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Nintendo Switch Aligned Year Seven Report
Posted: 03/03/2024
Revision
One: 03/10/2024
Revision Two: 04/10/2024
[0.] Introduction and Conclusion
"Is it possible for Nintendo Switch's curation to get more annoying?! HA! HA! HA! That was terrifying" - Me, after writing all the data for this report.
(Warning: Portions of this report have been taken from my previous Aligned Year reports, and some have been re-edited for clairty and context. Also, a content warning: Lots of stats that might cause some humans to "Too Long, Don't Care" themselves are present. Reader discretion is strongly advised.)
Well, the answer to the caption is yes, it will get more annoying. It's not just the Elmo-equse voice that makes it sound terrifying. Sometimes, I do yearn for the days of Nintendo's insane policies. Not to keep third parties out, but to make Nintendo curate their store properly. But alas, the "Nintendo Switch has no games" has gaslit Nintendo and Nintendo's response is to flood the system with as many games as possible. This seventh year is unforgettable in that Nintendo Switch managed to make history so many times that I literally decided to finally complete my task of compiling data for the active consoles like PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBOX One and XBOX Series. I would have thought that doing this would give me some storylines and Nintendo Switch some extra goalposts to work for. It turns out that Nintendo Switch is actually dominating the scene in terms of game releases. Sure, there are some goals left to achieve, but at the same time I finally realized that we are witnessing history in the making.
It's been seven years and Nintendo Switch is the third highest selling system in both hardware and software, one of the highest Monthly Active Users and that's counting one platform, Sony and Microsoft count at least two platforms, the second biggest publishing output in Nintendo history and the largest first party developer output in video game history. Oh, and Nintendo Switch has more games than every closed-garden system ever now outside of Commodore 64. Also, trying to explain away through simple answers is making a fool out of yourself. How do you explain the Art Programs the competition doesn't have? Why does Switch have more Edutainment titles? How comes the Puzzle genre is 2:1 in favor of Switch across the board? How did Switch somehow have more Sports and Shooters without Call of Duty nor Madden nor NHL from Electronic Arts than the competition? Finally, how did the Switch get an average of 140 games a month life to date and 200 games a month in a year where Nintendo systems decline once Aligned Year Five is over? Some of it can be explained away by the success of Nintendo Switch, some can be explained away by lack of backwards compatibility, and some can be explained away by Nintendo's almost Wild West policies. (Caveat: Steam in 2023 had 14,000 games released. Sometimes, that perspective gives me hope; but I still like XBOX's curation the most; at least as a data compiler.) However, the rest can be explained away by politics and how the Nintendo Switch is designed againest the competition. A few of these incidences might never get a good answer. This system is way too nuance to accept binary thinking answers. Saying that this growth is a natural progression of the video game industry creates another question: The sweep of time analysis indicates a pattern that the Nintendo Switch would have fewer games than XBOX One and PlayStation 4 if the system was a console and slightly higher than XBOX One and below PlayStation 4 if the Nintendo Switch is a portable. PlayStation 4 should be the leader in games released overall, XBOX One would be second if the Switch is a console or third if the Switch is a portable. So, Nintendo Switch's projected number even at this point should be around 5000 games, which would be a personal best regardless. Nope, Nintendo Switch has double that. This curation by Nintendo is not normal and it's getting scary at this point.
If you haven't read my previous report; it's time for a bit of a backstory (Caveat: Updated to include non-Nintendo platforms that are still active.)
Backstory:
* When the Nintendo Switch started back in it's first aligned year, I was noticing how a number of Youtubers were claiming that the Nintendo Switch had too many games, at a time when the Nintendo Switch only had around 170-200 games in eight months! Knowing the principle of "the plural for anecdote is not data", this inspired me to bring back the data compilation of game release lists for North America that I was doing back during the Wii/DS era. Even back then, I notice something was going on that would be a harbinger of things to come in later years, especially last year.
The first couple of months at the beginning of the run were similar to the 3DS run, up until the end of June 2017: March was the highest month due to the launch, but was below Wii and Wiiu; although those two systems were released in November during the holiday season (Switch was higher than 3DS in it's first 30 days and the highest for a non-holiday launch), where November is often a much bigger month than any other month outside of October. April, May and June had only 11-12 games per month, which turned out to be the slowest months ever on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch has never had a month with nine games or less. Wii didn't have a month with nine games or less until December of 2011, one month into Aligned Year Six for that platform.
Still, the feeling was that the summer time would be a drought and the first July of Switch's run would see nine games or less. It didn't happen. In fact, July 2017 had 21 games, with August having 27 games. Nintendo had turned the corner when it came to it's library and by the end of the first year, Switch was closing in on peak Nintendo DS monthly releases. May 2018 was another milestone, the first month over 100 games for a Nintendo system ever and it turned out, the first time any console pulled that feat off. August 2018 was the beginning of a streak of 100 or more games a month that lasted until the end of December 2019 in what would be the final month before the pendemic. Then the second streak began in January 2020 and never looked back. In fact, the curation got so silly that over 200 games a month would be the average for 2023. March and April 2023 got over 215 games, September and November 2023 had almost 250 games for a Nintendo platform. October has four straight months of 200 games or more, including peaking at 251 games! 2023 had a minimum of 174 games in January 2023, and an aligned year minimum of 139 games! Nintendo DS at it's peak had 81 games and they got over 80 games one time in their entire run. Switch has had 80 or more games every month since April of 2018. 150 games a month is below average now, but only five games below PlayStation 4's peak! This is a huge headache for data compiling and even more so when non-Nintendo Switch active platforms are being compiled.
To give everyone an idea of how messy and how tedious data compiling goes, here's the routine I have for the Nintendo Switch North American Gamelist every single week:
- Every Friday of every week, I typically start by doing what is known as a "Tentative Gamelist" for the next week, starting from Sunday to Saturday of each given week. The data is compiled for the week after and then games are added or subtracted from there. Back in the late 2000's when I was working on Gamecube, Wii and Nintendo DS gamelists, I typically do a full month and then usually subtract the games that have been delayed and update accordingly. With Nintendo Switch, doing it every week is a chore even now due to the vast number of games released every week. In the past, 34 games in a MONTH was a PEAK for the Wii U, in a non-launch month. Nowadays, 34 games a WEEK is considered just above the overall average and below average for this calander year and aligned year. There are few subtractions, but a lot more additions.
- While all seven days can have "shadow drops" literally happen at anytime, every Thursday is the worst time for them. I get an average of 6-9 shadow drops on average on that day alone in 2022 every single week. One week I had started with 16 games and ended the week with 30 games easily. That's a slow week.
- Every week, I often see an average of two to five new publishers and seven to twenty new developers debuting on the Switch. I am also seeing three publishers and two to seven developers joining the 2+ games department.
- I compile the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBOX One and XBOX Series platforms sometime in the first week of each month after that month is completed, compared to Nintendo Switch where I compile a week of data in advance. There's a good reason for it and that can take from three-four days depending on how large the month is. The first revision of this to account for the non-Nintendo active platforms will be released in mid-March 2024; the third revision will include the final fiscal numbers for Sony platforms and be made available in mid-April with the exception of XBOX platforms which the final revision will be released in Mid-July to account for the incorporation date differences.
Limitations:
- The Most Obvious Ones:
* These lists addressed the number of games in any video game system library. This is not designed for judging the quality of said lineup due to "quality is the eye of the beholder" and it's not designed to address whatever "console war" stuff from fanboys.
* Anyone who uses edge cases to point out how bad Switch's curation is; be advised that this edge casing is ultimately pointless and a fool's errand. The data more than supports your claim, no need to bring up ancedotes. Also of note: While there is a way to quantify the quality of the lineup via MetaCritic and OpenCritics, the systems don't account for the majority of the games in any game list. Most games don't have a score and not having a score doesn't automatically mean that the game got a score of zero. That makes determining the quality useless on that level, and it doesn't even factor "the beholder" condition into play.
* Bundles and DLC are not counted. Yes, it's a pain to weed out, but for fair data compilation purposes, it is worth it.
* My definition of the term "shadow drop" is a little different than most people's definition as my definition of it is that it's announced and released at the same time. Many games that are defined as "shadow drops" by most people were clearly announced for Switch months and years in advance, but their release date are confirmed for the same day as a release. I realize this reduces the numbers, but as I have seen before, there is still lots of games that fit that description.
- Context for the active platforms:
+ Nintendo Switch
is in Aligned Year Seven; Seven Years.
+ PlayStation 4 is in
Aligned Year Eleven; Ten Years, Three Months and Sixteen Days.
+
XBOX One is in Aligned Year Eleven; Ten Years, Three Months and Nine
Days.
+ PlayStation 5 is in Aligned Year Four; Three Years, Three
Months and 19 Days.
+ XBOX Series is in Aligned Year Four; Three
Years, Three Months and 21 Days.
- More publishers and developers for each generation is always going to be a factor in determining a system's library. The house rules for each system maker is the major key in determining the amount of games for each system. A commercially successful system also helps a lot. Nintendo Switch's house rules for curation are much more lienent than the NES or even Sony and Microsoft systems. It's still more rigid than Steam though.
Here are the links for other reports:
Report
of Aligned Year 3
Report
of Aligned Year 4
Report
of Aligned Year 5
Report
of Aligned Year 6
Nintendo
Switch Sales Report
Nintendo
Top 50 Highest Selling Games Of All Time
Aligned Year Eight will be the most interesting year in the Nintendo Switch's history, as a Nintendo Switch successor gets more and more talk leading up to it's release. Nintendo Switch without question will have the second largest system cycle in video game history before the successor is released; but can the Nintendo Switch surpass XBOX 360's record of eight years?! Recent rumors as of this writing claim that it is very possible. At worst, Nintendo Switch will likely get at least 7 1/2 years before a successor is released and maybe even 7 1/2 years before the final product is actually shown. It's also possible that zero price cuts will also happen during this period which is a massive record and proof of the hardware's success in the "cost per mode" and "performance per watt" categories. The software for the upcoming calendar year and beyond tells me the Nintendo Switch output in game releases may start to plateau and even slightly decline. However, January and February of 2024 don't really show signs of an increase nor decrease due to two caveats. The first caveat is that Nintendo of America decided to treat the final two weeks of December as regular weeks instead of moving the majority of those games in that period until January of 2024, like Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo Company Limited did with their regions eShops. This explains why January 2024 was 139 games and December 2023 had 195 games. The second caveat is 2024 is a leap year, thus February 29th is the leap day. Problem is, this day resides on a Thursday which is often the biggest day of the week. On the one hand, 236 games were released in February, which is a huge increase, but cut off the leap day, and it's 200 games, and only a four game increase from last year. (Caveat: At this writing, 2023 and 2024 aligned numbers are similar with a minus three game difference (390 games in 2023, 387 games in 2024) if the leap day is not counted and the games are transfered to March 1st, and with the leap day, it's a one game increase at 391 games.) March 2024 should give me a good idea where the Nintendo Switch game releases are going. I suspect Nintendo's first party output will finally wane since the successor is so close to being revealed; but Nintendo Switch is so far from the days of Wii when Nintendo didn't think their entire console cycle through with the Wii and DS. Looks like Nintendo is the best in preparation for their successor compared to Sony and even Microsoft despite Microsoft being light years ahead of Sony in that department.
The
only questions remain is can the Nintendo Switch break the
PlayStation 2 ceiling in both hardware and software? If it does
happen, then it's likely to happen after the Nintendo successor is
released; not before. Also expect games on Nintendo Switch well after
the successor is released, and expect more on the Nintendo Switch
than on the Nintendo Switch successor for many years to come, if the
PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series game lists comparisons to the
PlayStation 4 and XBOX One game lists are to be believed. Overall,
this was an aligned year that will be remembered for as long as we
are alive. Nintendo did the impossible with Nintendo Switch and it's
clear that they are not done with this system. The report is down
below and I hope you all enjoy it; even if it's for the absurdity of
it all.
