Wii vs Switch

[Julius Seeker]

I found this interesting graph,


The Wii and Switch are the fastest selling consoles in the first three years (Switch just completes its third holiday season and is approaching its third year). While DS, PS2, and PS4 would eventually sell more than the Wii, they did not begin with as big of a bang, and it was only after hardware revisions and price drops that they really picked up: also, these consoles were supported longer - Nintendo has this bad business habit of prematurely killing off their successful consoles (at least this happened with the SNES and the Wii) when they still had some mileage.

In retrospect, it would have probably been better for Nintendo to support the Wii until the Switch was ready, the Wii U was only more successful in software sales than the Wii for a couple of years toward the end of its life. Today the console is dead, no releases, no software sales: yet Just Dance 2020 on the Wii managed to chart in some countries, and Super Mario Kart Wii sold 40,000 units in 2019 - the game launched in 2008 and Nintendo has not supported the Wii since 2011.

The Switch is a different story. Due to the Switch’s architecture Nintendo has the option to make its successor a higher tier version of the current Switch of any form factor they choose. They could make their next release a more powerful TV-based console paired with handheld, and later on a deluxe traditional hybrid style Switch model. They discussed this possibility during the Switch’s development when it was codenamed NX. I do think tiered hardware is the next step for Nintendo. To a small extent, they already have tiered hardware with newer Switch models running slightly faster and higher resolution than the older ones, and the original Switch doing the same thing in docked-mode vs. handheld - although handheld tends to look better due to the smaller screen, despite the lower resolutions. The old Switch will become the economy model while the new one becomes the premium model - this I believe is Nintendo’s key to eventually surpassing the Wii.

In my opinion, Switch 2 should have come in 2020, but Nintendo exceeded sales expectations considerably. If they did have plans for it in 2020, they have been delayed until at least such a time that the hardware sales begin to curve, as it stands, the year over year increase is still occurring, and 2020 is likely to be the peak year for Switch 1.

When the time comes, 1:17 on this song

[Eric]

I'm disgusted that the Switch is behind the Wii, the Wii was trash.

[Oracle]

Wii went a long way to bring family/group-centric video games into the living room, and opening up more types of games. Wasn't it also considerably cheaper than the Switch ($249/318 CND w/ inflation from Wii in 2006 vs. $399 CND today for Switch).

For many people's use-case, I liken the Wii to a karaoke box some people have sitting in the corner of their living room/gathering area, rather than a true console like the Switch.

[Julius Seeker]

Eric, every console and handheld that has ever existed is behind the Wii, commercially. Although, I think Nintendo has a real shot at exceeding it in the long run with the Switch if they don't kill off content support prematurely.

And kind of like as Oracle says the Wii was kind of like the punk rock of the video game industry. It defied the establishment and opened up new freedom for the industry that wasn't previously available. The DS and Wii were kind of the new wave; the NES and Gameboy were really the first two systems to kick the trends of the industry and re-establish the goals.

I think the Wii and DS's significant successes were:
1. Opening up the interface, motion and touchscreens. These two innovations turned gaming mainstream. While the term "party gaming" was around before, it usually referred to a bunch of nerds sitting around with Pepsi and Doritos. The Wii is the first console that brought hot girls and booze into the mix for a more physical gaming experience. And these were also the same games you could have fun with your family again. I connected with my half-sisters over the Wii and DS. Truthfully, the Wii wasn't the first console to do this, the Playstation 2 was with games like Guitar Hero, the Wii just did it way better and took it to the next level. The Wii U and 3DS failed to recapture this, and mobile conquered the casual gaming segment thoroughly (and expanded it to be 2.2 billion casual gamers on mobile alone), the Switch is now again reconquering its handheld/home console hybridization (more on that later). But aside from opening up new genres, it also revolutionized existing ones by adding motion controls to existing high profile franchises like Tiger Woods PGA, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, and Resident Evil to great effect.

2. Establishing (but not inventing) one of the primary models of gaming today, casual gaming: that is games that only ask for a few minutes a day, every day over long periods. The first games I played using this model were Utopia and Earth 2025, but Brain Age was where the model was solidified. Nintendo's failure here was not upgrading the DS platform to be the home of casual games, and instead, let Apple and Google conquer it.

