With the NX reveal encroaching upon us, the time for fun speculation is shrinking slowly. We seem to have a gradually forming image of what NX may resemble, but obviously at the end of the day, the games are what's going to sell this thing.
But before we get into the guesses, let's take a look at Nintendo's own previous launch games.
- these are games that came out within the first 6 months of the system's release, because with Nintendo, "launch window" can mean fucking anything....
- for simplicity sake, we're going to limit these games to the North American release
- only talking about games published by Nintendo on their platform
NES - Oct 18, 1985
Baseball
Clu Clu Land
Duck Hunt
Excitebike
Golf
Gyromite
Hogan's Alley
Ice Climber
Kung-Fu
Pinball
Soccer
Stack-Up
Super Mario Bros.
Tennis
Wild Gunman
Wrecking Crew
Game Boy - July 31, 1989
Super Mario Land
Alleyway
Baseball
Tetris
Tennis
Super NES - Aug 19, 1991
F-Zero
Pilotwings
SimCity
Super Mario World
Super Tennis (within 3 months of NA launch)
Virtual Boy - Aug 14, 1995
...
...
...what's the point?
Nintendo 64 - Sept 29, 1996
Pilotwings 64
Super Mario 64
Wave Race 64 (within 2 months of NA launch)
Killer Instinct Gold (within 2 months of NA launch)
Cruis'n USA (within 3 months of NA launch)
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (within 3 months of NA launch)
Mario Kart 64 (within 5 months of NA launch)
Blast Corps (within 6 months of NA launch)
Game Boy Color - Nov 18, 1998
Tetris DX
Pocket Bomberman
Centipede
Game and Watch Gallery II
Wario Land II (within 5 months of NA launch)
*details are pretty poorly documented about GBC launch games
Game Boy Advance - June 11, 2001
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
Super Mario Advance
Mario Kart: Super Circuit (within 2 months of NA launch)
Advance Wars (within 3 months of NA launch)
Golden Sun (within 5 months of NA launch)
Wario Land 4 (within 5 months of NA launch)
Gamecube - Sept 14, 2001
Luigi's Mansion
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Super Smash Bros. Melee (within only 2 weeks of NA system launch)
Pikmin (within only 2 weeks of NA system launch)
NBA Courtside 2002 (within 4 months of NA system launch)
Nintendo DS - Nov 21, 2004
Super Mario 64 DS
WarioWare: Touched! (within 3 months of NA launch)
Yoshi Touch & Go (within 4 months of NA launch)
Pokemon Dash (within 4 months of NA launch)
Polarium (within 5 months of NA launch)
Wii - Nov 19, 2006
Excite Truck
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Wii Sports
WarioWare: Smooth Moves (within 2 months of NA launch)
Wii Play (within 3 months of NA launch)
Super Paper Mario (within 5 months of NA launch)
Mario Party 8 (within 6 months of NA launch)
Nintendo 3DS - March 27, 2011
Nintendogs + Cats: French Bulldog & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Golden Retriever & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Shiba & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Toy Poodle & New Friends
Pilotwings Resort
Steel Diver
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (within 3 months of NA launch)
Star Fox 64 3D (within 6 months of NA launch)
WiiU - Nov 18, 2012
New Super Mario Bros. U
Nintendo Land
Sing Party
Lego City Undercover (within 4 months of NA launch)
SO...
With all that reminiscing out of the way, let's consider Nintendo's twelfth piece of hardware (not including revisions). And both handheld and consoles are counted considering this really might be the end of that separation between Nintendo's two divisions, while occupying both spaces. Obviously we can't account for what third parties will or won't be there, but for Nintendo, we do have afew clues.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an obvious one. We still aren't 100% sure if Pikmin 3DS is in fact Pikmin 4 or a wholly separate game. And who knows what other surprises await us?
So time for the question - within the restrictions of a six-month "launch window", and assuming the rumors of a March 2017 release are true, what do you realistically foresee as Nintendo's own launch titles for NX?
Launch
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - while I want to commit to launch], I can't help but feel open to the possibility that this could slip somewhere within those first 3 months
- unique unpredictable launch software to further sell hardware concept, and appeal to the casual consumer
- Super Smash Bros. "complete edition" - all WiiU/3DS content combined into a single package
Launch window
- Pikmin 4
- Mario Maker NX?
- WarioWare
With that said, I also don't think we'll be left without some tease of Nintendo's remaining announced games...
If we don't see these upon the reveal, I'd also assume that either by launch or E3 acouple months later, we will have proper announcements for:
-Retro's project
-Mario NX
-Mario Kart 9 (it's already been 2 over years, it's probably gonna start getting close to another Mario Kart reveal, atleast by June of next year)
-surprise collaboration
But before we get into the guesses, let's take a look at Nintendo's own previous launch games.