[1.]
Nintendo Switch North American Game Release List Stats
All
Nintendo Platforms:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/NintendoPlatform.txt
Nintendo
Switch Game List:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/SwitchAA.txt
All
Platforms: http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/AllPlatform.txt
I have a more detailed comparison of all platforms in the links I have provided. This is the meat of the report and there is a lot to cover here.
[a.] Total Number Of Games
Unless otherwise stated, these figures apply to the North American region. The game list includes games that were de-listed titles. If the games are available separately as well as a compilation, the games separately will count, unless the compilation came first and the separate games came later in the case of the Capcom Arcade Stadium.
[i.] By Life To Date (March 3rd, 2017-March 2nd, 2024, Inclusive)
- Overall, the Nintendo Switch reached 11,724 games as of March 2nd, 2024 inclusive, 2557 days total.
*
For reference: PlayStation 4 has 8763 games, XBOX One has 6287 games,
PlayStation 5 has 2939 games and XBOX Series has 2044 games (seventh
overall).
* Out of those figures, 11,497 games were published by
third party publishers, and 11,604 games were developed by third
party developers.
* This puts Nintendo Switch into Commodore 64
retail terrority in terms of number of games released.
* Nintendo
Switch is the first closed-garden console/portable to reach 10,000
games or more (reached the feat on June 29th, 2023) and for now, the
only one.
* Steam has been around since 2004, thus 20 years.
Steam's 2004-2014 inclusive would be far less in amount of games
compared to Nintendo Switch nearing seven years, and it still has
three years to go. Steam 2015-2024 is when Steam stopped caring about
curation, when they started with 7000-8000 games a year, now 14,000
games a year.
- On average 1675 games were released per year, up from 1542 games per year (+133 games).
*
More on average than the combined Gamecube/Gameboy Advance lineup in
North America.
* Even if Switch releases zero games from here on
out; the ten year average of number of games released would be 1172.3
games; higher than PlayStation 4's 836.1 games at ten years and XBOX
One's 605.8 games at ten years.
* The margin is up by five games
compared to last year.
- 4.6 games per day were released, 32.1 games per week, 139.6 games per month.
- The lowest number of releases in one month is 12 games in May and June of 2017.
- The highest number of releases in one month is 251 games in October of 2023.
*
Nintendo Switch occupies all 25 spots in the Top 25 for all
platforms. Top 25 minimum is 172 games.
* For reference: The
highest non-Nintendo console peak is PlayStation 4 at 155 games on
September of 2022, followed by PlayStation 5 with 152 games on
October of 2023, XBOX One with 116 games on November 2021 and XBOX
Series with 98 games on both October and November of 2023.
- The lowest number of releases in one week is two games which happened six times, all in 2017: April 22nd, May 6th, May 20th, June 3rd, June 10th, July 1st.
- The highest number of releases in one week is 75 games which happened on the week ending October 30th, 2021 (Week 244).
*
This is only six less games than the Nintendo DS's peak month of 81
games.
* Nintendo Switch has the honor of having all 25 spots in
the top 25 on all Nintendo platforms and 24 of the top 25 spots among
all platforms. Top 25 minimum is 55 games for all Nintendo platforms
and all platforms.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 5's largest week is 67 games on the week ending February
25th, 2023 (Week 120); fifth largest week of all time on all
platforms.
+ XBOX One had 46 games on the week ending November
23rd, 2013 (Launch Week) and 34 games on the week ending October 2nd,
2021 (Non-Launch Week; Week 411).
+ PlayStation 4 had 49 games on
the week ending October 1st, 2022 (Week 464).
+ XBOX Series had 34
games on the week ending November 14th, 2020 (Launch Week) and 30
games on the week ending October 21st, 2023 (Non-Launch Week; Week
154).
- The highest number of releases in one day was 45 on Thursday, May 25th, 2023, the third largest in history and second non-launch week in history.
*
Among all Nintendo platforms, Switch occupies 23 of the Top 25 spots.
Top 25 minimum is 31 games, Wii and WiiU also has spots due to launch
day.
* Among all platfroms, Nintendo Switch occupies 21 of the top
25 spots and Wii U also has a spot due to the launch day. Top 25
minimum is 31 games.
* For reference:
+
XBOX 1's launch day had 46 games (Friday, November 22nd, 2013) and
it's non-launch day was 14 games. (Tuesday, November 10th, 2020).
+
PlayStation 5 had the biggest day one at 50 games, due to the release
of PlayStation VR2 (Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023).
+ PlayStation
4 had 24 games at launch day (Friday, November 15, 2013), and it's
non-launch days were 21 games (Tuesday, May 29th and Auguust 28,
2018).
+ XBOX Series had 32 games at launch day (Tuesday, November
10th, 2020), and it's non-launch day was 15 games (Thursday, December
7th, 2023).
- Nintendo Switch has the most games in their first align year when compared to all closed ecosystem platforms, at 470 games.
* PlayStation 5 has 420 games and XBOX Series has 401 games. All three generation nine systems broke their personal bests I should point out.
- Nintendo Switch has the most games in their second align year when compared to all closed ecosystem platforms, at 1321 games for that aligned year and 1791 games overall!
* PlayStation 5 has 891 games for their aligned year and 1311 games overall. XBOX Series has 592 games in the aligned year and 993 games overall. All three generation nine systems broke their personal bests I should point out.
- Nintendo Switch has the most games in their third align year when compared to all closed ecosystem platforms, at 1516 games for that aligned year and 3307 games overall!
* PlayStation 5 has 1233 games for their aligned year and 2542 games overall. XBOX Series has 808 games in the aligned year and 1801 games overall. All three generation nine systems broke their personal bests. All have already surpassed their previous generations games at the aligned year five mark by the time this was posted (Caveat: XBOX Series would surpass it on November 23rd, 2023, about 13 days after the aligned year was over.).
Overall Nintendo Switch Peak Game Releases by Day:
Sunday:
5
(Week
357)
- Wii and WiiU set the records since they launched on Sunday at 31
and 36 games in that order. PlayStation 4 has the non-launch record
at six games on August 7th, 2022.
Monday:
27
(Week
357)
- This record was set on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2023.
Tuesday:
29
(Week
82)
- XBOX Series launched on this day with 34 games.
Wednesday:
20
(Week
311)
- PS5 VR2 launched on this day and had a total of 50 games, setting
the one day record.
Thursday:
45
(Week
326)
- Second largest non-launch of all time, largest Thursday.
Friday:
21
(Week
298)
- XBOX One launched on this day with 46 games.
Saturday:
6
(Week
223, 349)
- PlayStation 4 sets the record with 13 games on Week 108 (December
5th, 2015).
-
Number of weeks on Nintendo Switch where all days had at least one
game released:
29
(Week
109, 130, 183, 192, 204, 208, 210, 214, 223, 228, 230, 239, 245, 253,
264, 284, 289, 293, 323, 337, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 351, 352, 360,
366).
-
Number
of weeks on Nintendo Switch where all days had at least two games
released:
4 (Week
351, 352, 360, 366).
[ii.] By Calendar Year 2023 (January 1st-December 31st, Inclusive)
- In Calendar Year 2023; Nintendo Switch had 2469 games released, 365 days total.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 had 1425 games released (a record for Sony systems), XBOX One had 989 games (a record for XBOX systems), PlayStation 5 had 1257 games released, and XBOX Series had 839 games.
- Here are the top ten calendar years in closed-garden console/portable history:
[1.]
Nintendo Switch (2023) - 2469 games.
[2.] Nintendo Switch (2022) -
2118 games.
[3.] Nintendo Switch (2021) - 1982 games.
[4.]
Nintendo Switch (2020) - 1711 games.
[5.] Nintendo Switch (2019) -
1553 games.
[6.] PlayStation 4 (2023) - 1425 games.
[7.]
PlayStation 4 (2022) - 1410 games.
[8.] PlayStation 5 (2023) -
1257 games.
[9.] PlayStation 4 (2021) - 1161 games.
[10]
Nintendo Switch (2018) - 1160 games.
- This is 351 more games compared to 2022's 2118 games.
* This is the largest margin since 2019 in comparison of 2018, at +393 games.
- 6.8 games per day were released, 47.4 games per week, 205.8 games per month.
*
This is the first time any platform had an average of 200 games per
month, with five of the 12 months being 215 games or more.
* This
is the first time any platform had more than 250 games in a single
month (October 2023).
* For reference, PlayStation 4's peak is
the highest Non-Switch month at 155 games in September of 2022,
meaning that the minimum for the calendar year was +19 games.
- January was the slowest month of 2023, at 174 games and the only month with a single digit increase; but a +51 from the peak minimum set on May 2022.
* July 2023 was the second slowest month and had an increase of +10 from last year.
- Not a single week in calendar year 2023 went below 23 games.
* Only two weeks in that same calendar year had between 21-30 games (Week ending June 17th and week ending August 26th).
- This calendar year 2023 surpasses Nintendo DS (2004-2016), Wii (2006-2020), PS2 (2000-2012) and XBOX 360 (2005-2018) LTD game releases in North America in just one year (with Nintendo DS's feat achieved just before November 1st, 2023).
* This is also 97 games short of PlayStation 3's LTD (2006-2017), meaning it took Switch just one year, one month to do what PlayStation 3 achieved in roughly 11 years.
===Breakdown By Month===
- 2023 Breakdown: January- 174, February- 196, March- 215, April- 216, May- 182, June- 195, July- 180, August- 182, September- 247, October- 251, November- 236, December- 195.
Minimum: 174, Maximum: 251, Average: 206.
- 2022 Breakdown: January- 172, February- 161, March- 168, April - 205, May- 123, June- 184, July- 170, August- 168, September- 229, October- 216, November- 195, December- 127.
Minimum: 123, Maximum: 229, Average: 177.
- 2021 Breakdown: January- 155, February- 143; March- 173, April- 165, May- 173, June- 152, July- 169, August- 159, September- 198, October- 220, November- 155, December- 120.
Minimum: 120, Maximum: 220, Average: 165.
- 2020 Breakdown: January- 115, February- 137; March- 128, April- 122, May- 141, June- 135, July- 150, August- 131, September- 143, October- 206, November- 155, December- 148.
Minimum: 115, Maximum: 206, Average: 143.
- 2019 Breakdown: January- 151, February- 128; March- 119, April- 126, May- 122, June- 110, July- 121, August- 128, September- 140, October- 179, November- 133, December- 96.
Minimum: 96, Maximum: 179; Average: 129.
- 2018 Breakdown: January- 47; February- 67, March- 79, April- 80, May- 102, June- 80, July 2018 - 97, August- 106, September- 127, October- 128, November- 139, December- 108.
Minimum: 47, Maximum: 139, Average: 97.
- 2017 Breakdown: March- 29; April- 13; May- 12; June- 12; July- 21; August- 27; September- 43; October- 51; November- 62; December- 70.
Minimum: 12, Maximum: 70, Average: 34.
[iii.] By Aligned Year Seven (March 3rd, 2023- March 2nd, 2024 inclusive)
- Aligned Year Seven had 2470 games released on Switch, 366 days total.
*
2167 games came out in Aligned Year Six; an increase of 303 games,
the second largest margin on the platform.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4's Aligned Year Seven totals 928 games, and it's most
recent Aligned Year (Ten) totals 1443 games (A Sony platform
record).
