m sure creators at Nintendo were frustrated that they couldn’t bridge that gap more successfully with Wii after they had reached so many new people. Nonetheless, it was time to move on.
Breath of the Wild is a Zelda game that abandons the handhold-y “we need to explain every single thing” approach of its 2011 Wii predecessor Skyward Sword. This surprised and delighted me. The game gives the player a feeling of freedom from the moment they step outside of that first cave.
The issue of how to keep players from getting lost is one games had been grappling with for many years, and Breath of the Wild, like others, provides the player a map with quest markers. But it’s also a game that wants you to “get lost” and follow your curiosity. When you explore, you find shrines, which are necessary to grow stronger. They’re hidden in every part of the world, so no matter where you go, you’re making progress.
Unlike some previous Zelda games, there was no need to block off huge chunks of the world or even have a companion character remind you where to go. In this game, it’s up to you, and the reward for following your curiosity may be the discovery of a shrine, or some ruins, or a beautiful view, or a hill where you can shield-surf.
The game also isn’t afraid to let its enemies do serious damage. Early on, you might find yourself dying quite a bit. The game is good at teaching the player its mechanics, but it also offers legitimate challenge, especially to those who are new to games.
In every way, the game seems a far cry from Nintendo’s philosophies during the Wii era. Perhaps abandoning those ways of thinking might have seemed like a gamble at the time. But it paid off immensely. Breath of the Wild is the best-selling game in the Zelda series, and it continues to sell well even to this day. It may be the quintessential “system-seller” game, and I imagine the Switch would have had a bit of a rough start without it.
Pretty good for a game that doesn’t even have cutting-edge graphics.
The Hybrid Console: An Ideal Strategy for Nintendo
Here’s the thing about Switch: it’s a handheld. It runs on battery. It costs \$300. You’re not expecting to get PS4-level graphics from a \$300 handheld (in 2017 at least).
Now, let’s imagine for a moment that instead of Switch, Nintendo made another console similar to the Wii U—except maybe cheaper this time (ditch the tablet, perhaps). And let’s say that console’s graphical capabilities are somewhat better than Wii U’s, but not as good as PS4’s. And then, this console launches with Breath of the Wild. Would this console sell a hundred million units like the Switch has?
I would have to say no. I think such a console would do better than Wii U did, if it got the same library of games the Switch has. But I think the hybrid strategy is key to the Switch’s incredible success.
The home console market is a war between two big companies who promise high-end graphics and are willing to sell consoles at a loss sometimes. Nintendo backed out of that contest years ago; they never sell consoles at a loss. Even if Nintendo were to create a more straightforward, traditional console, unless they’re competitive in graphics and online services, they’re not going to steal Playstation and Xbox’s fans—and even then, it’d be highly difficult.
But the hybrid console is a unique space with no direct competition. And as it turns out, there’s a heck of a lot of potential there. People who already have home consoles or gaming PCs are still likely to get a handheld because it’s a different, convenient way to play games—and because they want to check out some games they’ve been hearing about.
In terms of raw power, yes the Switch doesn’t compete. Yet Nintendo knows how to make the most of what they have. Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, and Mario Odyssey are beautiful because of the art direction. It’s true Zelda has some performance issues, and Mario may not be the most detailed. But these games look good.
People who spend lots of time online love to talk about graphics, but most of the public is less obsessed. Remember, one of the most popular games in the world is Minecraft. Your game does not need to look cutting-edge to be successful.
That said, there’s still a huge crowd of people who want to play those cutting-edge games, so obviously Playstation and Xbox will continue to attract players with such games. Nintendo, though, as I said earlier, has chosen not to compete in that way, because it’s an expensive fight they can’t win.
I’m still sad about that, to be honest, because games like Metroid Prime did look cutting-edge for the time.
Nevertheless, that’s how it is. So, with the Switch, we assume from the start that, just like most of the previous twenty years, Nintendo will continue to miss out on the majority of big third-party games. But then you remember, oh yeah, Nintendo fans buy the consoles mostly for Nintendo games, anyway.
Of course, if Nintendo struggles to release hit games, like during the Wii U era, they sell fewer consoles. But wait a minute! If the Switch becomes the one and only console Nintendo supports, it becomes much easier for them to achieve a strong lineup of games.
And of course, that’s exactly what happened: Nintendo put all their resources behind the Switch, very few 3DS games released after the Switch launched, and there is no “3DS successor” other than the Switch.
The only real downside I can see for Nintendo with this is: no more selling people two different types of devices. But there are so many more benefits. Before, fans who only wanted to buy one Nintendo console could get frustrated when games were only coming out for the one they didn’t buy. That problem is gone now. 3DS games also never costed more than \$40. Now Nintendo can charge \$60 for some old Mario games. Hey wait a minute!
Seriously though, streamlining their console business into one family of devices seems like a highly beneficial move for the company. They’re able to reach many different audiences with just one device: both people who play on the go—a market that in Nintendo’s home country of Japan is much larger than the home console one—and people who want to play Smash Bros. and Mario Kart on the TV. Is Switch going to become the “main” gaming device of people who have Playstations? Probably not! But it can easily become a secondary device.
So, creating a hybrid console was clearly a brilliant move for Nintendo, and I had no idea in 2017 just how successful it would be. Nintendo has found their niche right now, and I can’t imagine them going too far outside of it in the near future.
Yes, I say: make a Switch 2, Nintendo.
Some might say, “But the Wii U failed even though the Wii was successful!” But one huge difference is that the Wii brand had lost most of its steam by the time they announced the Wii U. Wii sales may not have been dead in 2011, but it felt, in the U.S. at least, like the excitement had died. The Switch, on the other hand, is still selling quite well. I’m sure that continued success has Nintendo happy to take their time on the next console, but they can’t wait forever.
Well, it’ll happen someday. As you can tell, this stuff fascinates me and I look forward to whenever the next big stupid announcement will be.