Gadgetory

in about one week's time the switch is going to be officially one year old and what a first year it has been this system has been completely destroying and let's see hack first let's just tuck hard sales numbers now the last official news we got from Nintendo was for up until the end of December which basically marks the first ten months for the system during which it sold 14.86 million units worldwide four point eight of which were in just the US making it the fastest selling system in US history and that momentum is not stopping just yet with January having more switches sold than Xbox one or ps4 it's by like a 3% margin but it's still true now why is this how did this happen well there's a whole bunch of reasons first let's just talk about something else they can still be backed by a lot of data and that's game sales the switch had a fantastic year as far as games released on it most of which was thankful to two of its biggest first party titles Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda breath the wild both of which sold incredibly well are adopted by the majority of switch owners and both games are some of the most well reviewed games in gaming history and it's not as though those the only two good games the system has I mean we had a lot of other great first party titles last year like splatoon too and arms and arguably even more important we saw a lot of third-party support that just wasn't there for the Wii U or the later years of the Wii for instance we had Bethesda porting some of its biggest titles like Skyrim and doom over to the system we had other third-party companies making exclusive games for the system like Ubisoft making Mario rabbits Kingdom and Co a tecmo doing Fire Emblem warriors and that's just time that the big-name companies there's also been a huge push for the system for indie games whether that's original stuff like Celeste or a lot of great games getting ported to it that have found their true home on the system whether that's oxen-free darkest dungeon enter the gungeon shovel knight even a great way to play rocket League handheld and it's where they're going to that all these games put together plus the ones that are on the way already make a library for the switch that is larger than the one that we you had five years to build which you know explains a lot why the system is already out sold that we use lifetime sales now I don't think this assess the switch though can be attributed just to the great game library although that certainly doesn't hurt I think one of the big things though is just this concept of what the switch is where it's both this handheld and this docked system and that's an idea that is very easily communicated on people you know I think one of the big reasons why that we you failed is because to this day there are still people who think that we you is just the tablet part of the system that it's some kind of add-on for regularly which it's not it's a whole new system but that's exactly the problem people couldn't figure that out with the switch though it's this visual thing that you can get right away oh you take the controller off the tablet and give it to someone now it's multiplayer oh you put it in the stock and now it's on your TV it sells the concept right away and it adapts to so many different life styles and that adaptability plays a huge role also at how the system is done so well because it works for so many different schedules I mean you can have one person who loves using it in doffed mode when they get back from work or home from school or another person that always uses in handheld or someone else that uses a balance between to fit their schedule the point is that whether on a priest prefers it in one method or another they're all using the system and they're all enjoying it it's this great combination of nostalgic great games like Zelda and Mario that are both bringing back these old memories but also doing something different new and exciting with this system itself which is a total reinvention of how people approach handheld gaming or even at home gaming that makes it this unique idea that just worked so well now while the switch has sold really well I think it's important to keep in mind that it did that while being far from a perfect console I mean this thing definitely also had its problems over this past year for instance back at launch there were a lot of questions regarding just the physical design of it you know having the only charge port being on the bottom which sure makes sense when you dock it but doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you want to charge it while it's in tabletop mode or the fact that the way the dock is designed can cause the system to overheat slightly warping the system or even risk scratching the system from repeatedly putting in the dock and taking it back out which yeah some people have learned how to live with some of these problems and deal with them and work around them and be careful but they are problems nonetheless and those aren't the only ones there's also Nintendo's bizarre approach to how they're handling online chat a service that requires the use of an external app on your phone and if you want to use chatted with a game play well you need to hook up this adapter to both your phone switch and headset all the same time which just seems very unnecessary there's other issues too but things that will hopefully be fixable in time for instance Nintendo is constantly focused on this idea of having a premium online subscriber service but it keeps being pushed back and it's starting to become a little less clear what all is gonna be entailed in that package there's also the fact that as of right now the switch has very little focus on media basically the only real media app we have at all is Hulu and that's it nothing else for movies or television nothing for music something that while the system doesn't necessarily absolutely need would certainly help in this modern-day competing with other systems thankfully though despite these problems as we've said the switch has been doing well and it looks like it's gonna continue to do well for years to come Mario and Zelda are gonna be tough to follow up and Nintendo's already got a lot of stuff planned for the rest of this year and beyond whether that's more first-party stuff like Metroid Prime for Bayonetta 3 a new Yoshi and a new Kirby game or even more ports from the Wii U that will probably outsell the Wii U versions like Hyrule warriors or Donkey Kong tropical freeze and what's really interesting to me is that we not only had these great first party titles that we can look forward to for the year and even some third party stuff that's in development as well but Nintendo is continuing to try and innovate on top of what the system already is with LeBeau coming in April which looks utterly ridiculous and amazing but tons of fun for kids and maybe also for certain fully grown adults that can't let go of fun childish things and what's craziest about all this is that as exciting as all those things are there's still so much more Nintendo could do there's keeping quiet on for instance Pokemon Pokemon has been one of the most successful series that has been keeping the 3ds line going and there's talk of us getting one on the switch which a transition like that could mean something totally different for the franchise and that's not the only one there's one even bigger that we just absolutely need where is smash