+ XBOX One's Aligned Year Seven totals 783 games, and
it's most recent Aligned Year (Ten) totals 992 games (A XBOX platform
record).
+ PlayStation 5's most recent Aligned Year (Three) totals
1233 games.
+ XBOX Series most recent Aligned Year (Three) totals
808 games.
- Here are the top ten Aligned Years for all closed-garden console/portables of all time:
[1.]
Nintendo Switch (Aligned Year 7): 2470 games.
[2.] Nintendo Switch
(Aligned Year 6): 2167 games.
[3.] Nintendo Switch (Aligned Year
5): 2020 games.
[4.] Nintendo Switch (Aligned Year 4): 1760
games.
[5.] Nintendo Switch (Aligned Year 3): 1516 games.
[6.]
PlayStation 4 (Aligned Year 10): 1443 games.
[7.] PlayStation 4
(Aligned Year 9): 1344 games.
[8.] Nintendo Switch (Aligned Year
2): 1321 games.
[9.] PlayStation 5 (Aligned Year 3): 1233
games.
[10] PlayStation 4 (Aligned Year 8): 1143 games.
- 6.8 games per day were released, 47.2 games per week, 205.8 games per month.
*
All twelve months had at least 139 games released, and only January
2024 had less than 180 games in a month.
* Six months had more
than 200 games. Even when the leap day is removed, February 2024
still had 200 games released.
- This is the first time a Nintendo system ever had the most games in an aligned year happen in Year Seven or further.
* This means Nintendo Switch joins PlayStation 4, XBOX One (whom both have their peak number of games released at Aligned Year 10 as of this writing), PlayStation Portable and XBOX 360 as the only known systems to achieve this feat.
- Switch managed to surpass the entire Nintendo DS (2004-2016) LTD in terms of game releases in North America in just roughly ten months, same pace as the Calendar Year 2023.
* This is just 96 games behind PlayStation 3's LTD in terms of game releases in North America.
- Switch in Aligned Year Six and beyond surpassed all 12 Nintendo platforms combined.
* This is now in second place behind PlayStation 4 (6120 games) in terms of games released Aligned Year Six and beyond (4637 games) among all platforms.
===Aligned Year Breakdown By Month===
- Aligned Year Seven: March 2023- 215, April- 216, May- 182, June- 195, July- 180, August- 182, September- 247, October- 251, November- 236, December- 195, January 2024- 139, February- 236.
Minimum: 139, Maximum: 251, Average: 206.
- Aligned Year Six: March 2022- 168, April- 205, May- 123, June- 184, July- 170, August- 168, September- 229, October- 216, November- 195, December- 127, January 2023- 174, February- 196.
Minimum: 123, Maximum: 229, Average: 180.
-
Aligned Year Five:
March
2021- 173, April- 165, May- 173, June- 152, July- 169, August- 159,
September- 198, October- 220, November- 155, December- 120, January
2022- 172, February- 161.
Minimum: 120, Maximum: 220, Average:
165.
- Aligned Year Four: March 2020- 128, April- 122, May- 141, June- 135, July- 150, August- 131, September- 143, October- 206, November- 155, December- 148, January 2021- 155, February- 143.
Minimum: 122, Maximum: 206, Average: 147.
- Aligned Year Three: March 2019- 119, April- 126, May- 122, June- 110, July- 121, August- 128, September- 140, October- 179, November- 133, December- 96, January 2020- 115, February- 137.
Minimum: 96 - Maximum: 179 - Average Per Month: 126.
- Aligned Year Two: March 2018- 79, April- 80, May- 102, June- 80, July 2018 - 97, August- 106, September- 127 , October- 128, November- 139 , December - 108, January 2019- 151, February - 128.
Minimum: 79 - Maximum: 151 - Average Per Month: 110.
- Aligned Year One: March 2017- 29; April- 13; May- 12; June- 12; July- 21; August- 27; September- 43; October- 51; November- 62; December- 70 ; January 2018- 47; February 2018- 67.
Minimum:
12 - Maximum: 70 - Average Per Month: 39.
[iv.]
By Fiscal Year 2023 (April 1st, 2023-March 31st, 2024, Inclusive)
- Here is the fiscal numbers breakdown (Caveat: Sony and Nintendo's fiscal year begins April 1st, Microsoft's fiscal year begins on July 1st, for reference.):
Fiscal
Year 2016:
Nintendo
Switch: 29
games. PlayStation 4: 63 games. XBOX One: 163 games.
Fiscal
Year 2017:
Nintendo
Switch:
504
games. PlayStation 4: 828 games. XBOX One: 525 games.
Fiscal
Year 2018:
Nintendo
Switch: 1365
games. PlayStation 4: 828 games. XBOX One: 599 games.
Fiscal
Year 2019:
Nintendo
Switch:
1534
games. PlayStation 4: 874 games. XBOX One: 664 games.
Fiscal
Year 2020:
Nintendo
Switch: 1802
games. PlayStation 4: 975 games. XBOX One: 876 games. PlayStation 5:
123 games. XBOX Series: 193 games.
Fiscal
Year 2021:
Nintendo
Switch: 2012
games. PlayStation 4: 1208 games. XBOX One: 970 games. PlayStation 5:
538 games. XBOX Series: 547 games.
Fiscal
Year 2022:
Nintendo Switch: 2202 games. PlayStation 4: 1452 games. XBOX One: 962
games. PlayStation 5: 1090 games. XBOX Series: 707 games.
Fiscal
Year 2023:
Nintendo Switch: 2497 games. PlayStation 4: 1439 games. XBOX One: 716
games so far. PlayStation 5: 1325 games. XBOX Series: 670 games so
far.
*
This means Nintendo Switch has 6.8 games a day, 47.8 games a week,
208.1 games a month.
* This means Nintendo Switch has a 295 game
increase from Fiscal Year 2022.
[v.]
ESRB Breakdown
- Switch has roughly 1125 M-Rated games on Switch overall (does not factor in DLC, bundles and other SKU's).
*
This is an average of 160.7 M-rated games a year and there were 226
M-Rated games this year alone (down three games from last year).
*
This is more than all 12 Nintendo platforms sans Switch combined
overall and this year alone and average amount of games per year.
*
Considering that there are more M-Rated games on Switch in SEVEN
YEARS than XBOX, PlayStation Vita, all Sega Platforms, all Yamaguchi
era Nintendo platforms, and Nintendo WiiU had games, period; the
percentage breakdown would be useless and the difference is more or
less the same as the Nintendo 64 as Switch's percentage is 9.6%.
*
Notice: I
will no longer be counting any ESRB breakdowns weaker than an M
rating due to massive changes on Nintendo's own website which now
includes DLC content as part of the rating.
[vi.]
Storylines For Aligned Year Eight:
- By Life To Date:
* Now that 10,381 games on Nintendo Switch was surpassed on August 31st, 2023; how many non-Nintendo systems will Nintendo Switch surpass combined with the Nintendo systems? Right now, besides the twelve Nintendo systems; the Nintendo Switch has surpassed NEO-GEO Pocket Color, Sega 32X, Nokia N-Gage, Atari Jaguar, NEO-GEO CD, Atari Lynx, NEO-GEO Arcade, Sega Master System, Turbographix-16, Sega CD, Panasonic 3D0 and Sega Game Gear combined and currently 128 games away from Sega Saturn being combined. That's 24 out of 40 platforms that I have compiled. (Caveat: Don't get too attached to it, because Switch's successor will render this meaningless; but still amazing all things considered.)
- Also, since the PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series debut on November 10th and 12th of 2020:
+ PlayStation 4 has released 4355 games since PS5's
debut, 1416 more games than PlayStation 5 currently has.
+ XBOX
One has released 3108 games since XBOX Series debut, 1064 more games
than XBOX Series currently has.
* Nintendo Switch successor, are you listening?! This
is your future.
* As for WiiU/3DS, it was a combined 365 games;
and Switch surpassed that amount at early as ten months.
- By Aligned Year Eight, Fiscal Year 2024 and 2024 Calendar Year:
* The only thing left that I can think of is setting up the first Nintendo platform to have a Aligned Year Eight have the most games on the same year Nintendo Switch is close to surpassing XBOX 360's run before a successor is released, but that would be foolish now. Is it?! 2500 games in one year?! Sounds stupid, but why put it past this company after getting the second longest system cycle before a sucessor is released already?!
- ESRB Breakdown:
* A long term goal would be getting over 1200-1300 M-rated games on the Switch. Maybe have more M-rated games than Playstation Portable, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 1 have games, period?
- Other Notables:
* Also of note: If Switch somehow reaches 14,175 games (which might be possible by Aligned Year Nine), it would be the first Nintendo platform to have more games after year five than the first five years, meaning a percentage of less than 50% for the first five years. NES percentage is the closest among all Nintendo platforms at 57.6% in the first five years, in case anyone is keeping track, Nintendo DS is 59.5%, and Switch is currently at 60.5% in third closest after just two aligned years.
*
Nintendo Switch now has the second largest amount of games released
after Aligned Year Five bypassing XBOX One. PlayStation 4 has the
largest at over 6120 games, with Switch at 4637 games. Huh.
[b.]
Number of Publishers and Developers Overall
Side Note: In the case of developers, it can be quite messy since a lot of games nowadays use a ad-hoc approach in that multiple developers get into the action. The developer numbers are based on the planning team and don't include the out-sourced developers (like Bandai-Namco for instance or porting teams like Blind Squirrel and QLOC. Those are included in the Nintendo Switch Game List though). If a game is published by a third party like SquareEnix for example; but sub-published by Nintendo outside Japan, the 3rd party publisher is counted and Nintendo is considered a distributor as an example.
===Publishers===
- 2197 publishers have published at least one game on Nintendo Switch (first overall), 262 new publishers debuted new games this year (down 25 publishers from last year) and an average of 313.9 new publishers per year. (down by 8.6 publishers.)
*
First and only closed-garden console/portable to reach over 2000
publishers with at least one game released.
* The average margins
are higher than the Wii U had in it's lifetime in terms of publisher
debuts and WiiU had the most publishers before the Nintendo Switch
took over in terms of Nintendo platforms. In terms of overall: It's
also higher than PlayStation Vita, and 24 games short of PlayStation
3.
* For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to
fifth): PlayStation 4 has 1779 publishers, XBOX One has 1612
publishers, PlayStation 5 has 678 publishers and XBOX Series has 568
publishers.
- The average number of games per publisher is 5.34, the third lowest in Nintendo history and the 14th lowest overall.
*
WiiU is the lowest among Nintendo platforms at 3.46 games per
publisher and second lowest among all 40 platforms, with the lowest
being Google Stadia at 3.01 games per publisher overall.
* The
highest among Nintendo platforms is GBA with 14.39 games per
publisher (34th overall), while Sega Master System is the highest
among 40 platforms with 28.25 games per publisher.
* For
reference: PlayStation 4 has 4.93 games per publisher (13th overall),
XBOX One has 3.90 games per publisher (sixth overall), PlayStation 5
has 4.33 games per publisher (11th overall) and XBOX Series has 3.60
games per publisher (fifth overall).
===Developers===
- 4984 developers have developed at least one game on Nintendo Switch (first overall), 724 new developers debuted new games this year (down 58 developers from last year) and an average of 712 new developers per year, an increase of two developers on average.
*
First and only closed-garden console/portable to bypass 4000
developers, and are 16 developers away from being the first and only
to surpass 5000 developers.
* The average margins are higher than
Nintendo DS had in it's lifetime in terms of developer debuts and
Nintendo DS had the most developers before Nintendo Switch took over
in terms of Nintendo platforms. In terms of overall: It's also higher
than PlayStation Vita and XBOX 360 and roughly one hundred developers
short of PlayStation 3.
