When did we all start ignoring Nintendo? Was it the Wii era? Because that’s the moment Nintendo stepped away. That’s when Nintendo decided to leave the raw-power console fight to PlayStation and Xbox, and let them slug it out while it did something else. Nintendo decided to focus on innovation and creativity and rethink the idea of the console, the Wii being the result. I remember how it was greeted at the time, the Revolution as it was known then, with scepticism – derision, even. What was this comparatively low-powered toy? It wouldn’t stand a chance against Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And yet…
I ask these questions because we’re having a wobble in console-town at the moment. We’re looking ahead to the future and struggling to see what will be there. It used to be so predictable. Every several years, The Big Three – Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo – would release a new games machine and take pot-shots on stage at each other at E3. Or in Nintendo’s case, they’d conduct orchestras with Wiimotes. But here we are, more than halfway through this ninth generation – a generation that’s widely considered to have not really gotten going – and we’re seeing evidence of significant rethinking from Sony and Microsoft.
Microsoft has all but abandoned the console battle with Sony and decided to publish Xbox games on all platforms – a move that would have been unthinkable in previous generations. And although Microsoft has repeatedly assured us it’s working on next-gen Xbox hardware, it’s been slippery about what kind of hardware that is – the most recent suggestion being it’s some kind of PC. Sony’s having a better time of it, with the PlayStation 5 outpacing PlayStation 4 in like-for-like sales, and a recent AMD partnership announcement seemed to all-but confirm a PlayStation 6. But Sony also appears to be reworking its offerings with a rumoured PlayStation handheld device in development.
There’s significant change going on, and it’s needed as production costs continue to rise, audiences age and punitive import/export tariffs inflate prices even further. This is the first generation where the price of consoles has gone up after launch. They’re no longer the entry-level gaming device they used to be – phones are. It’s as though the heyday of console gaming seems to have passed. Or has it?
Cue Nintendo cartwheeling into the po-faced industry sit-down having played hopscotch during break time. While everyone else was talking and worrying, Nintendo came up with the answer. The proof? Nintendo this week revealed the original Nintendo Switch is about to become its best-ever selling games machine, soon surpassing the run-away leader, Nintendo DS, which amassed an incredible 154.02m sales. The Switch has 154.01m sales (a difference of 10,000 sales if I’m doing my maths right), which is such a trifling figure it will be passed within weeks. Maybe it already has been.
To quickly put that into perspective, according to figures from Nintendo’s investor relations website:
- Wii U sold 13.56m units
- 3DS sold 75.95m units
- Wii sold 101.63m units
- GameCube sold 21.74m units
- N64 sold 32.93m units
- SNES sold 49.1m units
- NES sold 61.91m units
- Game Boy Advance sold 81.51m units
- Game Boy sold 118.69m units
The Nintendo Switch, then, has sold three times what SNES managed – the iconic games machine of yesteryear. Incidentally, the Switch 2 has thundered out of the gates at an even greater pace than Switch 1 – a record-breaking pace, should it be able to keep it up.
But the really impressive thing about Switch’s tally is that it could become the best-selling games machine of all time, of any company. That means, yes, it could dethrone PlayStation 2. Sony’s six-generation phenomenon made “more than 160m sales”, according to figures from Sony’s investor relations website – a record that has seemed unassailable for decades. A success that belonged to a bygone era of console gaming, when everything was potential and there was limitless growth ahead. A time thought passed – an opportunity thought passed. Then along came Nintendo.
Should Switch sales trickle in for a couple more years, and I don’t see any reason why they would not, Nintendo’s hybrid handheld console machine will surpass PlayStation 2’s record within a year or two. Cast your mind back to the beginning of the Switch generation and the sorry state Nintendo was in, with people like Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto taking pay cuts while pledging to reverse the company’s dour fortunes – don’t forget that the Wii U was the company’s worst-performing machine ever – and it’s an extraordinary turnaround.
Who knows? Perhaps Switch wouldn’t have happened were it not for the Wii U, which seemed like a first attempt at the idea – a handheld console that, at the time, still had to be tethered to a box by a TV. What’s so impressive about Nintendo during this time, under the incredible pressures it was, is that it was still determined to innovate. Nintendo saw innovation as the way out – there was no potential in uniformity. And in the Wii and Switch it created new ways to play, which captivated people the world over, beyond the bounds of traditional console gaming.
Of course, Nintendo has not really been ignored, and nor has the success of the Switch gone unnoticed. The proof is only too plain to see in devices like the Steam Deck, that rumoured Sony handheld, and the recent ROG Xbox Ally X, which are to varying degrees modelled on the Switch idea – hybrid handheld consoles that also plug into the TV. These represent unspoken validation of the idea Nintendo hit upon eight years ago, not that anyone seems to publicly acknowledge it – Nintendo perennially seems like the odd one out, perhaps to its benefit.
What Sony and Microsoft are making beyond Switch-like handhelds, we don’t know. We can expect Sony will do a PlayStation 6 and Microsoft will do an Xbox-branded PC, and maybe these ideas will work, maybe they won’t. I expect their static, physical consoles cater to an increasingly small core audience. Without the usual rivalries, the next generation will probably feel a little weird. But Nintendo will still be there – Nintendo will be there like it has always been there, surviving and intermittently thriving, quietly leading the way.