3. Normalizing catalogue content. The Wii started all of this, and today the Switch benefits the most from this. While there was the initial backlash from re-releasing games, no one bats an eyelash at it now. Today, while the Switch doesn't have a "virtual console" branded sub-platform, the EShop catalogue has a ton of software from mobile, Steam, and console platforms (including Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, and Sega platforms). In 2019, the Xbox One had just over 400 releases in 2019, PS4 around 600, the Switch nearly 1500 in 2019; it's also getting a lot of SNES games that did not make it westward during the 16-bit generation.

So the Wii, like it or hate it, was Nintendo's second most important console before the Switch.

The Switch is already Nintendo's fifth most important console (I'd say Gameboy, DS, Wii, and NES are ahead), but it can be the first.

Going back to the first point, I think the next generation of Switch will really be the next major make or break moment for Nintendo. To paraphrase Yamauchi's comments on the DS: Will Nintendo rise to the heavens or sink into hell? I think Nintendo needs to stop killing their platform at the end of each generation. Microsoft is taking the initiative here, they have pledged 2 years of XBOne versions of all their next-generation games; this is not a new concept, mobile platforms have mandated this since the BREW and J2ME eras, but something the console industry has been behind the curve on. The Switch 2 should not kill the Switch 1 platform but continue and expand upon it before completely replacing it. Switch 3 should do likewise, and so on. Can Nintendo recapture the casual and fitness gaming markets? It won't be this generation, but if they can later on, they will rise to heaven.

I'd like to see the first Switch 2 console to be the Switch TV followed up with the Switch Deluxe (or, the traditional hybrid style console) in the following year with the handheld coming at the same time or a bit later. There's also the opportunity for Nintendo to expand the capabilities of the dock. The big failure with the Wii and DS is that they didn't follow through on what they were building; Wii U was in many ways the reverse of the Wii, and 3DS was more like a reset of the DS + more power. At the same time, the Power PC internals of the Wii was a dead end, the Switch internals have an indefinite future for a proper continuation with the Switch 2.

Anyway, I'm rambling again.

One last thing, the Switch will pass Wii in sales numbers in aligned sales before the end of year 5, a little faster than the PS2 and PS4, but maybe not quite as fast as the DS... unless Switch somehow has a sales boom it's unlikely to happen.

[Julius Seeker]

Another interesting chart, Switch vs DS:



Anyway. Switch vs DS. While Switch will inevitably surpass the Wii, the DS is an entirely different monster. While Switch enjoyed the lead in the first two years, the DS pulls ahead in the third year due to the release of the DS Lite, Brain Age, and New Super Mario Bros. A little later more complex games (such as dozens of RPGs) release, and the DS solidifies some solid legs until the build to 3DS when Nintendo... again... kind of goes in the wrong direction - instead of challenging Apple and Google, they build what is - in my opinion - just a hard reset style generation.

I admit, I thought 3D was a good idea at the time because I made the assumption of a 3D TV content service release... This didn’t happen, boy was I wrong on that one. Instead, Google and Apple just ran with the casual content (access to sim cards really helps this) and conquered the house Nintendo built, and then built it into a palace. But that’s a bit outside the scope of this post.

The DS became a massive hit. The top 3 best selling years of any dedicated console are the 4th, 5th, and 6th years of the DS on the market, and the 3rd year was also up there with the best of any non-Nintendo platform, exceeding 20 million in sales following the DS Lite’s release. The next three years saw 30 million, 31 million, and then 27.5 million. The Wii goes on to sell 26 million in year 3 which is the top selling year of a home console (PS2 is a distant second with a 22.5 million year), ever, and the fourth best selling year over all. So, Switch almost certainly falls behind the DS permanently from this point unless some kind of miracle happens.