* For reference (all rankings are in
sequence from second to fifth): PlayStation 4 has 3712 developers,
XBOX One has 3365 developers, PlayStation 5 has 1657 developers, and
XBOX Series has 1403 developers.
- The average number of games per developer is 2.35 games per developer; technically the second lowest in Nintendo history and fifteen lowest overall.
*
Virtual Boy is the lowest among all Nintendo platforms at 1.56 games
per developer and is fifth lowest overall. The lowest overall is Sega
32X at 1.44 games per developer.
* The highest in Nintendo
history is the NES at 4.29 games per developer (37th overall), with
NEO-GEO Arcade at 6.36 games per developer.
* For reference:
PlayStation 4 has 2.36 games per developer (16th overall), XBOX One
has 1.87 games per developer (eighth overall), PlayStation 5 has 1.77
games per developer (seventh overall) and XBOX Series is at 1.46
games per developer, (second overall).
===Publisher/Developer Ratio===
- The developers to publisher ratio is 2.27; fifth lowest to Wiiu's 1.45, 3DS's 1.93,Gameboy's 2.13 and Virtual Boy's 2.27 among Nintendo platforms and thirteenth overall.
*
The lowest ratio among Nintendo platforms is WiiU at 1.45 (third
overall); and NEO-GEO CD has the honor of being the lowest possible
ratio possible at 1.00.
* The biggest ratio among Nintendo
platforms is Gamecube at 4.13 (33rd overall) and overall goes to
Turbographix 16 at 10.00.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 2.09
(tied for seventh overall), XBOX One has 2.09 (tied for seventh
overall), PlayStation 5 has 2.44 (16th overall) and XBOX Series has
2.47 (18th overall).
* Storylines for Aligned Year Eight:
- Publishers:
* If Switch were to maintain the number of new publishers releasing games, maybe have an increase: Switch might make a run for over 2300 publishers for the Switch alone sometime before Aligned Year Nine starts, and surpass 2200 publishers during Aligned Year 8. (Caveat: Nintendo Switch will surpass at least 2200 publishers on the week ending March 16th, 2024.) Changes in policy to allow many more publishers outside the usual Nintendo inner circle to publish their wares have led to figures exploding in addition to the success of the Switch itself and the presence of the eShop itself.
- Developers:
*
If Switch were able to maintain the number of new developers and
increase the figures per year, they will surpass 5000 developers,
probably by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2024.
(Caveat:
Nintendo
Switch will surpass 5000 developers with at least one game developed
on the week ending March 16th, 2024.)
[c.]
Publisher & Developer Breakdown
===Publishers===
- Hamster is the number one publisher for Switch at 415 games; the highest total regardless of being a first or third party publisher among all forty platforms.
- Ratalaika Games has 267 games in second place, becoming the second biggest third party publisher on a Nintendo platform and fifth place overall.
* That means Nintendo Switch is the first and only closed-garden console/portable to have two third party publishers with over 250 games or more. PlayStation 4's Hamster is the only other third party publisher to surpass 250 games or more at 369 games.
- Ultimate Games is in third place at 239 games and is fourth place among all Nintendo platforms, and ninth overall.
* Ultimate Games need just 11 games to become the third third party publisher on Nintendo Switch to surpass 250 games or more.
- Nintendo has 227 games which puts them in fourth place, is fifth place overall in terms of publishing on all Nintendo platforms and is tenth overall in terms of publishing on all forty platforms.
*
This means the gap between first and it's current position is -188;
the biggest gap in Nintendo platform history. GBA has the second
largest at -67; and Nintendo was in third place on that platform.
*
In terms of first party publishers: Nintendo is second to only
Nintendo 3DS (249 games) among Nintendo platforms, and fourth among
all first party publishers with Sony PlayStation 3 having the most at
302 games and XBOX 360 Microsoft at 279 games. (Caveat:
Microsoft
and Sony published a lot of indie games during the XBOX 360 and
PlayStation 3 runs.)
* Nintendo is the only first party publisher who makes
closed-garden consoles/portables to not surpass 250 or more games
published.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 Sony has 206 games
(third on PS4), XBOX One Microsoft has 88 games (fifth on XB1),
PlayStation 5 Sony has 61 games (fifth on PS5) and XBOX Series
Microsoft has 19 games (tied for 17th place on XBXS; only Stadia
(tied for 18th place on Google Stadia) had a lower ranking).
- eastasiasoft is in fifth place at 207 games and is sixth place among all Nintendo platforms.
*
eastasiasoft easily sets the record for the highest Top 5 Publishing
minimum for forty platforms as well as all Nintendo platforms.
*
For reference: PlayStation 4 is at 118 games, XBOX One is at 88
games, PlayStation 5 is at 61 games, and XBOX Series is at 33
games.
* Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and XBOX One all have
pretty much the same pattern when it comes to who publishes in the
top five. Even though the number of games are vastly different, the
same five publishers are present: Hamster, Ratalaika Games,
eastasiasoft, hardware publisher (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) and a
third party (Bandai-Namco for Sony, Ultimate Games for Nintendo and
Ubi Soft for Microsoft).
+
Nintendo Switch:
Hamster:
415 games, Ratalaika Games: 267 games, Ultimate Games: 239 games,
Nintendo: 227 games and eastasiasoft: 207 games.
+
PlayStation 4: Hamster:
369 games, Ratalaika Games: 244 games, Sony: 206 games, eastasiasoft:
199 games and Bandai-Namco: 118 games.
+
XBOX One:
Ratalaika
Games: 249 games, eastasiasoft: 140 games, Hamster: 120 games, Ubi
Soft: 93 games and Microsoft: 88 games.
+
PlayStation 5:
eastasiasoft:
178 games; Ratalaika Games: 163 games; Smobile: 84 games; Webnetics:
70 games and Sony Interactive Entertainment: 61 games.
+
XBOX Series:
Ratalaika
Games: 163 games; eastasiasoft: 96 games; Nacon: 46 games; Sometimes
You: 35 games and Electronic Arts: 33 games;.
- Rounding out the Top 10 after that are QuByte Interactive at 126 games, QubicGames at 125 games, Red Deer Games at 124 games, Ocean Media at 104 games and Sega is tenth at 103 games.
*
Forever Entertainment is in eleventh place with 100 games for
reference.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation
4:
SMobile 110 games, SquareEnix: 108 games, Webnetics: 108 games,
Breakthrough Gaming: 104 games and Ubi Soft: 96 games.
+ XBOX
One:
Electronic Arts: 87 games, Bandai-Namco: 81 games, Sometimes You: 72
games, QuByte Interactive: 71 games and Nacon: 68 games.
+
PlayStation
5:
Ocean Media: 52 games, Nacon: 46 games, Sometimes You: 44 games,
Zakym: 41 games and ThiGames: 36 games.
+ XBOX
Series:
Jandusoft: 32 games, Kemco: 31 games, Sega; 27 games, Bandai-Namco:
27 games and Microids: 25 games.
- Top Ten Publishing Minimum is at 103 games, which is the highest minimum for any closed-garden console/portable in history.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 is at 96 games (2nd overall), XBOX One is at 68 games (fourth overall), PlayStation 5 is at 36 games (12th overall) and XBOX Series is at 25 games (tied for 14th overall with Nintendo 3DS).
===Developers===
- Nintendo is the number one developer for Switch with 114 games.
*
This is officially the largest developmental output in Nintendo
history and among all platforms first-party wise.
* Among
Nintendo platforms, this is the largest output ever regardless of
first nor third party.
* Among all forty platforms
first/second/third party, Nintendo is fourth overall, behind
Electronic Arts for XBOX 360 at 131 games, Electronic Arts for
PlayStation 2 at 128 games and Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3 at
115 games.
* This means a gap between first and second of +4
games.
- SNK Corporation is the number two developer for Switch at 110 games.
*
Among Nintendo platforms, it is the largest third party developer and
the only developer to surpass 100 games developed among all Nintendo
platforms.
* Among all forty platforms, it is tied sixth largest
developer with SMobile for PlayStation 4 and fifth among third party
developers behind Nintendo, the three Electronic Arts platforms
mentioned earlier and Lightspan for PlayStation One at 113 games.
- Pix Arts is the number three developer for Switch at 97 games.
*
It's the second biggest third party developer among all Nintendo
platforms and the third highest total among all Nintendo platforms.
*
Among all forty platforms, Pix Arts is tenth overall.
- Benjamin Kistler is the number four developer for Switch at 68 games.
* It's ranked sixth among all Nintendo platforms.
- Rounding out the Top Five is Namco at 67 games.
*
It's ranked seventh among all Nintendo platforms.
* For
reference:
+
PlayStation
4:
SMobile:
110 games, Webnetics: 108 games, Breakthrough Gaming: 104 games, SNK
Corporation: 88 games and Namco: 71 games.
+ XBOX
One:
SNK Corporation: 67 games, Ubi Soft: 62 games, Artifex Mundi: 55
games, Pix Arts: 48 games and EpiXR: 45 games.
+ PlayStation
5:
SMobile: 84 games, Webnetics: 70 games, Zakym: 41 games, ThiGames: 36
games and Zoo Corporation: 29 games.
+ XBOX
Series:
Artifex Mundi: 20 games, Super Power Up: 20 games, Ubi Soft: 19
games, EXE-Create: 17 games, Lightwood Games: 15 games.
- Top Five Developing Minimum is at 67 games.
*
First among Nintendo platforms, but second among all forty
platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 is at 71 games (largest
overall), XBOX One is at 45 games (fourth overall), PlayStation 5 is
at 29 games (tenth overall) and XBOX Series is at 15 games (outside
top ten).
- Rounding out the Top Ten after that are: Taito at 64 games, Midnight Works at 62 games, MeGame at 61 games, Konami at 58 games, and Sabec at 57 games.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation
4:
Ubi
Soft: 62 games; Konami: 60 games; Midnight Works: 56 games, EpiXR
Games: 54 games and Taito are tied with 54 games.
+ XBOX
One:
Electronic
Arts:
44
games, EXE-Create:
39 games, Capcom: 32 games, Milestone: 31 games and Cerobit: 27
games.
+ PlayStation
5:
Super Power Up: 26 games, Dillyframe: 20 games, EXE-Create: 19 games,
Ubi Soft: 19 games and Artifex Mundi/Winged Cloud are tied at 16
games.
+ XBOX
Series: Electronic
Arts: 14 games, Joindots: 13 games, Kairosoft: 13 games, Milestone:
13 games, 909 Games: 9 games and Adamvision Studios are tied with 9
games.
- Top Ten Developing Minimum is at 57; which is now a new record for all forty platforms.
*
Switch was the first to reach this feat.
* For reference:
PlayStation 4 is at 54 games (second overall), XBOX One is at 27
games (third overall), PlayStation 5 is at 16 games (12th overall)
and XBOX Series is at 9 games (tied at 20th overall).
* Storylines for Aligned Year Eight:
- Here's the Top 10 Publishers if the figures were launched aligned to five years (Caveat: eastasiasoft is not accounted for since it wasn't in the Top Ten at Aligned Year Five):
Launched
Aligned Number of Games at Five Years (Aligned Year Six &
Beyond):
[1.]
Hamster (Switch*) : 300 (115)
[2.] Nintendo (WiiU) : 195 (0)
[3.]
