As far as launch years go, the Nintendo Switch had a good one, but if a recent hint from the CEO of GameStop is anything to go by its second could be even better.
During a recent investment call (via NintendoLife), Michael Mauler was asked whether or not he thinks that the Switch will continue to have strong attachment rates into its second year. Mauler responded that despite what happened with the Wii U, he feels that the Switch is “a whole different platform than we saw in the past” and that he’s expecting 2018 to be “very, very strong.”
The reason? Software, apparently. At the moment 2018 is looking somewhat threadbare for big Nintendo Switch releases, especially the latter half of the year. However, according to Mauler, many titles on this year’s slate “haven’t been announced yet” and that 2018's slate will continue to drive new players to the console and increase both hardware and software sales.
Software surprises
Mauler doesn’t go into any detail on what some of these unannounced titles will be but it sounds like we can expect some big reveals from Nintendo at E3 2018, or at the very least some more solid release dates.
Super Smash Bros is naturally going to be a big release for this year but both Pokemon and Metroid Prime 4 still don’t have release windows set so we could, perhaps, see one of those titles confirmed for this year for another big first-party hitter.
Outside of that, we imagine Nintendo is planning on a few more ports - both Bethesda and Ubisoft have said that they’re planning to release more ports on the platform and the right releases, whether they're new or not, have proven popular with the Switch’s hybrid form.
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