In retrospect, was a 2006 Nintendo up to the challenge required to make an iPhone caliber device that would become the home of casual software? There was a lot of talk about a Nintendo Phone, it never came into fruition. The next major step in casual gaming was a 24/7 connection to cellphone towers. In order to get people paying the prices required, they’d really need phone capabilities beach then due to data caps. What might be forgotten is that in 2006 Nintendo’s exceeded Apple revenue by several billion, and their market cap was over 50 billion versus Apple’s 30-35 billion range.

In my opinion, Nintendo dropped the ball. Apple took it and ran from Greenbay to New York was I score a touchdown on wall street.

[Julius Seeker]

I figured I'd just bump this thread rather than make a new one. Nintendo reported some stellar numbers.

Nintendo recently announced their annual fiscal report, and March 31 2020 to March 31 2021 sales just smashed Wii's record. In fact, they're ahead of any console ever except DS for hardware, and PS4 for software.


Hardware: 84.59million units
Software: 587.12 million units

Nintendo Switch sold 28.83 million units, that beats out any year of every console ever made except Nintendo DS which hit 30.31 million in 2008 and 31.18 in 2009. Otherwise the highest annual sales for home consoles are 24.5 million for PS2 and 25.95 million for Wii.

Nintendo Switch nearly doubles software sold in one year, increasing sales by 231 million to 587.12 million, that has only been beaten by PS4 which sold 246.9 million and 257.6 million.

This is the fourth consecutive year of increased sales, something never before achieved by a Nintendo home console, and only achieved by the Nintendo DS in the handheld sphere, the Wii and the SNES are the runner ups with 3 years of increases; while the rest of Nintendo's home consoles peaked in year 2. I'm not including the NES, which was up and down over the years because of a staggered release between 1983 and 1990 - more famously in Europe, but a similar thing happened in Canada too where you basically couldn't find an NES in most cities - even in Toronto it was difficult because it cost about 3-4X as much as simply crossing the border and buying one in Buffalo NY or NYC. But, by 1991 you could get an NES everywhere, and SNES had wide distribution from launch day.

Some notable software sales


Mario Kart sold over 10 million more units in FY2021 increasing the total to 35.39 million. It's on its way to being the highest selling software for a dedicated gaming platform - Mario Kart Wii is currently the highest at 37.2 million. There are a few above it, Super Mario Bros, Pokemon, and Wii Sports, but each of those has some complications: Super Mario Bros was often bundled with other software - in Canada it was Duck Hunt, and in Sweden it was Tetris and World Cup Soccer - and in both countris around 88-92 or so ALL NES units were bundled with Mario: 40.2 million units of Super Mario Bros sold in total. Wii is much more clean cut, it was bundled with every Wii in North America and Europe; 82.9 million sales in total. Pokemon has multiple versions released between 1996 and 1998, if you include only the original 3 games (Blue, Red, and Green) it sold 31.2 million - already passed, but if you add in 1998's Pokemon Yellow, then it is about 45.5 million.


Animal Crossing: New Horizons absolutely destroyed records, selling FAR more titles in one year than any game has ever sold on a single dedicated platform; and only rivalled by Grand Theft Auto 5 for multiplatform titles. It released in March 2020, and by March 2021 it had sold 32.63 million. As far as Nintendo's games go, the fastest selling games prior to Animal Crossing are New Super Mario Bros Wii , Wii Sports Resort, and Pokemon, which all sold about 20 million in their first year. GTA games on Sony consoles are the only other games to reach that level on a single dedicated gaming platform. Wii, Gameboy, DS, NES, and Switch are the only dedicated gaming consoles where games have surpassed 30 million. GTA5 has sold over 20 million on multiple dedicated platforms, and only Kinect Adventures has sold over 20 million otherwise. That's why the nearly 33 million sales of Animal Crossing in a year are so impressive.