Nintendo (3DS) : 189 (60)
[4.] Ratalaika (Switch*) : 163
(104)
[5.] Nintendo (Switch*) : 152 (75)
[6.] Nintendo (Wii) :
144 (9)
[7.] Ultimate Games (Switch*): 139 (100)
[8.] Ubi Soft
(NDS) : 131 (26)
[9.] Nintendo (NDS) : 125 (51)
[10.] T*HQ
(GBA) : 101 (23)
- Two years later, Nintendo for the Switch reached 227 games and has gained 75 games giving it the largest output of any Nintendo platform in history since Aligned Year Five. While it's unlikely for Nintendo Switch to bypass their output for Nintendo 3DS at this time, they are 23 games away from that mark. They'll need a lot of small games and Nintendo Switch On-Line titles. Right now, outside of Metroid Prime 4, Princess Peach Showtime, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Endless Ocean: Luminous, only the F-Zero GBA title is left, and it's unlikely Mother 3 and From Whom The Frog Bell Tolls is coming outside of Japan since these game lists account for the North American region only; it looks like Nintendo Switch's final output will be around 235 games.
[d.] Publisher and Developer Breakdown by Milestones
- Both publishers and developers are number one on all Nintendo platforms and all forty platforms with two or more games published and developed, at 1008 publishers and 1643 developers in that order.
*
The gap between "one game and done", to two or more games
is 1189 publishers (54.1%) and 3341 developers (67.0%).
* Nintendo
Switch is the first and only closed-garden console/portable to
surpass 1000 publishers with two games or more.
* In terms of
publishers; Switch has more publishers with two or more games than
all Nintendo systems sans Switch combined. This also applies to
developers now.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation
4
has
1040 publishers "one game and done" (58.4%) and 2464
developers (66.4%).
+ XBOX
One
has
1006 publishers "one game and done" (62.4%) and 2375
developers (70.6%).
+ PlayStation
5
has
388 publishers "one game and done" (57.2%) and 1264
developers (75.7%).
+ XBOX
Series
has
357 publishers "one game and done" (62.9%) and 1121
developers (79.9%).
*
For reference (all ranking are in sequence from second to fifth):
PlayStation 4 has 739 publishers, XBOX One has 606 publishers,
PlayStation 5 has 290 publishers, and XBOX Series has 211
publishers.
* For reference (all rankings are in sequence from
second to fourth): PlayStation 4 has 1248 developers, XBOX One has
990 developers, PlayStation 5 has 403 developers and XBOX Series has
282 developers (eighth overall).
* Storyline: At this point, seeing developers with two or more games get to 2000 for the first time ever would be a bonus, however; that is much more unlikely at this point given the console cycle nearly coming to a close.
- Switch is number one among publishers on all platforms with five or more games with 419 publishers. Switch is number among developers on all platforms with five or more games with 386.
*
For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to fifth):
PlayStation 4 has 279 publishers, XBOX One has 217 publishers,
PlayStation 5 has 124 publishers and XBOX Series has 96 publishers.
*
For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to third):
PlayStation 4 has 293 developers, XBOX One has 198 developers,
PlayStation 5 has 77 developers (ninth overall) and XBOX Series has
41 developers (16th overall).
* Storyline: Next up for Nintendo Switch is publishers getting 448 or more publishers to surpass all Nintendo platforms sans Switch combined.
- Switch is number one among publishers on all platforms with ten or more games with 235. Switch is number one among developers on all platforms with ten or more games with 162.
*
For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to fourth):
PlayStation 4 has 163 publishers, XBOX One has 115 publishers,
PlayStation 5 has 65 publishers and XBOX Series has 47 publishers
(sixth overall).
* For reference (all rankings are in sequence
from second and third): PlayStation 4 has 122 developers, XBOX One
has 58 developers, PlayStation 5 has 28 developers (ninth overall)
and XBOX Series has nine developers (tied at 20th overall).
* Storyline: Nintendo Switch's next goal is getting over 250 publishers with ten or more and over 200 developers with the same. They can also get 254 or more publishers to surpass all Nintendo systems sans Switch combined.
- Switch is number one among publishers on all platforms with 25 or more games at 91 publishers. Switch is first among developers on all platforms with 25 or more games at 47 developers.
*
For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to third):
PlayStation 4 has 72 publishers, XBOX One has 51 publishers,
PlayStation 5 has 20 publishers (tied at fifth), and XBOX Series has
10 publishers (tied at 14th overall).
* For reference (all
rankings are in sequence from second): PlayStation 4 has 29
developers, XBOX One has 10 developers (tied for fourth overall), PS5
has 6 developers (tied for seventh overall), and XBOX Series has no
developers (tied for 27th).
* Storyline: Believe it or not, becoming the first console to reach 100 publishers with 25 or more games, and 50 developers with 25 or more games are possible now with the Nintendo Switch.
- Switch is in first place among publishers on all platforms with 50 or more games at 34 publishers. Switch is in first place among developers on all platforms with 50 or more games at 14 developers.
*
For reference (all rankings are in sequence from second to third):
PlayStation 4 has 32 publishers, XBOX One has 21 publishers,
PlayStation 5 has six publishers (tied for ninth), XBOX Series has
two publishers (tied for 16th).
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has
twelve developers (second overall), XBOX One has three developers
(tied for fourth overall), PlayStation 5 has two developers (tied for
sixth overall), and XBOX Series has no developers (tied for 18th
overall).
* Storyline: Wow, the developers output nearly tripled from the last aligned year! There are several publishers close to 50 games or more (Capcom, Devolver Digital, Gotcha Gotcha Games and Chilidog Interactive), however; I don't expect much more progress from this group this aligned year.
- Switch is first among publishers on all platforms with 100 or more games at eleven publishers. Switch is the only developer among all Nintendo platforms with more than 100 games with two developers, but only PlayStation 4 has more developers than Nintendo Switch does with three developers.
*
For reference: PlayStation 4 has nine publishers (second overall),
XBOX One has three publishers (tied for seventh overall), PlayStation
5 has two publishers (tied for tenth), and XBOX Series has one
publisher (tied for 12th overall).
* For reference: PlayStation 4
has three developers (first overall); XBOX One, PlayStation 5 and
XBOX Series have no developers (tied for seventh). PlayStation 3,
XBOX 360, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 1 all had one (tied for third
overall).
* Storyline: Pix Arts/Benoit Varasse is two games on the publisher side and three on the developer side to get 100 games or more (and perhaps tie PlayStation 4's only real record mark in this area), but they have stalled since they have run out of games to release.
- Switch is first among publishers on all platforms with 250 games with two publishers. No closed-garden console/portable have done the feat on the developer side.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 is the only other console to at least done the feat once, tied for second with XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3. The rest are tied at fifth with no publishers.
*
Storyline:
XBOX
One is getting close to being the first XBOX system to pull off the
feat though and probably will during Switch's eighth aligned year. As
for the developer side, keep dreaming, not happening. Maybe
open-garden systems like PC and mobile have pulled it off; but I'm
not compiling millions and millions of games minimum since it took me
months just to compile the PlayStation 4 and XBOX One data alone.
Hamster might get over 500 games or more on the publishing side; but
that will be another two years or so, and Hamster probably needs to
acquire more arcade developers to pull this off.
[e.]
By Genre
Nintendo
Switch Top 60: http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/Top30genre1.txt
All
Platforms Top 100: http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/Top100genre1.txt
Side Note: Now here's where things get really messy. In order to keep these stats from getting out of control, I base the games on the majority genre that each game has since many games on Switch have more than one genre. Also; I try to keep the genres down to ten genres (Sports and Other are the exception as they can be unlimited in their respective sub-genres). Strategy, Tower Defense and Action RPG's fit in the RPG category. Action/Adventure games are usually Adventure unless there is ample evidence that Action overwhelms Adventure. Beat'em Ups are Action games. I ignore Arcade as a genre completely since it's a platform and Arcade games have many genres. Some action games I have noticed are not action games, but clearly shooters. Twin Stick shooters are shooters. Hunting games are considered shooters for the purpose of compiling. Fishing simulations are considered Sports games, unless the majority genre is another genre. This applies to Golf Story in that sense, that it's RPG rather than Sports/Golf. Mini-Games are Other/Party, Dancing/Rhythm games are Other/Music.
- Adventure has 2003 games or 17.1% of the Switch lineup.
*
This means Nintendo Switch has the most Adventure titles on all
Nintendo platforms in the same genre and all genres and the most of
any closed-garden console/portable in both the same genre and all
genres in history.
* This also makes Nintendo Switch Adventure the
first and only genre among all genres to surpass 2000 games.
* In
fact, there are now more Adventure games on Switch in SEVEN YEARS
than the Wii, PlayStation 2 and XBOX 360 had games in it's entire
lifetime in North America, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 1707 Adventure games (first overall on the platform
and all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all platforms and
third on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has 1417
Adventure games (first overall on the platform and all XBOX
platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and seventh on
all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 667 Adventure
games (first overall on the platform, second among all Sony
platforms, fourth on the same genre on all platforms and tied for
17th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 538
Adventure games (first overall on the platform, second among all XBOX
platforms, fifth on the same genre on all platforms and 21st on all
genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: There is little for Adventure to prove, other then to maintain the #1 spot over Action, which is usually #1 on six of Nintendo's platforms. They do need 45 games to reach Nintendo DS's entire game lineup. Adventure games are now the bread and butter of the industry as it's progression of bigger worlds and more narrative has been popular among gamers and when the popularity rises, game developers will be inspired to clone and make Adventure games, particually in the open-world context. Advances in technology have helped a lot for this genre and continue to be the focus of gaming in general. Almost to the point of saturation itself.
- Action has 1984 games or 16.9% of the Switch lineup.
*
Action is first among all platforms in the same genre, but is second
in overall genres among all platforms. This obviously also means all
Nintendo platforms as well.
* There are more Action games on
Switch in SEVEN YEARS than the Wii, PlayStation 2 and XBOX 360 had
games in it's entire lifetime in North America, period.
* For
reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 1689 Action games (second overall on the platform,
second on all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
plaftorms and fourth on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One
has 1150 Action games (second overall on the platform, second on all
XBOX platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and ninth on
all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 557 Action games
(second overall on the platform, ninth on all Sony platforms, fourth
on the same genre on all platforms and 20th on all genres on all
platftorms).
+ XBOX Series has 312 Action games (second overall on
the platform, tenth on all XBOX platforms, seventh on the same genre
on all platforms and 41st on all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: Basically the same as Adventure. They need 64 games short of Nintendo DS entire lineup in North America and 16 games short of being the second genre in closed-garden console/portable history to surpass 2000 games. Action is also closing the gap on Adventure, so the previous bread and butter genre of the industry is looking to overtake thefirst position overall once again. Despite Action taking a backseat to Adventure in this genre, the progress is leaps and bounds ahead compared to genres in the pre-Iwata era for most platforms except for Nintendo platforms, as GBA was the biggest Action supporter until Nintendo Switch arrived.
- Other has 1600 games or 13.7% of the Switch lineup.
*
Other is first among all Nintendo platforms and all forty platforms
in the same genre, third overall among all Nintendo platforms and
fifth overall among all genres on all platforms.
* There are more
Other games on Switch in SEVEN YEARS than the PlayStation,
PlayStation Portable and Nintendo 3DS had games in it's entire
lifetime in North America, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 805 Other games (fifth overall on the platform,
fifth on all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and 15th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has
512 Other games (fifth overall on the platform, sixth on all XBOX
platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and 22nd on all
genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 338 Other games
(fourth overall on the platform, 17th on all Sony platforms, fifth on
the same genre on all platforms and tied for 37th on all genres on
all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 184 Other games (fifth overall
on the platform, 21st on all XBOX platforms, 11th on the same genre
on all platforms and tied 85th on all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: The Wii/DS effect really showed up this year as Other had a pretty huge increase from last year and leapfrogged over Puzzles, Shooters and even RPG's. The Visual Novel effect helped a lot in this increase. Other needs roughly 200 games to surpass Wii and PlayStation 2 lineups LTD in North America.
