I watched the stream live during lunch hour at work yesterday.
- Didnt really mind the 300 dollar asking price. Blanched a bit at the paid online, but I figured I can just skip Splatoon if push comes to shove.
- Loved the controllers. Having that kind of flexibility in a portable form factor is pretty cool!
- Saw a bunch of awesome looking games that I really wanted to play (Xenosaga 2, Mario, Zelda, Shin Megami Tensei game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe)
My faith had been rewarded, and I was gonna preorder the heck out if it.
And then I saw the release schedule. What the fucking fuck?
Having a launch day lineup as paltry as that smacks of desperation. Did they really need to rush the launch before the end of the fiscal year? If sales become sluggish after the initial launch hype, won't this do more damage to the Nintendo brand in the long term?
They had the perfect storm of hype, people eating out of the palm of their hands, plenty of recent exposure due to the NES Classic and Super Mario Run, and this was the best they could come up with? I've been strictly handhelds-only when it comes to Nintendo from the Wii generation onwards, but I was super enthusiastic about giving them a shot this time around. I figured that the worst case scenario was the Vita 2 (lots of niche J releases) with Nintendo first party games, not a bad place to be.
But this? How is the Switch supposed to find a foothold in the Japanese market with a release schedule like that?
Why would I pay 300 dollars at launch for a switch, get Zelda and MAYBE Bomberman, then wait almost 2 months for Mario Kart 8? And I don't even have a Wii U, so MK8 is fresh to me... I imagine a Wii U owner might not feel the same.