Breath of the Wild, Switch's original Killer app, has sold 22.28 million, now tripling the former ~7 million cap reached by the 6.51 million by Legend of Zelda on NES, the 7.6 million by Ocarina of Time on N64, and the 7.26 million by Twilight Princess on Wii. It's rare for a console to have even one killer app, Switch has three (with Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) - I think a good definition of killer app is not just any game that sells a lot, but any game which millions of people buy hardware for without factoring any other software into their purchase. In most cases, hardware sells as the result of multiple titles. Other killer apps on Nintendo consoles include Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and Pokemon games. Possibly Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye 007, certainly system sellers, and potentially resulting in millions of others. Other examples of non-Nintendo killer apps include Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto games (especially Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA5), and possibly some Final Fantasy games (7 and X in particular, I did buy a PS3 for FF13 alone, although I think few people would ever admit that). On PC, World of Warcraft and Minecraft are easily games that made millions want their own gaming level PC. but when I think of killer apps on PC I'm thinking more along the lines of work related software like Microsoft Excel and XCode - but I think Netscape Navigator is probably the biggest killer app of all time.


Ring Fit Adventure is a great example of a Sleeper Hit, selling over 7 million copies in the 2021 fiscal year, moving the total to 10.11 million. This makes it one of the biggest sleeper hits of all time, although not quite Pokemon level, but we'll see after FY 2022 how that goes. My favourite example of a sleeper hit is the Wii game Just Dance, which launched in November 2009 to sales of around 1000 units its first week. Word of mouth popularized the game and sales exploded in early 2010 until it became routinely in the top 10, selling 4.3 million units by October 2010 - about 11 months after release. The multi-volume series sold 40 million units by 2013. Just Dance released one or more volumes on the Wii each year until Just Dance 2020. Goldeneye 007 was another sleeper hit selling only moderately well after launch, and with little promotion, until the game blew up in sales about 3-4 months after release, going on to sell over 8 million units effectively establishing console FPSs as a major genre. Pokemon is the biggest example of a sleeper hit originally launching in February 1996 the games only sold a combined 1.04 million by the end of the year, the game series blew up over the next year, with sales increasing to nearly 5 million by the end of 1997 and eventually over 30 million units.


Lastly, Nintendo began mentioning that their next generation hardware - not in any great detail, only as an explanation for their gradually rising R&D costs from 2017. Bloomberg reported that Nintendo was creating a new Switch console using OLED screens and 4K output which some are calling the "new Switch" or "Switch Pro" - I personally hope they don't use either of those names, but knowing Nintendo
Personally, I'm really hoping for something more along the lines of a iterative upgrade rather than a hard next generation console, as I don't like (effectively) throwing out my library every generation unless I keep all previous generations hooked up. I've been all digital for years now, what I want is a console I can just import my digital library too. One interesting thing Witcher 3 on Switch did was allow for setting/performance changes, if they can do that, you can have a low settings/high settings game that plays across two or more generations - they've been doing that on PCs since the mid-1990s. As someone who worked in game development for many years. I worked a lot on the pioneering development of mobile game software, we'd make multiple ports for various performance levels and screen sizes based on the top 40 for J2ME and top 20 for BREW by the mid-2000s - this, significantly decreased once iOS became a factor. Any way, I've been waiting for dedicated gaming consoles to catch up with these standards; really the only reason they don't is to pinch extra cash off of people because it makes it easier to sell multiple versions of the same game - but I think the industry is learning you can do that while still having the older versions available and make virtually the same amount of money.

Also, Switch has now surpassed the Wii with sales aligned, making it faster selling than any home console in history. It will likely pass the Wii and PSX total sales this year, and PS4 and Gameboy sales next year making it the third highest dedicated video game console in history - below only PS2 and DS. As it is already past 85 million, and sales are STILL increasing in 2021 without a major release with last year being a record breaking winter quarter for any console, Switch seems destined to become the highest selling dedicated gaming console of all time. IMO, it should at least end up being in the ~150 million range occupied by PS2 and DS. Here's the current comparison charts.



Switch's 2021 sales are outpacing all consoles from January to May aligned for every year in history - PS2 isn't on here. While PS2 did have a very high sales rate, a lot of it was mostly because of strong consistent sales across a decade. PS2 had two years (I believe 2002 and 2003) where it sold over 20 million, its top selling year was 24.5 million which was equaled by PS4 in 2017 - around 19 million of those 24.5 million sold in the last 6 months of year, Sony holds the record for Summer quarter shipments to this day from 2002 at nearly 9 million. But, 2021 is looking interesting for Nintendo as it is trending for a 30 million+ year, it's trending ahead of DS sales in 2009, which is the second highest sales of all time for the first 4 months of the year, and went on to sell 31 million+. Nintendo Switch last year almost hit the DS record, but that is also after a massive surge following the release of Animal Crossing. Switch is doing it without that massive surge, it is regularly selling in the 450 to 500,000 range, weekly. It will be an interesting year.