Side Note: I'll breakdown the Other genres and Sports genres by genre in a separate section. There are a lot of storylines concerning how Nintendo Switch got the numbers it did.
- Puzzle has 1437 games or 12.3% of the Switch lineup.
*
Puzzle is first among all platforms in the same genre; but is fourth
among all genres among all Nintendo platforms and sixth overall among
all genres on all platforms.
* There are more Puzzles games on
Switch in SEVEN YEARS than the PlayStation, PlayStation Portable and
Nintendo 3DS had games in it's entire lifetime in North America,
period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 667 Puzzle games (sixth overall on the platform,
sixth on all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and tied for 17th on all genres on all platforms).
+
XBOX One has 473 Puzzle games (fifth overall on the platform, seventh
on all XBOX platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and
24th on all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 225
Puzzle games (fifth overall on the platform, 27th on all Sony
platforms, sixth on the same genre on all platforms and 69th on all
genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 130 Puzzle games
(seventh overall on the platform, outside top 24 on all XBOX
platforms (20th if Sports/Others are separate), ninth on the same
genre on all platforms, outside top 100 on all genres on all
platforms (89th if Sports/Others are separate)).
* Storyline: Puzzle is one of those genres where it shines the best on systems with a portable nature, especially if you have a touch screen present as many puzzle games nowadays require or highly recommend one. There is a lot of escape games and point and click games that use mostly elements of the Puzzle genre. This explains why there is a 14:6 ratio difference between the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4. Puzzles are also for an audience who mostly shuns ultra violent games (although there are at least twenty games that literally use the word hentai in their titles) and the Wii/Nintendo DS era is responsible for changing the prespective of Puzzle games being one of the smallest group of games during the pre-Iwata to having the largest Puzzle output of all time on Nintendo Switch. 1500 Puzzle games or more seems to be much more possible now.
- RPG has 1370 games or 11.7% of the Switch lineup.
*
RPGs is first among all platforms in the same genre, fifth in overall
genres among all Nintendo platforms and eighth overall among all
genres on all platforms.
* There are more RPGs on Switch in SEVEN
YEARS than the PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo
3DS had games in it's entire lifetime in North America, period.
*
For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 1149 RPGs (third overall on the platform, third
among all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all platforms
and tenth on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has 822 RPGs
(third overall on the platform, third among all XBOX platforms, third
on the same genre on all platforms and 14th on all genres on all
platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 348 RPGs (third overall on the
platform, 16th among all Sony platforms, fourth on the same genre on
all platforms and 33rd on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX
Series has 277 RPGs (third overall on the platform, 13th among all
XBOX platforms, sixth on the same genre on all platforms and 51st on
all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: The RPG genre lost it's highest ranking ever to the Other and Puzzle genres. Still, the RPG genre has become huge in spite of the rankings decline, and that hasn't changed much. RPGs are 20 games away from reaching PlayStation 1's entire North American games lineup.
- Shooter has 1142 games or 9.7% of the Switch lineup.
*
Shooter is first among all platforms in the same genre, sixth in
overall genres among all Nintendo platforms and 11th place among all
genres on all platforms.
* Shooter becomes the sixth genre (fifth
if Other is not accounted for) to surpass 1000 games.
* There are
more Shooter games on Switch in SEVEN YEARS than the Gameboy Advance,
WiiU and PlayStation Vita had games in it's entire lifetime in North
America, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 1100 Shooters (fourth overall on the platform,
fourth among all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and 12th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has
751 Shooters (fourth overall on the platform, fourth among all XBOX
platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and 16th on all
genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 331 Shooters (fifth
overall on the platform, 18th among all Sony platforms, sixth on the
same genre on all platforms and tied for 39th on all genres on all
platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 243 Shooters (fourth overall on the
platform, 17th among all XBOX platforms, seventh on the same genre on
all platforms and 63rd on all genres on all platforms).
*
Storyline:
Mostly
increasing it's numbers further and is 94 games away from surpassing
the entire PlayStation Portable lineup of games. The Shooter genre is
more of a 18-34 male demographic type of genre due to the
normalization of first person shooters, third person shooters and
twin stick shooters in recent years. Somehow, despite the limited
demographics, this genre is still in style regardless. The XBOX
stereotype of being a shooters paradise is a false narrative since
even though the ranking of Shooters on XBOX 360 was number one on the
platform, the PlayStation 3 had more shooters than XBOX 360 ever did.
The Shooter genre is one of the few genres on the Nintendo Switch
where a Non-Nintendo platform is actually competitive even if the
time difference makes it look worse when factored in. Also, Switch
has motion controls that can use the controller like a gun, similar
to Wii.
- Simulation has 977 games or 8.3% of the Switch lineup.
*
Simulation is first among all platforms in the same genre; seventh in
overall genres among all Nintendo platforms and 13th among all genres
on all platforms.
* Simulation becomes the seventh genre (sixth if
Other is not accounted for) to become lucky (getting 777 games or
more).
* Simulation has more games on Switch in SEVEN YEARS than
SNES, XBOX and Gameboy Advance has games in it's lifetime in North
America, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 624 Simulations (seventh overall on the platform,
eighth among all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and 19th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has
430 Simulations (seventh overall on the platform, eighth among all
XBOX platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and 25th on
all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 191 Simulations
(seventh overall on the platform, 37th among all Sony platforms,
fifth on the same genre on all platforms and 80th on all genres on
all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 159 Simulations (sixth overall
on the platform, 24th among all XBOX platforms, sixth on the same
genre on all platforms and 95th on all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: Simulation is 23 games away from the seventh genre (sixth if Other is not accounted for) to surpass 1000 games and 75 games away from surpassing WiiU lifetime games in North America. Simulators were more of a PC thing before the Wii/DS era as hardware limits and the fact that the mouse was one of the few controllers benefited the genre more than the two joystick/controller method of traditional consoles. Nintendo DS's touch screen changed that reality and it explains why Nintendo DS had so many simulators. It also helped that games like Nintendogs and Cooking Mama helped show that a simulator can sell millions and be a big deal. Nowadays, many real life situations have an occupying simulator and due to the Nintendo Switch having touch screen and motion controls that can be as helpful as a mouse, it's no surprise that Nintendo Switch is closing in on a thousand simulators. It's progress throughout the generations has been slower than Adventure, Other and Puzzle though.
- Racing has 500 games or 4.3% of the Switch lineup.
*
Racing is first among all platforms in the same genre; eighth in
overall genres among all Nintendo platforms, and 23rd among all
genres on all platforms.
* Racing has become the eighth genre
(seventh when Others is not accounted for) to surpass 500 games or
more.
* This is more games in SEVEN YEARS than the Gameboy Color's
LTD game lineup in North America, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 395 Racing games (eighth overall on the platform,
12th among all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and 28th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has
294 Racing games (eighth overall on the platform, 11th among all XBOX
platforms, third on the same genre on all platforms and tied for 45th
on all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 140 Racing
games (eighth overall on the platform, outside top 41 among all Sony
platforms (35th when Sports and Others are separate), eighth on the
same genre on all platforms and outside top 100 on all genres on all
platforms (86th when Sports and Others are separate)).
+ XBOX
Series has 94 Racing games (eighth overall on the platform, outside
top 24 among all XBOX platforms, 12th on the same genre on all
platforms and outside top 100 on all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: Racing is also three games away from surpassing Gameboy and 59 games away from Gamecube's LTDs in North America. Racing has plateaued quite a bit in terms of game released compared to many other genres, mostly due to the Mario Kart effect.
- Sports has 402 games or 3.4% of the Switch lineup.
*
Sports is first among all platforms in the same genre; ninth in
overall genres among all Nintendo platforms and 27th among all genres
on all platforms.
* Sports becomes the ninth genre to surpass 400
games or more.
* This is more games in SEVEN YEARS than the
Nintendo 64's entire game lineup in North America, period.
* For
reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 383 Sport games (ninth overall on the platform,
13th among all Sony platforms, second on the same genre on all
platforms and 30th on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX One has
286 Sport games (ninth overall on the platform, 12th among all XBOX
platforms, fourth on the same genre on all platforms and tied for
47th on all genres on all platforms).
+ PlayStation 5 has 108
Sports games (ninth overall on the platform, outside top 41 among all
Sony platforms, 14th on the same genre on all platforms and outside
top 100 on all genres on all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 72
Sports games (ninth overall on the platform, outside top 24 among all
XBOX platforms, tied for 18th on the same genre on all platforms and
outside top 100 on all genres on all platforms).
* Storyline: Sports has defied the odds on Nintendo Switch despite being the one genre that has truly struggled to get actual progress and still managed to have more Sports games than PlayStation 4, the second highest total on this overall genre, in spite of a lack of Electronic Arts sports games outside of Soccer. Sports needs 46 games to surpass Gameboy Color's entire North American lineup. Also, take a note below in terms of the Sport genres, in terms of evolution between genres.
- Fighting has 308 games or 2.6% of the Switch lineup.
*
Fighting is first among all platforms in the same genre, 14th in
overall genres among all Nintendo platforms, and 42nd among all
genres on all platforms.
* Switch is the only system with it's
ten genres mininum within the Top 15 for Nintendo platforms and
within the Top 50 for all forty platforms.
* This is more games in
SEVEN YEARS than the entire Nintendo 64 game lineup in North America,
period.
* Fighting also has the largest last place minimum of any
Nintendo platform, a +230 over Wii (which had a tie of Fighting/RPG
at 78 games), and a +63 over PlayStation 4 in terms of all platforms
(also Fighting).
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 245 Fighting games (Second highest ten genre
minimum overall, 23rd among all Sony platforms, second on the same
genre on all platforms and 61st on all genres on all platforms).
+
XBOX One has 177 Fighting games (Third highest ten genre minimum
overall, 20th among all XBOX platforms, third on the same genre on
all platforms and 89th on all genres on all platforms).
+
PlayStation 5 has 43 Fighting games (ninth highest ten genre minimum
overall, outside top 41 among all Sony platforms, tied for 13th on
the same genre on all platforms and outside top 100 on all genres on
all platforms).
+ XBOX Series has 36 Fighting games (tied for
tenth highest ten genre minimum overall, outside top 24 among all
XBOX platforms, 16th on the same genre on all platforms and outside
top 100 on all genres on all platforms).
*
Storyline:
Fighting
has more than proven it's point and it's just increasing it's rank
further. The number of new fighting games is dwindling every year and
it appears that there will be little progress for the Fighting genre
from here on out, although if Fighting gets six more game, this would
surpass GBA Action for 13th place and Switch will have all ten genres
higher than any Nintendo platform pre-Iwata era. The Fighting genre
is basically the slowest in terms of growth between generation,
likely due to the Super Smash Bros effect; and in Nintendo Switch's
case; a lot of Arcade Archives featuring fighting games was a factor
in the final number, same with PlayStation 4.
[f.]
Others And Sports Breakdown:
All
Platforms Other Genres:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/Other%20Genre%20Breakdown.txt
Nintendo
Other Genres:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/NintendoOtherGenre.txt
-
Switch's number one Others genre is Visual Novel at 421 games (about
3.6% of the entire Nintendo Switch lineup).
*
Visual Novels are first on all platforms of the same genre, eighth
overall when Other and Sports are separate on Nintendo platforms and
23rd among all platforms.
* There are more Visual Novels than
there are Fighting games and Sports games.
* Nintendo Switch has
more Visual Novels in SEVEN YEARS than Nintendo 64 has games in North
America life to date, period.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 238 Visual Novels (First on the platform in the
same genre, ninth on the platform if Sports and Other are separate,
18th among all Sony platforms when Sport and Others are separate,
second on all platforms with the same genre, second on all platforms
in the Others genre, 52nd among all platforms among all genres).
