There has been a bit of a drought for Nintendo players in terms of new AAA titles in recent months. That could change soon, as Nintendo just announced a slew of new games for the Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo had a big year in 2020. The popularity of Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the biggest story, as the social simulator sold over 31 million copies in just one year, a remarkable and unheard-of figure for any title, let alone a game that is only available on one platform. Although the number of new mainline Nintendo games has slowed, a recent Q&A session held in conjunction with Nintendo’s fiscal year results revealed that plenty more are on the way.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, who recently expressed his vision of Nintendo as “all about entertainment,” said that with the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in 2020 and 2021, and then again with the arrival of Monster Hunter Rise in 2022, player use of the Nintendo Switch ebbed and flowed. Furukawa stated that he does not believe the Switch’s popularity is waning and that the team is trying to capitalize on it.
According to Furukawa, Nintendo will announce “many new game releases” in the first quarter of this fiscal year, which lasts until March 2022. Mario Golf: Super Rush, which many Nintendo fans are looking forward to, will be one of those new Nintendo games in the first quarter. A couple of the names, though, are a mystery.
According to Furukawa, the games that will be published throughout the first quarter of the fiscal year and during the rest of the year will help to broaden the number of Switch users. Another excellent example is Nintendo’s recently unveiled Game Builder Garage.
Game Builder Garage, which is a far cry from a traditional action-adventure or first-person shooter that a rival could create, encourages players to create video games and might attract entirely new Switch users.
The list of other games that will be released for the rest of the fiscal year is really infinite. The successor to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as well as Splatoon 3 (due in 2022), Pokemon Legends: Arceus (due in early 2022), Metroid Prime 4 (no release date yet), or anything else, or perhaps Nintendo doing anything completely different, are all possibilities. The good news is that Nintendo has a lot scheduled, and fans will probably learn about it soon, maybe at E3 2021.
