Switch Sports proves that Nintendo’s extreme patience pays off

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In the mid-2000s, Wii Sports was the biggest game on the planet. If Activision, EA or Ubisoft had released the mini-game collection, we would have a dozen sequels and a reboot at this point – maybe even an animated show on Nickelodeon. For better or worse, Wii Sports is a Nintendo franchise, so instead we got a sequel, a remake, and a decade of radio silence.

As a fan of the title, I was disappointed every time Nintendo held a press conference or Nintendo Direct without mentioning motion-controlled bowling. But as an editor who has been covering this beat since the days of the Wii, I understood the business logic of it all. Nintendo has so many beloved studios that they could cannibalize each other if each series got the sequels fans felt they deserved.

So I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

When the publisher announced Nintendo Switch Sports last year I had almost lost hope. I had assumed that if Nintendo were to take advantage of the Wii Sports formula, it would have produced yet another package for the Switch. I was wrong in every way.

As the sales figures (and empty shelves at my local Target) show, Nintendo did not need a packing game to sell the Switch. And where Wii Sports helped sell the Nintendo Wiis, the Switch’s success has the potential to do Nintendo Switch Sports a colossal hit. Just this year, the Switch Wii’s total sales passed and came past 100 million units sold. Which is to say, the potential audience for Nintendo Switch Sports is gigantic. And should Nintendo Switch Sports makes the classic Nintendo game, and gathers huge sales figures over several years, then the game will keep the Switch relevant as it enters the golden years of its hardware life cycle.

Once again, Nintendo has proven that patience is a virtue. We saw a similar situation last year with Metroid Dreada project that had jumped in and out of development since 2005. Whether the publisher is waiting for the right time to revive a series, or holding a project in development hell, the end results are the same: a lasting quality that its peers have not matched (and probably never will).

Until recently, the quote “a delayed game is ultimately good, but a hasty game is forever bad” was incorrectly attributed to Nintendo icon and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. However, it is much more likely that the quote was just a common phrase in the gaming industry, the kind of aphorism that helps creatives push the accounting team back an extra month or two. I prefer the idea that Miyamoto did not invent the phrase because it would mean that all major publishers in the gaming industry know that this mantra is true. Only Nintendo has consistently lived up to that.

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