+
XBOX One has 115 Visual Novels (First on the platform in the same
genre, fourth on all platforms of the same genre, tenth on all
platforms of the Others genre and outside top 100 among all platforms
and all genres).
+ PlayStation 5 has 118 Visual Novels (First on
the platform in the same genre, third on all platforms of the same
genre, ninth on all platforms of the Others genre and 100th among all
platforms and all genres if Sports and Other are separate).
+ XBOX
Series has 74 Visual Novels (First on the platform in the same genre,
fifth on all platforms of the same genre, outside top ten on all
platforms of the Others genre and outside top 100 among all platforms
and all genres).
*
Storyline:
The Visual Novel genre will be among the genres of games on Nintendo
Switch that people will remember, along with the rogue-lite games,
the twin-stick shooter genre and puzzle platformer, among others.
Visual Novels needs 28 games to surpass Gameboy Color's entire lineup
in North America. Visual Novels are an interesting case of the
Nintendo Switch being big enough to put in your hands and read it
like a digital book. This kind of portability was a factor in
PlayStation Vita having a decent amount of Visual Novels in it's own
right; but Sony dropped Vita and while PlayStation 4 and other
consoles have their fair share of Visual Novel, they don't have the
book reading factor Nintendo Switch has. Also in play is Nintendo
allowing content that Sony and Microsoft have cold feet for, for
whatever reason.
-
Switch's number two Others genre is Party at 216 games.
*
Party is first on all platforms of the same genre; second place
behind Visual Novel for Nintendo Switch on all Nintendo platforms
when it comes to the Other genre, and third on all platforms when it
comes to the Other genre.
* This also makes Switch the first
platform in Nintendo history to have over 200 games in at least two
Others genres.
* If you remove "Others" and "Sports"
from the rankings, Party would be 24th on all Nintendo platforms,
meaning ten genres would be in the Top 30 for the Switch regardless.
* On all platforms with Sports and Others separate, it would be
in 59th place, meaning ten genres would be in the Top 100 on all
platforms regardless.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 82 Party games (Third on the platform when it comes
to Others, second among all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
One has 57 Party games (Fourth on the platform when it comes to
Others, fourth among all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has 25 Party games (Fifth on the platform when it comes
to Others, eight among all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
Series has 22 Party games (Third on the platform when it comes to
Others, ninth among all platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Party games are another genre that have benefited from the Switch
effect and are more akin to the Wii/DS era than Visual Novels now.
Look for the ranks to be increased further. Party games are a real
Nintendo thing due to Nintendo loving local multiplayer, building the
Nintendo Switch to be able to do multiplayer in both local and global
(much bigger local than global though). It also help that a lot of
Party games are for most general audiences.
- Switch's number three Others genre Edutainment has 171 games.
*
It is first in the same genre on all platforms, third place in the
"Others" genre on all Nintendo platforms.
* If you
remove "Others" and "Sports" genres, the ranking
is now at 29th place and on all platforms it would be 75th place.
*
For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 48 Edutainment games (Sixth on the platform when it
comes to Others, fourth among all platforms of the same genre).
+
XBOX One has 7 Edutainment games (11th on the platform when it comes
to Others, 14th among all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has 13 Edutainment games (Eighth on the platform when
it comes to Others, tied for seventh among all platforms of the same
genre).
+ XBOX Series has 2 Edutainment games (Tenth on the
platform when it comes to Others, tied for 20th among all platforms
of the same genre).
* Storyline: The reason a lot of Edutainment games get released factor in two things: (a.) Nintendo's kiddie image since most are designed for the 0-12 year set, (b.) Nintendo Switch's touch screen and that a lot of these games are taken from mobile. Look for Nintendo Switch to continue increasing in this department as they are three games away from Shooter on the Wii for 28th place when Sports and Others are separate.
- Switch's number four Others genre is Card Game at 168 Games.
*
It is first on all platforms of the same genre and fourth overall in
the "Others" genre on all Nintendo platforms.
* If you
remove "Others" and "Sports" genres, the ranking
is at 30th on all Nintendo platforms, and 77th place on all
platforms.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 65 Card games (Fifth on the platform when it comes
to Others, third among all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
One has 67 Card games (Second on the platform when it comes to
Others, second among all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has 39 Card games (Third on the platform when it comes
to Others, fifth among all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
Series has 26 Card games (Second on the platform when it comes to
Others, tied for seventh among all platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Increasing
their ranking further, that is all. Now six games away from Shooter
for Wii when Sports and Others are separate. The Card genre exploded
on Nintendo Switch mostly due to a lot of titles being rogue-lite
deckbuilders RPG's; which takes elements similar to trading card
games like Pokemon Trading Cards and Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Nintendo's love for multiplayer (especially local) is also a
factor.
-
Switch's number five Others genre is Board Game at 158 games.
*
Board Games are first on all platforms of the same genre; fifth
overall in the "Others" genre on all Nintendo platforms.
*
If you remove "Others" and Sports" genres, the rank is
31st place on all Nintendo platforms, and tied for 80th place on all
platforms.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 43 Board games (Seventh on the platform when it
comes to Others, second among all platforms of the same genre).
+
XBOX One has 40 Board games (Sixth on the platform when it comes to
Others, third among all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has 15 Board games (Seventh on the platform when it
comes to Others, eighth among all platforms of the same genre).
+
XBOX Series has 7 Board games (Seventh on the platform when it comes
to Others, tied for 12th among all platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
While
a long shot, making a run to be the 13th genre to reach the Top 30
sans Sports and Other genres seems to be something to shoot for. The
board game genre is no longer limited to popular board games like
"Monopoly", Snakes & Ladders among others. Again, many
of the board games are popular with the general audience sets like
the Party genre I mentioned earlier, and Nintendo's love for
multiplayer (especially local) is a factor.
-
Switch's number six Others genre is Music Game at 125 games.
*
Music Games are first on all platforms of the same genre; sixth
overall on all Nintendo platforms.
* If you remove "Others"
and "Sports" genres, the ranking is 34th place on all
Nintendo platforms, and 93rd place on all platforms.
* Switch now
has six of the top ten "Others" genre on all platforms.
*
Also all six "Others" genres in the overall Top 50 among
all Nintendo platforms and overall Top 100 among all platforms when
Others and Sports are separate.
* PlayStation 4 is the only other
system with at least two "Others" genres in the top ten
among all platforms. (PlayStation 5 and XBOX One each have one.)
*
For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 120 Music games (Second on the platform when it
comes to Others, eighth overall when it comes to Others on all
platforms, second among all platforms of the same genre and tied for
95th place among all genres on all platforms when Sports and Others
are separate.)
+ XBOX One has 59 Music games (Third on the
platform when it comes to Others, eighth among all platforms of the
same genre).
+ PlayStation 5 has 48 Music games (Second on the
platform when it comes to Others, ninth among all platforms of the
same genre).
+ XBOX Series has 18 Music games (Fourth on the
platform when it comes to Others, 11th among all platforms of the
same genre).
*
Storyline:
Music
needs four games to make it to 33rd place when Sports and Others are
separate among all Nintendo platforms. This is one of the few Others
genres where PlayStation 4 is competitive. Motion controls on the
Nintendo Switch are a factor in the amount of games from this genre.
I should note that a lot of games have a music element; but are not
counted due to the fact that Music is not the majority genre.
Other
Notables:
- Arcade Compilation has 52 compilations. That is first in the same genre on all platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 29 compilations (tied for second overall), XBOX One has 26 compilations (tied for fourth overall), PlayStation 5 has nine compilations (tied for 11th overall) and XBOX Series has seven compilations (tied for 13th overall).
- Art Program is at 46 titles. That is first among all platforms in the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has ten titles (second overall), PlayStation 5 has one title (tied for 14th overall), and XBOX One/XBOX Series have zero titles (tied for 19th overall).
- TV Quiz Show has 42 games. That is first in the same genre on all Nintendo platforms, and second in the same genre among all platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 68 games (first overall), XBOX One has 37 games (third overall), PlayStation 5 has 27 games (fifth overall) and XBOX Series has eight games (12th overall).
- Applications has 36 titles. That is first in the same genre among all Nintendo platforms, and second in the same genre among all platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has eight titles (seventh overall), XBOX One has 51 titles (first overall), PlayStation 5 has one title (tied for 14th overall) and XBOX Series has zero titles (tied for 19th overall). (Caveat: XBOX One applications do work with XBOX Series.)
- Mahjong is at 36 games. That is first among all Nintendo platforms in the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 18 games (second overall), XBOX One has two games (tied for ninth overall), PlayStation 5 has 12 games (third overall) and XBOX Series has one game (tied for 11th overall).
- Pinball is at 35 games. That is first among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre, and second in the same genre among all platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 38 games (first overall), XBOX One has 27 games (third overall), PlayStation 5 has 16 games (fourth overall) and XBOX Series has 15 games (fifth overall).
- Gambling game is at 29 games. That is first among all platforms in the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 12 games (second overall), XBOX One has four games (tied for seventh overall), PlayStation 5 has three games (tied for ninth) and XBOX Series has zero games (tied for 28th overall).
- Pool is at 24 games. That is first among all platforms in the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 16 games (second overall), XBOX One has 12 games (third overall), PlayStation 5 has ten games (fourth overall) and XBOX Series has four games (tied for 11th overall).
- Parlor games are at 20 games. That is first among all platforms in the same genre.
For reference: PlayStation 4 has six games (sixth overall), XBOX One has three games (tied for seventh), PlayStation 5 has one game (tied for 13th overall), and XBOX Series has zero games (tied for 19th overall).
- Fitness is at 19 games. That is second among all Nintendo platforms in the same genre only to Wii's 28 games, and tied for second (with XBOX 360) in the same genre among all platforms.
*
For reference: PlayStation 4 has four games (eighth overall), XBOX
One has 5 games (seventh overall), PlayStation 5 has two games (tied
for ninth overall), and XBOX Series has zero games (tied for 15th
overall.)
*
Storyline:
+
Don't expect Fitness to surpass Wii in anyway. It might take second
place outright againest XBOX 360, though. It'll be one of the few
personal bests to never be broken outside of various Sports genres.
+ I don't expect Nintendo Switch to have more TV Quiz Shows than
PlayStation 4 due to most of those games are published by Webnetics,
who just got into Nintendo Switch development recently and probably
doesn't have a port house to bring those games to Nintendo Switch
right away.
+ Ditto for Applications, although 90% of those XBOX
One Applications were released at launch and if you combined it with
Art Programs, Nintendo Switch would technically have more apps than
XBOX One and probably be a Top 60 rank on all Nintendo platforms when
Others/Sports are seperate.
+ Speaking of Art Programs, touch
screen and portable make the big difference here.
+ Parlor games
can be traced back to Nintendo Switch having motion controls (Wii is
second with 18 games on all platforms of the same genre).
+
Mahjong games seems to have a smaller, but similar trace back to
Simulations, as Japan at the time was making more of them during the
DS/Wii era. Microsoft was one of the pioneers of changing the dymanic
of video game system releases as before this, the Japanese market
would release the most games in Japan, while outside of Japan got
fewer games. Nowadays; North America gets the most games, Europe is
slightly smaller, and Japan got the fewest games released (Nintendo
Switch in Japan has roughly 8800 games or so as of this writing.)
+
The better the digital pinball become closer to the analog pinball
machines, the more games we see in this genre.
+ Nintendo Switch
also has three Shogi games.
