Last Thursday, Nintendo released a Nintendo Direct Mini. They announced multiple games releasing in the coming months, and many of them are ports from the Wii U.
There were eight new games announced at the Direct, and three of them were ports of games released for the Wii U: “Hyrule Warriors Ultimate Edition,” “Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze” and new downloadable content for “Pokken Tournament DX.” These games are added to the already big catalogue of ports from the Wii U like “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and the upcoming Switch version of “Bayonetta 2.” My main point is that the Nintendo Switch is full of Wii U ports and, as a former owner of the Wii U, I love that all of these games are coming to a system that people actually own.
The Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo’s home console prior to the Nintendo Switch, only sold 13.56 million units in five years on the market, which made it the worst selling Nintendo console, far behind the GameCube, which sold 21.74 million units. The Wii U didn’t do well, and not many people played the spectacular games on the system.
I would argue that Nintendo put out some of their best, and most interesting content, in years. Games like “Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker,” “Super Mario Maker” and “Splatoon” released for the system, and not many people got the chance to play them. “Super Mario Maker” and “Splatoon” were held back by the sparse online community, especially “Super Mario Maker,” which was full of many low-quality levels, and the single player games were held back by people just not buying them. Because people didn’t buy them, Nintendo was unable to see what worked and what didn’t work in the games they released for the Wii U. There wasn’t enough of a fan base playing the console to make third party developers want to develop for the system.
The Nintendo Switch hasn’t even passed its first year on the market, and it has already sold over 10 million units. It is projected to pass the Wii U’s lifetime sales by the end of its first year in March. The system is already a massive success, and will pass the PlayStation 4 and Wii for most sales in its first year if the projections hold up. The people who owned a Wii U got to play all of the amazing games on the system early, and not everyone else deserves a chance to play those games on a better and more popular console, the Nintendo Switch.
I think Nintendo should try and release as much of the Wii U’s library to the Switch, or make sequels to them, like another Mario Maker game. There will be months that brand new software cannot always release in, because there are only so many developers making games, so, for example, Nintendo could release a port of “Super Mario 3D World” to have a release for that month, and keep consumers happy.
Some owners of the Wii U dislike all the ports because they have already played them, which leads them to feel like nothing is being released for them. These people supported Nintendo when not many people did. They bought “Super Smash Bros.” and “Mario Kart 8” when no one was there, and now other people that didn’t own the system can play these games. I understand why people feel this way, but if you do, wouldn’t you want people to play all of the great games on the Wii U? I know I do.
The Nintendo Switch is already full of ports from the Wii U, and other systems as well. The Wii U games mentioned above, and years-old games like “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “Doom” and “Minecraft” all succeeded very well making the transition to the Switch, which will probably mean even more third party games will come to the system, which is always good. The more games that come to the Switch will mean more people will feel the system is worthy of buying, which will bring more third party developers to the system.
Ports are also a good way for a game’s ideas to have a second chance, and even though a port signifies a certain connotation that not much will be changed, it does give a developer chances to change what didn’t work the first time. For example, “Mario Tennis Aces,” the new tennis game announced by Nintendo last Thursday, looks to have many similar mechanics and a similar arena. However, it adds many different things like better looking arenas and an actual story mode, the first time a Mario Tennis game has had a story mode since the Game Boy Advance.
Ports are not bad, they are great for a console’s release schedule. It allows people that didn’t buy the port on the original console to buy it now, and pads out the year with games, instead of having a barren year. Look for Nintendo to announce even more ports, and it is a very smart move.
