To preface, I'm a big Nintendo fan. I received a NES at the age of 4 in 1989 and I've been hooked ever since. By no means have I owned all of their consoles (Skipped the SNES and Gamecube, didn't own the original Game Boy in its heyday) but in my lifetime I'd generally say they've been my favorite videogame company and the Mario franchise is easily my favorite mass media property ever.
I've never owned a Playstation console and the only Microsoft platform that I've ever owned was the Xbox 360, so I've largely been a "Nintendo Only" gamer for the last 10 years or so. This isn't by any sort of blind fanboyism, simply a matter of free time and budgetary concerns. After all, if I was a millionaire with all the free time I could ever ask for I'd have every goddamn platform imaginable along with a ridiculous gaming PC.
I absolutely lovely the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS and still play both often. I have a ridiculous backlog for both platforms that I doubt I'll be done with anytime soon. I was a champion of Nintendo's software output in their darkest hour, almost to an exhausting degree, and even though many would argue that the Wii U was lacking software, I never found a time where I was out of things to play, though this may be thanks to my limited free time as an adult.
I excitedly pre-ordered the Switch in January from Amazon and at launch I picked up the prerequesite Breath of the Wild, 1-2-Switch, and Snipperclips. I picked up Splatoon 2 when it launched in July, Mario + Rabbids in August, and Super Mario Odyssey in October, and somewhere in there I found Puyo Puyo Tetris and Binding of Isaac on sale, so those are in my library as well.
Super Mario Odyssey was the last retail game I was excited about, and the last retail game I purchased for the system, and that really bothers me. With the Wii U and 3DS I often found myself buying a new game probably once a month. In fact I'd actually argue that I've been more excited about 3DS software releases in the 18 months that the Switch has been on the market, which seems especially bizarre since the general feeling I get from ResetERA members is pretty much the opposite.
The biggest issue I'm finding is Nintendo's tendency to lean on Wii U releases to flesh out the Switch release calendar. These games are great if you've never played them, but I own practically all of them. Once you take those out of the picture there's not a whole lot that I find interesting.
For 2017 releases...Arms looks like a neat concept but I'm not good at fighting games, Fire Emblem Warriors is probably fine but I have no particular attention to that franchise so there's no hook for me, which leaves Xenoblade Chronicles 2...which, okay, I actually really want to play, but I've admittedly got two other Xenoblade titles in my library to finish first.
For 2018 the non-Wii U releases are Kirby Star Allies, which is probably fine, admittedly, but critical consensus seems to be that it's the weakest Kirby title in some time, and after the two stellar 3DS Kirby titles that seems really heartbreaking. Sushi Striker looks great, but I'd rather play that on the 3DS, and I intend to buy it this Christmas at Black Friday, and to my knowledge all that leaves is Mario Tennis, which also seems fairly critically mediocre.
Flipping through third party releases offers better results, but it's largely late ports and indie games that ended up elevated to retail releases. I'd definitely like to play Doom, Crash, and Skyrim someday, but $60 for any of those is tough to swallow when it's a fraction of the price on other platforms.
This is all ignoring the selection of Digital games on the Switch, of course but digital games on any platform are tough to swallow for me. Buying any is a major risk because if you end up not caring for it, there's no recourse to getting your money back. No returns, no refunds. And with the huge number of digital games on the Switch eShop, trying to sift through the pile to find the gems is a real pain.
On top of that, once you finish a game, you're just stuck with it. No trade-ins, no re-selling it, even no giving it away. It makes it really hard to justify spending $20 or more on a digital game that I'm stuck with over a retail game that I have a bit more flexibility with.
It would help if there was a master list of "These games are worth your money" somewhere, but with so many indie games released every week, it's almost at steam levels where if you don't make it your business to pay attention, software slips through the cracks and you will basically never know it exists unless you make an effort to keep up with it.
I'm finding that for the first time in a long time, if ever, I'm not terribly enthused about an upcoming Nintendo Direct, and that's a really weird feeling.
