Although any positives bought about from the COVID-19 pandemic are extremely outweighed by the negatives, are Nintendo experiencing their most successful time ever?
In case you’ve been living sans TV or social media during lockdown you may not have noticed the huge spike in popularity for Nintendo’s latest console – the Nintendo Switch. At £279.99 for the regular console and £199.99 for the Lite version, the Switch has become many peoples go-to method of escaping lockdown boredom, due to its range of available games and the convenience of being able to play it as both a remote, movable console and through the TV.
Twitter is awash of people posting about one game in particular that’s soared in popularity recently – countless accounts are sharing images of what they get up to in their Animal Crossing New Horizons Switch game such as personalising houses and islands, activities they’ve taken part in or villagers they’ve met. It’s rated 9.6/10 by 1,243 reviews on the official Nintendo website and whilst Animal Crossing has had popular incarnations on previous devices, such as the Nintendo DS, the popularity of these have paled in comparison to sales of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch game. Within its first month of release, a record-breaking 11.77 million units were sold worldwide (Statista 2020). The game offers a serene sense of escapism to a beautiful island with a relaxed pace of life where users can lead a life where their biggest concern could be how to decorate their house. Living through a global pandemic with a wealth of concerns constantly at the forefront of everyone’s mind it’s easy to see why this game is so appealing.
Another game that lockdown has helped boost the popularity of is Ring Fit Adventure. Like many Switch games released before lockdown, Ring Fit Adventure already had countless reviews raving about how fit it kept them whilst still be enjoyable. User reviews include comments about it being ‘the best purchase they ever made’, allowed them to exercise and lose weight without feeling judged at the gym and had great storylines and minigames. By connecting the Switch controllers to an included leg strap and Ring-con controller, the user controls a character in a fantasy world who goes on adventures, overcomes obstacles and defeats baddies through the incorporation of various exercises the character has to do by mimicking the users real-life movements. For people in lockdown who perhaps aren’t able to go to the gym, carry out any form of exercise that might’ve been included in their work commute or simply cant find the motivation to exercise regularly at home, this seems like a perfect alternative that’s easy to access and would actually help you to keep fit.
However, the long-time fan-favourite games of the Mario and Luigi universe continue to be Nintendo’s best sellers as they take up a whooping 5 spots in the 10 most popular Switch games worldwide as of March 2020. ‘Mario Kart 8’ takes the top spot with 24.77 million units sold and ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’, ‘Super Mario Odyssey’, ‘Super Mario Party’ and ‘New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe’ come in 2nd (18.84m), 4th (17.41m), 9th (10.1m) and 10th (6.6m) place respectively (Statista 2020 - Top selling Nintendo Switch game titles worldwide as of March 2020).
Whilst the Switch is Nintendo’s first successful hybrid gaming system due to its interchangeable playing nature, it’s global sales so far are no match for the Nintendo Wii or Nintendo DS - Nintendo’s most successful products. However, in May 2020 the Switch was the best performing console overall out of the 3 most popular gaming consoles currently – it sold 622,182 more units than the PlayStation 4 and 1.33 million more units than the Xbox One.
Whilst we have no way of definitively knowing how the Switch would’ve performed during 2020 compared to its rivals if COVID-19 hadn’t kept us all stuck indoors, I do believe that, although it would still be popular, the number of consoles sold would no way be as high as it is now.
Comments