You probably don’t need to be reminded that the Nintendo Switch was a remarkable success. The hybrid console is the second-best-selling system ever, behind the almighty PlayStation 2, and one analyst believes that if it hadn’t taken off, the Japanese side of the industry would’ve taken a serious hit.
Nintendo wasn’t in the strongest position leading into the Switch. The Wii U failed to meet anyone’s expectations, especially after the Wii, and the makers of The Legend of Zelda and Kirby needed a win. Luckily, they got one, and now the corporation is stronger than ever, expanding into theme parks and blockbuster movies.
“I would say that if Nintendo produced another flop like the Wii U, and if the Switch wasn’t the super hit it turned out to be, the Japanese console market would have been completely eliminated,” Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of analytics firm Kantan Games Inc, tells The Game Business. “I think that even more people would have turned to smartphones, and maybe even PC.”
This stems from Nintendo’s position not just as a market leader in Japan but as a pillar of the entire medium in that region. Another underselling console would’ve tilted players towards other avenues, as Toto points out, potentially shifting the landscape in drastic ways.
“Nintendo not only completely dominates the console segment here in Japan with 70% market share for all gaming content, but they also saved it,” he adds.
Now that we’re nine years removed from the Switch launching, Nintendo being anything other than a household name seems like a distant memory, but for a minute there its standing lessened. The Wii U’s lifetime sales topped out at under 14 million, making it one of the worst-selling pieces of hardware the games giant’s ever released.
Nintendo appeared to realize this, since the biggest releases were Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario 3D World. Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the next blockbuster installments of their respective franchises, were saved for the Switch instead, to bolster those sales. It was a strategy that paid off, since people love both, and enjoyed playing them on the machine to boot.
Now Super Mario’s raking in billions at the box office, Zelda and Link aren’t far behind him, and the Switch 2 is doing healthy numbers. But there’s a timeline where none of that happens, and Nintendo’s doing PC ports instead. What a world that would’ve been, eh?