[Julius Seeker]

And it’s over Switch has effectively surpassed the Wii - although the Wii still remains the fastest selling dedicated console of all time for most of its effective lifespan. As was typical with Nintendo home consoles, outside the NES. The brakes were pulled and sales collapsed by the end of a 5 year generation to make way for the next.



I think this was Nintendo’s big mistake in the Wii era. They cut off support for their media channels on the Wii, VC support became very irregular and soon stopped, and first party software became sparse. While Zelda: Skyward Sword looked great on paper, Nintendo completely bungled its marketing - probably Miyamoto’s most embarrassing moment with the controls not working correctly. On paper, the complex motion controls were a great idea - in practice, they were kind of shit. Even when they were working correctly, it was a bit awkward, and a bit chore-like. Swinging your fist in Wii Boxing, swinging a club in Tiger Woods, aiming with IR and shooting in Resident Evil, or other more simplistic games were just much more fun. Warrior Ware Smooth Moves was probably the most fun hot seat game I ever played - when it came out, I was in my mid-twenties and it was really easy to get 8+ people playing on any given night.

Skyward Sword didn’t have the same appeal as the more simplistic social experiences of Just Dance - which was a big hit among university aged people and was effectively the biggest party game of all time - and I don’t mean Mario Kart “get yer co-worker friends together” party game, but actual drinking, dancing, and I’ve seen people even hook up after playing Just Dance games: it was the end result of what had been building up since probably Guitar Hero and Wii Sports - I think DDR was a bit too gamey to be considered, but maybe. Either way, Zelda failed to see the appeal of Just Dance games, that were routinely topping charts in the 2010-2013 era, and the last major franchise on the Wii... except maybe Mario Kart Wii which still somehow sells to this day; it makes sense, as Mario Kart Wii was the first modern Mario Kart, but Mario Kart DS proved its future was handheld, even though the Wii game exploded to nearly 40 million sales.

Anyway I’m off topic, Switch, the Hybrid console, as it enters its fifth year, is still speeding up. It’s going to rocket way past where the Wii eventually landed. I can’t read the future too far, but I think at the very least Switch hits 120 million, and nothing will surprise me below 150 million. Even 150-170 million wouldn’t shock me. Just as long as Nintendo doesn’t do something stupid like prematurely pulling the brakes Switch. I hope they do something, at least, like the NES, Gameboy, and GBA, where they push support beyond the release of the successor, or simply extend out the generation. I’m an even bigger fan of iterative generations to extend the family rather than replace it. I think they’re coming given Nintendo has opted for a very generalized Nvidia ARM architecture, which is probably the most future proof/iterationally upgradeable SOC outside of Apple’s A series or M series SOCs. In fact, I’m a little surprised they haven’t announced a next generation Switch model yet, the chipsets are staggeringly more powerful now, it’s not like the DS to DSi increase; it’s a much larger jump than that within Nvidia ARM.

Speaking of the DS - it remains the fastest selling dedicated video game system of all time. Its 4th and 5th years were its peak where it sold 60 million - this was when the DS Lite and DSi were in their heyday. Although, more like its 3.5th and 4.5th year since DS released November 2004, which is around the middle of the fiscal year. So Switch, whose sales have accelerated year over year constantly since launch, is actually showing signs of greater longevity than the DS. Although, much like the Wii, Nintendo pulled the breaks switch on the DS. In my opinion, had the 3DS been an iteration, things might have gone much more smoothly, as the thunderous momentum of the DS could have extended beyond its 6.5 years. The 3DS would have also been able to ride the wave of DS success a lot more than it did had people already had investments into the platform before purchasing so they could utilize its new features. Anyway, DS vs Switch.