‘Zelda’: Game gives final breath to Nintendo Switch – 05/17/2023 – Tech

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“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”, released last Friday (12), arrives to give a last breath to the Nintendo Switch, a console that entered its seventh year of life in March.

It is an unavoidable event in the world of videogames, a launch like this, of one of the biggest franchises in the sector. Nintendo takes advantage of this strength, rare in a market full of ephemeral phenomena —and disagreements between the public and critics— to extend the useful life of one of its most successful consoles.

The last games in the franchise, not counting remakes and remasters, were “Breath of the Wild” (2017), “Skyward Sword” (2011) and “Twilight Princess” (2006).

The gap between them approaches the very lifespan of the consoles they were released for. “Twilight Princess” concluded the commercial life of the GameCube and gave a boost to the launch of the Wii. “Skyward Sword” came out a year before the release of the Wii U. “Breath of the Wild” marked the end of the Wii U era and the beginning of the Switch era.

The newest device followed the trend of the video game market during the pandemic and saw its sales grow. In the period between 2020 and 2021, they reached 28.8 million, followed by a drop to 23 million in the following regime (2021 to 2022).

The Switch still became, in 2022, the second best seller in Nintendo’s history, which is no small feat.

In the last fiscal year (from May 2022 to April 2023), the Switch sold 17.9 million units. Nintendo projects to sell another 15 million units of the product by the end of March 2024, a 17% annual drop in what would be the third consecutive year of slowdown.

The company recognizes the drop in demand, now in the seventh year of the device’s life, even after reducing bottlenecks in global supply chains and the launch of “Tears of the Kingdom”. Despite this, it demonstrates optimism, after reaching the mark of 100 million players.

The data appears in the company’s fiscal report released last Tuesday (9). Operating profit fell 15% year-on-year to 504.38 billion yen ($3.73 billion) in the period ended March. The company predicts that profit will fall another 11% to 450 billion yen ($3.32 billion) in the current fiscal year.

“Zelda”, however, will not be the last big game that the Switch will receive. “Pikmin 4”, for example, will be released on July 21st.

Accompanying “Tears of the Kingdom” the company also launches thematic editions of the OLED version of the console and of the Control Pro (R$ 2,999 and R$ 429, in Brazil). And despite the box office success of “Super Mario Bros.”, there’s still no sign of new Plumber games.

“The film increases interest in the Mario games and has a positive effect on sales of the video game and Nintendo Switch games in the medium to long term. In fact, we are already seeing a variety of positive effects,” said Shuntaro Furukawa, president- Nintendo executive.

With the back-to-back slowdown in sales, attention is starting to turn to a potential Switch successor.

In an article for the Gameindustry.biz website, researcher Rob Fahey says that the scenario indicates that the device’s life is close to ending, despite Nintendo’s optimism.

“I think the odds are good that Nintendo will have new hardware to announce later this year, and the company has carefully avoided mentioning it until now precisely because it doesn’t want to jeopardize the release of ‘Tears of the Kingdom,’ which could win a updated version as a launch title for the new system,” he said.

“A direct upgrade to Switch – more powerful, perhaps with a few design tweaks – is the safe option most people hope and want, but Nintendo has always been strongest when it offered something people didn’t even know they wanted.”

For Serkan Toto, founder of the Japanese consultancy Kantan Games, the slowdown in Switch sales is still not enough to make way for a new console. “Based on the projections, it’s pretty clear that a ‘Switch 2’ release or all-new hardware can be ruled out this fiscal year,” he told Reuters news agency.

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play

game tip, new or old, for you to test

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

(Nintendo Switch)

The player’s main difficulty in “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” is not getting lost, but this is more of a blessing than a curse of the new game. With a colossal map, the game is prodigal in creating obstacles and distractions that divert the player from the natural path, transforming the simple task of going from point A to B into a surprising and rewarding adventure. Read more in Tiago Ribas’ review.

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update

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