- these are games that came out within the first 6 months of the system's release, because with Nintendo, "launch window" can mean fucking anything....
- for simplicity sake, we're going to limit these games to the North American release
- only talking about games published by Nintendo on their platform
NES - Oct 18, 1985
Baseball
Clu Clu Land
Duck Hunt
Excitebike
Golf
Gyromite
Hogan's Alley
Ice Climber
Kung-Fu
Pinball
Soccer
Stack-Up
Super Mario Bros.
Tennis
Wild Gunman
Wrecking Crew
Game Boy - July 31, 1989
Super Mario Land
Alleyway
Baseball
Tetris
Tennis
Super NES - Aug 19, 1991
F-Zero
Pilotwings
SimCity
Super Mario World
Super Tennis (within 3 months of NA launch)
Virtual Boy - Aug 14, 1995
...
...
...what's the point?
Nintendo 64 - Sept 29, 1996
Pilotwings 64
Super Mario 64
Wave Race 64 (within 2 months of NA launch)
Killer Instinct Gold (within 2 months of NA launch)
Cruis'n USA (within 3 months of NA launch)
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (within 3 months of NA launch)
Mario Kart 64 (within 5 months of NA launch)
Blast Corps (within 6 months of NA launch)
Game Boy Color - Nov 18, 1998
Tetris DX
Pocket Bomberman
Centipede
Game and Watch Gallery II
Wario Land II (within 5 months of NA launch)
*details are pretty poorly documented about GBC launch games
Game Boy Advance - June 11, 2001
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
Super Mario Advance
Mario Kart: Super Circuit (within 2 months of NA launch)
Advance Wars (within 3 months of NA launch)
Golden Sun (within 5 months of NA launch)
Wario Land 4 (within 5 months of NA launch)
Gamecube - Sept 14, 2001
Luigi's Mansion
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Super Smash Bros. Melee (within only 2 weeks of NA system launch)
Pikmin (within only 2 weeks of NA system launch)
NBA Courtside 2002 (within 4 months of NA system launch)
Nintendo DS - Nov 21, 2004
Super Mario 64 DS
WarioWare: Touched! (within 3 months of NA launch)
Yoshi Touch & Go (within 4 months of NA launch)
Pokemon Dash (within 4 months of NA launch)
Polarium (within 5 months of NA launch)
Wii - Nov 19, 2006
Excite Truck
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Wii Sports
WarioWare: Smooth Moves (within 2 months of NA launch)
Wii Play (within 3 months of NA launch)
Super Paper Mario (within 5 months of NA launch)
Mario Party 8 (within 6 months of NA launch)
Nintendo 3DS - March 27, 2011
Nintendogs + Cats: French Bulldog & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Golden Retriever & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Shiba & New Friends
Nintendogs + Cats: Toy Poodle & New Friends
Pilotwings Resort
Steel Diver
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (within 3 months of NA launch)
Star Fox 64 3D (within 6 months of NA launch)
WiiU - Nov 18, 2012
New Super Mario Bros. U
Nintendo Land
Sing Party
Lego City Undercover (within 4 months of NA launch)
SO...
With all that reminiscing out of the way, let's consider Nintendo's twelfth piece of hardware (not including revisions). And both handheld and consoles are counted considering this really might be the end of that separation between Nintendo's two divisions, while occupying both spaces. Obviously we can't account for what third parties will or won't be there, but for Nintendo, we do have afew clues.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an obvious one. We still aren't 100% sure if Pikmin 3DS is in fact Pikmin 4 or a wholly separate game. And who knows what other surprises await us?
So time for the question - within the restrictions of a six-month "launch window", and assuming the rumors of a March 2017 release are true, what do you realistically foresee as Nintendo's own launch titles for NX?
Launch
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - while I want to commit to launch], I can't help but feel open to the possibility that this could slip somewhere within those first 3 months
- unique unpredictable launch software to further sell hardware concept, and appeal to the casual consumer
- Super Smash Bros. "complete edition" - all WiiU/3DS content combined into a single package
Launch window
- Pikmin 4
- Mario Maker NX?
- WarioWare
With that said, I also don't think we'll be left without some tease of Nintendo's remaining announced games...
If we don't see these upon the reveal, I'd also assume that either by launch or E3 acouple months later, we will have proper announcements for:
-Retro's project
-Mario NX
-Mario Kart 9 (it's already been 2 over years, it's probably gonna start getting close to another Mario Kart reveal, atleast by June of next year)
-surprise collaboration