On the subject of whether Nintendo's current release schedule (or lack thereof) is unprecedented, we can look at it from a data driven perspective. Specifically, Nintendo currently has four announced, but not yet released, titles for the Switch. Is that an unusually low number?
Because it's a Sunday and have nothing better to do, I've taken a list of physical Switch games published by Nintendo (specifically
this one) and quickly tallied up the announcement date and release date of each one. I should stress that I wasn't thoroughly validating every date I used, it was mostly just "whatever Wikipedia says", so it's entirely possible that some dates are wrong, but being off by a few days here or there shouldn't really matter in this analysis.
Because of inevitable disagreements over what constitutes a "Nintendo game", I've broken the list up into two sets. The first one consists only of games published exclusively by Nintendo. This excludes games which are published by Nintendo only in some regions, and Pokemon games, which are co-published between Nintendo and Pokemon Co. The second set includes all games, including those published by Nintendo only in certain regions or co-published.
With the data, I can calculate, for a given date, how many titles have been announced, but not yet released. I've done this for the first day of every month since February 2017. Here's the table for the strict sub-set of games exclusively published by Nintendo:
Code:
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2017 8 8 6 5 5 7 6 6 7 6 4
2018 6 11 10 11 9 8 7 7 7 8 7 7
2019 7 6 9 9 8 8 8 7 6 11 9 9
2020 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 6 7 9 8 8
2021 8 6 11 11 10 8 9 8 8 9 7 7
2022 6 6 9 8 7 7 6 5 5 7 6 6
2023 7 6 5 4
As we can see there's some seasonality to it (unsurprisingly), and the start of April is usually the peak, although we're now entering April with the lowest number of unreleased Nintendo published titles we've ever been aware of. The number did hit 4 before, in December 2017, although quite a large number of games were announced in the following January. With Advance Wars releasing this month, and ToTK releasing in May, the number is due to hit 2 by the start of June, unless Nintendo announces any new titles in April or May (which historically they don't typically do).
The table for games which Nintendo has had any involvement in publishing is below. I'd argue that this is the more relevant one, as although Nintendo doesn't unilaterally choose when to announce or release these games, they are involved in the process, and they're titles that Nintendo makes space for both in their announcement and release schedule. This includes Pokemon games, Hyrule/Fire Emblem Warriors games, and games like SMT:V and Octopath Traveller.
Code:
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2017 12 12 10 9 9 14 13 13 13 12 10
2018 12 18 16 17 15 17 18 16 16 16 15 13
2019 11 10 13 14 13 13 12 11 10 13 11 10
2020 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 8 9 13 12 11
2021 10 8 15 15 14 12 14 13 13 14 12 10
2022 9 8 14 12 11 11 9 7 7 9 7 6
2023 7 6 5 4
The drop off here is even more stark. There are currently only a third as many announced titles as there were at the same time last year, and less than half as many as even the quietest period of 2020. Again, this number is due to drop to 2 titles by the start of June, unless Nintendo announce any new titles in the meantime.
So, is this unprecedented? I'd argue so. Even if we want to be strict about what we count as Nintendo-published games, we currently know about fewer games in April 2023 than we have at the same time in any previous year, by a good margin. If we also include games which Nintendo wasn't the sole published for, the drop off is more dramatic, down by two thirds year on year and down by more than half compared to the pandemic-influenced drop in 2020.
Can Nintendo announce their 2H23 games in June? Absolutely, and they've typically announced several games each June for release the same year. If they wait until June, though, they will be going into the month with only two unreleased games on their roster. One releasing the following month, and another that Nintendo has barely mentioned since rebooting development over four years ago. That would absolutely be unprecedented.
Incidentally, as a point of comparison, at the start of April 2016, when Wii U was on its last legs prior to the announcement of the Switch, Nintendo had exactly four games announced for the Wii U as well, plus a much larger number for the 3DS. In terms of announced titles, we probably have less insight now into what Nintendo's working on than at any point since perhaps the NES.
is 29th of February 2024. No backing out now!