Nintendo Switch has become the fastest-selling video game system of all time in the US

 

"Best Nintendo Console Ever?"

Looking at the sales, the Switch could be just that if it keeps up its momentum, and the fact that it also has much better 3rd party and indie game support means it could do just that. The Switch needed ~10 months to achieve what the Wii U did in like 6 years; in Japan alone the Switch has sold more units than the Wii U did in its whole life time. On a global picture, the company expects to sell about 14 million Switches worldwide by the consoles first birthday come march; this also beats out the WiiU global lifetime sales, considering the WiiU is in its 6th year of release (4 year manufacturing lifespan) - that is a pretty dam big improvement in sales. Moving on to games, the WiiU had four titles reach over 1 million in sales: Super Mario Bro's U, Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8, and Splatoon. Already the Switch has had three: Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Above image taken from uk.ign

"WiiU Doomed to Fail?"

This simultaneously highlights not only how successful the Switch is, but also of how poor the WiiU did. As an owner of the WiiU I do not regret my purchase in the slightest, as I felt it wasn't a bad console at all and was certainly worth it for me; I spent many hours playing a range of different titles. It just never took off nor ever reached what many felt was it's potential. I put this down to bad marketing and poor games releases, both 1st and 3rd party, calling it the WiiU in the first place makes it sound like an add on not a whole console on its own.

With its unique selling point, the WiiU game-pad encompassed a built in touch screen, & coupled with some extremely fun but short lived examples in Nintendoland, I felt for sure Nintendo were aiming to mix up the market by aiming for fun asymmetric game play, which I thought would be awesome. For those who never tried it there weere a few mini-games as part of Nintendoland that highlighted how fun this type of game play can be. In particular Luigi's Mansion, an up to 5 player top down mini-game where the game-pad player controlled a semi-invisible ghost which only was visible on the game pad screen, while up to 4 other players played by looking at the TV and tried to hunt the ghost using a flashlight with a finite battery supply, before the ghost got them. With a combination of simple game play and a few clever mechanics like the vibration on the controllers getting stronger when the ghost gets near you, this game ended up being a great party piece, yet it was a pity there was only a few levels.

Next up there was a similar 4-1 Tag battle where one player plays as Mario while up to 4 Toads try and catch him. Then an Animal Crossing mini game where the game-pad player simultaneously controls two guards trying to stop the other players from gathering sweets. All of these mini games served their purpose well to showcase the console off and show you what it can do. I can't name any other game that offered any asymmetric game play, maybe I was a bit naive in thinking this is what Nintendo was hinting at but I sure as hell believed they missed a beat on this, heck even a level editor for those mini-games that they already had running would of made a world of difference to how long these games lasted before getting stale; look at Super Mario Maker, never underestimate the creativity of determined fans.

Alas, this was either never the plan or they just changed direction after release. Regardless of whether the WiiU was a flop, or failure, or whatever you want to call it, it didn't succeed, and I do believe that the Switch is everything Nintendo wanted the WiiU to be and more; maybe they just never had the technology and instead got shoehorned into making this console that neither they nor the public ever really wanted. Â