Nintendo Just Dropped Some Huge Switch Game Announcements Like It Was Nothing
Kirby, Metroid, and Pokémon. Oh my.
Nintendo’s E3 2017 presentation—the opening salvo, anyway—was short, but oh boy was it ever sweet. While Microsoft’s focus is currently on raw power with the Xbox One X, and Sony’s focus is … all over the place, which they can probably afford, Nintendo’s focus is on games that will make people want to buy a Switch, and it showed.
The half-hour presentation opened on Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which we already knew was on the way (it will launch in time for the holidays). From there, the pace picked up pretty quickly, with the announcement of a sidescrolling Kirby game coming to the Nintendo Switch, as well as a Yoshi game with a craft paper toy box aesthetic that kind of reminds me of Little Big Planet.
But before long, things took an unexpected turn for all but the most optimistic of viewers. It seems that Nintendo’s Pokémon Direct from last week, while bringing some enjoyable announcements of its own, also served as a bit of a fake out. They’d saved the best Pokémon news for last and sprung a surprise on everyone by announcing that there’s another Pokémon game coming to the Nintendo Switch in addition to Pokkén Tournament DX—a “core” Pokémon RPG title from the series’ developer, Game Freak.
Nothing of the game was shown aside from official confirmation that it is, indeed, on the way, but that’s an exciting development nonetheless. It seems that the rumor that the Switch would be the first Nintendo home console to get its own main series Pokémon title was true—though that console is still half portable, which is a perfect fit for the series. Shortly afterward, a brief title card tease was shown for Metroid Prime 4, and if anyone had told me beforehand that we’d get confirmation of a home console Kirby game, Pokémon game, and Metroid game during the same 1/2-hour E3 presentation, I’d have thought they were nuts.
But it happened, seemingly just because Nintendo wanted to remind people what’s in store for Switch owners, even if those games aren’t in any shape to make any kind of actual appearance at the show. They want everyone to be very sure that the Switch won’t have the same software drought as the Wii U. It’s not even all that happened, as Nintendo’s Treehouse stream later revealed the sidescrolling Metroid: Samus Returns game for the 3DS, a “reimagination” of the 1991 Game Boy game of a similar name.
As someone who’s been critical of Nintendo lately for their reliance on hardware gimmicks rather than their main selling point as a company—their library of beloved game franchises—I’m glad to see them really going for what matters this year. Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a huge launch game for the Switch, it already got Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and it still has Splatoon 2, ARMS, Pokkén Tournament DX (September 22), Mario Odyssey (October 27), and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on the way this year, just to name a few. With all that in the first year and even bigger things in store for the future, the Switch is definitely not lacking in terms of quality software.
(image: Nintendo)
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