All
Platforms Sport Genres:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/Sports%20Genre%20Breakdown.txt
Nintendo
Sports Genres:
http://cloudkicker.50webs.com/NintendoSportsGenre.txt
-
Sports number one genre on Switch is Soccer (World's Football) is 84
games.
*
Obviously it's first on all platforms of the same genre and is first
overall in Sports on all platforms.
* If you separate Others and
Sports, Soccer is now 48th place among all Nintendo platforms.
*
For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 64 Soccer games (First on the platform when it
comes to Sports, second on all platforms when it comes to Sports and
second on all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX One has 57
Soccer games (First on the platform when it comes to Sports, fourth
on all platforms when it comes to Sports and third on all platforms
of the same genre).
+ PlayStation 5 has 17 Soccer games (First on
the platform when it comes to Sports, tied for 12th on all platforms
of the same genre).
+ XBOX Series has 15 Soccer games (First on
the platform when it comes to Sports, 15th on all platforms of the
same genre).
*
Storyline:
Soccer will continue to grow despite the market having lots of
choices involved. It should be no surprise as to why Soccer gets a
lot of games: It is the most popular sport in the world, and is one
of the least violent sports around while at the same time somewhat
more exciting. Before the DS/Wii era; only the NEO-GEO systems (both
Arcade, Pocket and CD), Atari Lynx and the original Gameboy had
Soccer as the number one ranked game on all platforms concerning
Sports. Since then, only Wii, WiiU and 3DS were not ranked number one
in Sports (WiiU's Soccer wasn't even ranked in the Top 5), all three
of those platforms got Olympics type games. While the number of
Sports games overall has increased, the type of Sports has shifted
dramatically.
-
Sports number two genre on Switch is Golf at 52 games.
*
Golf is first among all platforms of the same genre, second overall
in Sports among all Nintendo platforms and fifth among all platforms
in the Sports genre.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 31 Golf games (Fourth on the platform when it comes
to Sports, second on all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX One
has 20 Golf games (Tied for fourth on the platform when it comes to
Sports, third on all platforms of the same genre).
+ PlayStation 5
has ten Golf games (Third on the platform when it comes to Sports,
tied for 13th on all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX Series
has five Golf games (Tied for fourth on the platform when it comes to
Sports, tied for 22nd on all platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Expect a slow increase of numbers and nothing else. Golf is another
Sports genre that has actually localized to Nintendo platforms more
than Sony and Microsoft platforms. Nintendo Switch joins PlayStation
2 as the only systems to have two Sports genres with fifty games or
more.
- Sports number three genre on Switch is Olympics with 37 games.
*
Olympics is first among all platforms in the same genre, is third
overall in Sports among all Nintendo platforms and outside the top
ten among all platforms in the Sports genre.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 17 Olympics games (Eighth on the platform when it
comes to Sports, third on all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
One has 14 Olympics games (Seventh on the platform when it comes to
Sports, tied for fourth on all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has nine Olympics games (Fourth on the platform when it
comes to Sports, Tenth on all platforms of the same genre).
+ XBOX
Series has five Olympics games (Tied for fourth on the platform when
it comes to Sports, tied for 15th on all platforms of the same
genre).
*
Storyline:
Olympic
genres/Sport Compilations have pretty much stalled for the most part
and I don't see much movement this year at this point. Also, two
games away from surpassing Olympics for Wii. Olympics are defined as
Multi-Sports compilations. Olympics have also benefitted more from
the Wii effect due to motion controls and multiplayer love.
-
Sports number four genre on Switch is Tennis with 31 games.
*
Tennis is first among all platforms of the same genre; and is fifth
place overall in Sports among all Nintendo platforms.
* For
reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 15 Tennis games (Tied for ninth on the platform
when it comes to Sports, second on all platforms of the same
genre).
+ XBOX One has ten Tennis games (Tied for ninth on the
platform when it comes to Sports, tied for fourth on all platforms of
the same genre).
+ PlayStation 5 has six Tennis games (Tied for
sixth on the platform when it comes to Sports, 12th on all platforms
of the same genre).
+ XBOX Series has two Tennis games (Tied for
11th on the platform when it comes to Sports, tied for 23rd on all
platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Tennis
is two games away from surpassing Olympics for Wii. Tennis has become
more of a Nintendo thing for the same reason as the Golf genre:
Motion controls from the Wii/3D era.
-
Sports number five genre on Switch is Baseball with 23 games.
*
Baseball is currently tied for first place among Nintendo platforms
(with Wii) in the same genre, seventh place overall in Sports among
all Nintendo platforms and tied for sixth place among all platforms
in the same genre.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 32 Baseball games (Tied for second on the platform
when it comes to Sports, third on all platforms of the same genre).
+
XBOX One has 20 Baseball games (Tied for fourth on the platform when
it comes to Sports, tied for eighth on all platforms of the same
genre).
+ PlayStation 5 has seven Baseball games (Fifth on the
platform when it comes to Sports, tied for 20th on all platforms of
the same genre).
+ XBOX Series has six Baseball games (Third on
the platform when it comes to Sports, tied for 22nd on all platforms
of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Baseball should be first place outright on Nintendo Switch among all
Nintendo platforms once MLB The Show 24 comes out, but future
movement seems to have stalled for the moment. While Nintendo Switch
baseball has gotten a personal best in this genre, it's no match for
the Sony PlayStation where the top four sports were usually:
Basketball, American Football, Baseball and Ice Hockey (with the
fifth fiddle sometimes being Soccer). The PlayStation was a success
in the early days due to the fact that technology was starting to
make Sports games 3D instead of 2D, where you can make the games more
realistic. During the PlayStation 1 and 2 days, Sports being the
number one genre was a must, even Nintendo 64 and Gamecube had this
same ranking. Baseball was playing third fiddle among the ranks of
PlayStation at those times and PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 also
had at least 27 games. Sega Genesis is the only 2D system higher than
Nintendo Switch at 25 games.
- Sports number six genre on Switch is Basketball has 22 games.
*
It's first among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre, ninth
place overall in Sports among all Nintendo platforms and tied for
eighth among all platforms in the same genre.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 26 Basketball games (Fifth on the platform when it
comes to Sports and seventh on all platfroms of the same genre).
+
XBOX One has 22 Basketball games (Third on the platform when it comes
to Sports and tied for eighth on all platforms in the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has five Basketball games (Tied for eight on the
platform when it comes to Sports and 21st on all platforms in the
same genre).
+ XBOX Series has four Basketball games (Tied for
sixth on the platform when it comes to Sports and tied for 22nd on
all platforms in the same genre).
* Storyline: As I mentioned in the Baseball stats, Basketball's legacy is among the four American Sports. However, Basketball was playing first fiddle on PlayStation systems. In fact, PlayStation 2 had 58 Basketball games and is the other system to have two games of 50 games or more in the Sports Genre (American Football has 51 games on PlayStation 2) before the change over to Soccer (which it started playing second fiddle). Sega Genesis has 28 Basketball games.
- Sports number seven genre on Switch is Fishing has 21 games.
*
It's first among all platforms of the same genre, and tenth place
overall in Sports among all Nintendo platforms.
* On all Nintendo
platforms, Nintendo Switch now has seven of the top ten Sports
genres.
* For reference:
+
PlayStation 4 has 18 Fishing games (Seventh on the platform when it
comes to Sports and second on all platforms of the same genre).
+
XBOX One has 13 Fishing games (Eighth on the platform when it comes
to Sports and fifth on all platforms of the same genre).
+
PlayStation 5 has two Fishing games (Tied for 14th on the platform
when it comes to Sports and tied for 19th on all platforms of the
same genre).
+ XBOX Series has four Fishing games (Tied for sixth
on the platform when it comes to Sports and tied for 13th on all
platforms of the same genre).
*
Storyline:
Fishing
has only two other systems that have Fishing in the Top 5: Gameboy
Color, and Sega Dreamcast.
Other
Notables:
-
Bowling has 18 games on Switch.
Bowling
is first among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre, and second
among all platforms of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 19 Bowling games (first overall), XBOX One has eight Bowling games (third overall), PlayStation 5 has one Bowling game (tied for 17th overall) and XBOX Series has zero Bowling games (tied for 27th overall).
- Boxing has 17 games on Switch. That is first among all platforms of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 12 Boxing games (tied for third overall), XBOX One has six Boxing games (tied for ninth overall), PlayStation 5 has four Boxing games (tied for 15th overall) and XBOX Series has two Boxing games (tied for 23rd overall).
- Extreme Sports has 15 games on Switch. That is first among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre, and second among all platforms (only to PlayStation 1 at 16 games) of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 14 Extreme Sports games (third overall), XBOX One has eight Extreme Sports games (seventh overall), PlayStation 5 has three Extreme Sports games (Tied for 14th overall) and XBOX Series has one Extreme Sports game (tied for 22nd overall).
- Dodgeball has 13 games on Switch. That is first among all platforms of the same genre.
For reference: PlayStation 4 has 11 Dodgeball games (second overall), XBOX One has eight Dodgeball games (fourth overall), PlayStation 5 has two Dodgeball games (tied for sixth overall) and XBOX Series has three Dodgeball games (tied for fourth overall).
- Skiing/Snowboarding has 12 games. That is first among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre and third among all platforms of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 14 Skiing/Snowboarding games (second overall only to PlayStation 2 with 15 games), XBOX One has seven Skiing/Snowboarding games (tied for seventh overall), PlayStation 5 has five Skiing/Snowboarding games (tied for 13th overall) and XBOX Series has two Skiing/Snowboarding games (18th overall).
- Volleyball has 11 games. That is first among all platforms of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 and XBOX One has six Volleyball games (tied for second overall), PlayStation 5 has two Volleyball games (tied for seventh overall) and XBOX Series has one Volleyball game (tied for 10th overall).
- American Football has 11 games. That is sixth among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre, and tied for 15th among all platforms of the same genre.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 32 American Football games (Fifth overall), XBOX One has 27 American Football games (Tied for seventh overall), PlayStation 5 has 11 Amercian Football games (Tied for 15th overall), and XBOX Series has seven American Football games (Tied for 20th overall).
- Skateboarding has nine games. That is second among all Nintendo platforms of the same genre only to Gameboy Advance with 13 games, and tied for fifth among all platforms.
* For reference: PlayStation 4 has 13 Skateboarding games (Tied for second overall only to PlayStation 2 with 14 games), XBOX One has nine Skateboarding games (Tied for fifth overall), PlayStation 5 has six Skateboarding games (Tied for 11th overall), and XBOX Series has four Skateboarding games (Tied for 14th overall).
* Storyline:
+
Don't expect much movement on the Ice Hockey (Five games.Tied for
fifth among Nintendo platforms of the same genre and tied for 13th
among all platforms of the same genre) side; because of Electronic
Arts continuing to have cold feet on Sports games on Nintendo Switch
in general. Ice Hockey is often playing fifth fiddle on Sports genres
on PlayStation platform before the change over.
+ American
Football is a slight improvement on Nintendo Switch given that most
Nintendo platforms since 3DS and WiiU barely had any American
Football games, but the difference in the shift from American style
games to more global accepted games like Soccer, Tennis, Golf,
Olympics and even Baseball to a lesser extent is very clear in the
stats.
+ While not mentioned in the stat rankings, the shift also
allowed for more diverse sport sets not usually seen in previous
generations, due to a global attitude in the marketplace: Sports like
Cricket (four games), Ping Pong (four games), Curling (two games),
Rugby (two games), Aussie Rules Football, Badminton, Cornhole
Tossing, Handball, Kickball, Lumberjack Chopping, Pickleball, Sumo
Wrestling, and Water Skiing/Surfing (one game apiece). PlayStation 4
and XBOX One also has Lacrosse.